A HARD-BITTEN FARMER 



A harcUbitten Farmer 



Barehills Farm is for sale, and people say that 

 ten pounds an acre is the price at which it can be 

 had. Thirty years ago it would have been looked 

 on as a gift at twice this figure. I have known the 

 farm all my life, and used to shoot over it with a 

 former tenant, a man reckoned about the best farmer 

 in the neighbourhood. It was said he had made 

 some thousands out of the land in the sixties and 

 seventies ; that later, when farmers were broken in 

 all parts of the country through the drop in the 

 price of wheat, he still made and saved money. 

 Not till he died was the truth known. Besides his 

 sheep, hay, unthreshed stack or two of corn, and a 

 bit of furniture, he was not worth ten pounds. He 

 had no family, and his manner of life was very 

 frugal ; and yet for years past he had just won, 

 and no more, a living out of the land. His case 

 illustrates the hardness and insecurity of the life of 

 a good working farmer in sheep and corn on light 

 land. A man must " set his face as a flint " if he 

 has nothing to keep him but a farm of two or three 

 hundred acres like Barehills. He need be farm 

 labourer besides farmer. 



My old friend at Barehills allowed himself two 

 sports a little shooting, and cribbage of a long 

 winter evening, after supper of cheese and pickles. 

 The shooting was more than sport it would bring 

 something to the larder. But this was a minor 



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