xii A FARMER'S YEAR 



In short, British agriculture on its appropriate journey to 

 Jericho resembles that Biblical traveller who fell among acquisitive 

 and self-seeking characters. At least the parallel holds to a certain 

 extent. The Pharisee, the Scribe, the Priest and the Levite 

 townsfolk all of them pass by with a jest and a curse sometimes 

 they add a kick but the good Samaritan has yet to appear. When 

 he comes, if ever, and proves successful in his work of healing ; 

 when he has emptied the anaemic, enervated cities back on to the 

 land and caused the vanished yeoman class to re-arise, he will 

 be the greatest man of his age, and as a reward will earn the 

 gratitude of healthy country-nursed posterities, who, without him, 

 would not have been. 



Where is he this son of consolation ? 



But with reference to the above opinions and sundry others 

 expressed from time to time throughout this book, some of them 

 unconventional perhaps, its student is asked to remember, in 

 conclusion, that they are only the unimportant though sincerely 

 held views of a private observer of events ; intended, it is true, to 

 con vert as many as possible to their author's way of thinking, but, 

 should they fail in this, at least to give offence to no one ; to be 

 taken, indeed, at such value as the reader pleases, much, or little, 

 or none at all. 



DlTCHINGIIAM t 1899. 



