V.] KEEPING COWS. 77 



would have more than enough dung to exchange 

 against ttfls straw. 



1 33. Now, as to the quantity of labour that the 

 cultivation of the land will demand in a year. We 

 will suppose the whole to have Jive complete dig- 

 gings, and say nothing about the little matters of 

 sowing and planting and hoeing and harvesting, all 

 which are a mere trifle. We are supposing the owner 

 to be an able labouring man ; and such a man will 

 dig 12 rods of ground in a day. Here are 200 rods 

 to be digged, and here are little less than 17 days of 

 work at 12 hours in the day ; or 200 hours* work, to 

 be done in the course of the long days of spring and 

 summer, while it is li^ht long before six in the morn- 

 ing, and long after six at night. What is it, then ? 

 Is it not better than time spent in the ale-house, or 

 in creeping about after a miserable hare ? Frequently, 

 and most frequently, there will be a boy, if not two, 

 big enough to help. And (I only give this as a hint) 

 I saw, on the 7th of November last (1822,) a very 

 pretty woman, in the village of Hannington, in Wilt- 

 shire, digging a piece of ground and planting it with 

 Early Cabbages, which she did as handily and as 

 neatly as any gardener that ever I saw. The ground 

 was wet, and therefore, to avoid treading the digged 

 ground in that state, she had her line extended, and 

 put in the rows as she advanced in her digging, stand- 

 ing in the trench while she performed the act of 

 planting, which she did with great nimbleness and 

 precision. Nothing could be more skilfully or beau- 

 tifully done. Her clothes were neat, clean, and tight 

 about her. She had turned her handkerchief down 

 from her neck, which, with the glow that the work 

 had brought into her cheeks, formed an object which 

 I do not say would have made me actually stop my 

 chaise, had it not been for the occupation in which 

 she was engaged ; but, all taken together, the temp- 

 tation was too strong to be resisted. But there is the 

 Sunday ; and I know of no law, human or divine, 

 that forbids a labouring man to dig or plant his gar- 

 den on Sunday, if the good of his family demand it ; 

 7* 



