OCTOBER 367 



Until all the corns have been thrashed and sold, however, it is 

 difficult to estimate the exact results. 



October n. A friend whom I met out shooting last Saturday 

 told me that, since the beginning of this month, a hen pheasant 

 has been found in the vicarage garden of his parish sitting upon 

 six eggs. This seems a curious mistake for a bird to make, but 

 I suppose that it is due to the extraordinary warmth of the season. 



A big D for drought might be written across my diary. I 

 can scarcely bear to go to look at the root-fields, it is so pitiful to 

 see the bulbs shrivelling up to nothing and the sere leaves falling 

 from them to the ground. A writer in the local paper estimates 

 that owing to the scarcity of feed in Norfolk alone 20,000 fewer 

 cattle will be fatted this year than last. Also all store animals 

 are falling rapidly in price, and those who held their lambs begin 

 to suffer from regrets. 



We still plough, or try to, but the operation affords a curious 

 side. The horses pant and sweat, the man struggles over the 

 rough clods, and as the implement bumps and jumps through the 

 iron soil a cloud of fine dust rises from its share. 



To-day I was talking to one of my men as he dressed the 

 barley in Baker's barn, and he tells me that for twenty years of 

 his life he was a farmer and his own master. When he began 

 farming with some capital that he had saved and, I think, 

 inherited, he says that he paid 4/. the acre for his land. Even 

 at this rent he did so well that he was able to put by enough to 

 enable him to hire a larger farm. On this second farm he was 

 still successful, and in course of time he took a third and yet 

 larger farm at a low rent, but with the land in bad order. Then 

 came the disastrous seasons and the floods, and, to make matters 

 worse, he had a run of dreadful luck with his cattle. In short, 

 everything went against him, and after twenty years of work all 

 his savings and capital were lost and he was forced to return to 

 the land again as a labourer. 



There is nothing sensational about it, but this story strikes me 



