412 A FARMER'S YEAR 



there were twenty-one days when the night readings were less. 

 Wonderful are the ways of the British climate ! 



To-day the rain is falling in a steady sheet, which is unlucky, 

 as Royal Duke and two other of my fat animals have gone to the 

 Harleston auction, and beasts never look or handle so well if they 

 are draggled with wet. My consolation is that all the other 

 creatures on show will suffer from the same cause. Now is the 

 time that we find the advantage of roofed-in yards. It is a 

 pleasure to see the stock standing warm and dry beneath them, 

 and the litter unwaslied by a drop of water. 



In such weather work is slack upon the farm, but one man is 

 employed in white-washing the cow-sheds, another in cleaning 

 harness, and so forth. To-day, for the first time since early spring, 

 the ditch leading into the garden pond is running with water. 



December 8. — The weather is now fine again, so that we are 

 able to resume our ploughing. For the last three days I have 

 been plunged in a controversy on that thorniest of all subjects- 

 Free Trade. It began by my yielding to one of the most unwise 

 of human impulses, and correcting a statement about myself in 

 a newspaper. Last Saturday, at the meeting of the Norfolk 

 Chamber of Agriculture, of which I have spoken, in the course of 

 my few remarks — according to the reporters — I said that agri- 

 culturists should urge upon Governments, or those responsible, the 

 necessity of doing something to help the general state of agriculture, 

 for in helping agriculture they would also help the general state 

 of the labourer. Thereupon a leading local paper of advanced views 

 devoted an article to me, in which it was stated that ' by doing 

 something ' I meant the introduction of protective measures. In 

 actual fact I meant nothing of the sort. Protection was not in 

 my mind ; indeed, at the moment, speaking in a very cold room in 

 a hurry and entirely without premeditation to a meeting that was 

 eager to escape to lunch, I had not even formulated to myself 

 what this 'something' ought to be, although generally I was 

 alluding to the equalisation of rates on real and personal property 



