440 A FARMER'S YEAR 



to hear some carols sung in the neighbouring church of Broome. 

 Afterwards a friend of mine, who lives there, gave me some curious 

 facts illustrative of the decrease of population in that parish. It is 

 his habit to make a present of meat at Christinas to every cottage 

 inhabitant of Broome, and he informed me that the difference in 

 its cost owing to the shrinkage of population between this year and 

 last is something really remarkable. 



I wonder what must be the result of this exodus if it continues ? 

 Will the most of the land have to be put down in temporary 

 pasture and cultivated more roughly ? When travelling in the 

 United States of America I have seen a mule and a cow harnessed 

 to a plough, which was being directed by a woman across a great 

 expanse of plain studded with tree stumps, and roughly fenced with 

 their tops dragged into a kind of zeriba. Is that a possible future 

 to which our agriculture may look forward ? And if most of the land 

 is to go down to grass, will grass continue to pay ? Heretofore 

 the graziers liave had the best of it, but is not their bad time 

 coming ? I have a friend connected with Argentina who tells me 

 that a frozen meat company in which he is a shareholder is able to 

 sell excellent chilled mutton at twopence-halfpenny the pound. 



How are British graziers to compete against mutton at two- 

 pence-halfpenny a pound ? Moreover, as appliances improve and 

 rates of carriage lessen, will it not come in at a still lower price from 

 a country of endless and fertile pastures, where they pay their labour 

 in paper and depreciated silver, which must be taken at face value, 

 and are paid for their produce in good British gold ? The prospect 

 is so melancholy that I do not care to study it further. Perhaps 

 the \vorld may fill up, or perhaps drought and locusts will take 



a hand in the game. We must put faith in our old friend the 



Unexpected, for we have no other. 1 



December 26. The ordeal is over, my balance sheets are made 

 out and here they be : 



1 See Appendix II. 



