378 A FARMER'S YEAR 



November i. To-day we have been thrashing the barley off 

 No. 36, which gives a return of about seven coombs the acre. 

 To-day also Hood and one of the men have had a difference of 

 opinion, with the result that the said man has given notice to leave 

 (I am glad to say that he thought better of it later on). The cause 

 of war was an order issued by Hood to pile some straw from the 

 thrashing against a garden wall over which this man was in the 

 habit of climbing when going to attend to the cattle, with the 

 result that his nightly walk is prolonged by some few yards. The 

 grievance seems absolutely trivial, yet it was urged upon me with 

 an energy which may be called fierce. After all, bad quarrels 

 more frequently arise from small than from big questions ; thus, 

 matters quite as absurd as this debated straw, as students of the 

 Northern Sagas will remember, often gave rise to feuds which lasted 

 for generations and cost whole families their lives. Of course, in 

 the present instance discipline had to be maintained, for without 

 it neither farming nor any other human enterprise could be carried 

 on ; but it is hard for an old man to be forced to bow the head 

 to his junior, especially when he has been ' his own master.' I 

 confess that I felt sorry for him. 



This afternoon I went to Bedingham, and found Moore 

 making an end of harrowing in the wheat which has been drilled 

 on No. 13, while the men cleaned out the water furrows. On 

 No. 14 the wheat is already beginning to show in long lines of 

 delicate green ; the sprouting beans also are dotting the surface of 

 the soil of No. 5. So the eternal round of Nature has begun 



