438 A FARMER'S YEAR 



otherwise might have remained untenanted. A careful estimate 

 of the amount disbursed showed that the people living in that 

 village benefited to the extent of 600/. a year by the re-opening of 

 this shooting upon a suitable scale; that is to say, there were 

 600/. to spend in the place annually which before it had to do 

 without. 



Another of the good sides of shooting is its companionable 

 opportunities. Many men come to know each other at shooting 

 parties who, although near neighbours, otherwise would remain 

 strangers all their lives. Also as a by-product it provides an 

 enormous supply of cheap food for the dwellers in towns. These, 

 together with the healthiness of the recreation, are some of the 

 advantages of the sport; indeed, to my mind its only disadvantage 

 is that it involves the necessity of putting a large number of 

 creatures to a death which is sometimes lingering. Personally I 

 salve my conscience — or try to— with the thought that were they 

 not destined to be shot, they would never live at all, and that 

 until they are shot their fortunes are excellent. Do away with 

 shooting and in twenty years scarcely a game-bird would exist in 

 England, except such of them as stress of weather or the instinct 

 of migration might drive upon our shores. 



The shortest day has passed. Nature, her despair outworn, 

 turns her face again towards light and life. Little wonder that our 

 Norse ancestors made a great Yule feast to celebrate the birth of 

 the new season — the season of the lengthening days and kindling 

 sun. 



Christmas Day. — Upon the 22nd fell the first frost of the 

 year, which rendered the land so hard that on the following day 

 the ploughs could only just manage to get through with the work 

 of breaking up the stubble land, as ploughing for crop was out of 

 the question. We have made up our minds the next time we 

 thrash at Baker's to keep the engine half a d:iy or so longer in 

 order to steam-cut as much chafi'as we can stow away. This will 

 save us a great deal of time and labour which is otherwise lost. 



