212 A FARMER'S YEAR 



posed by the chemists who have analysed them to be the residue 

 of the whey that the women threw upon the flames. Breaking 

 through the floor, and but a little below it, although it was 

 midsummer, we found the ground still hard with frost, which, 

 perchance, was last thawed upon the day of the great burning. 

 Yet the giass grows and the flowers spring in Iceland ! 



The wheats are looking strong, and keep their colour, but 

 the barleys, for the most part, have an unwholesome yellow tinge, 

 especially upon heavy lands. Indeed, everything is very back- 

 ward, for even now the ash trees are not fully out, and the haw- 

 thorns are but breaking into bloom. The beet plant has suffered 

 much from the sunless cold, and is still very small. Weeds, how- 

 ever, flourish like the wicked, particularly on Baker's land, where 

 the men are engaged in hoeing in a perfect sea of them. This 

 wet weather is most unfavourable for the work, for weeds are 

 gifted with a wonderful vitality, and when the soil is damp, to cut 

 them out is frequently but to transplant them from the ridges to 

 the furrows. Still, it must be done, or they would smother the poor 

 little beet ; and afterwards, when they are rooting in the furrows 

 and congratulating themselves upon having survived the violence 

 of man, the horse-hoe will come along and put them to sleep. 



On the Thwaite field, No. 28, the swedes are beginning to prick 

 through on the ridges delicate little two-leaved seedlings, with 

 the ' fly ' and all their other troubles before them. To-day the 

 sheep were to have been clipped, but the shearers did not put in 

 an appearance, which, considering the state of the weather, is 

 perhaps fortunate. 



It is curious to walk from the uplands down the Vineyard Hills 

 and to note the difference in the state of vegetation beneath their 

 shelter. There the trees are in full leaf and looking lovely, the 

 chestnuts being covered with their stately spires of bloom, and the 

 scented hawthorns almost hidden in white flower. The garden of 

 the Lodge also is much more forward than that of this house, and 

 one can linger there without shivering. 



This afternoon I went to Bedingham, and was caught in a 



