Then and Now 21 



that has not been discharged in coin of the realm, 

 at something more than the local rates, and still 

 it is " to oblige me " every time. 



The total area now tilled is no more than it was 

 when I came, but the produce is at least three 

 times as much. An increase in the food value per 

 unit is equally certain, if less easily put into 

 accurate terms, but a fair idea may be inferred 

 from comparing the standard analysis of bad 

 cereals and good legumes. In such a comparison, 

 however, the whole advantage or gain is not in 

 the food values, because the acre after legumes, as 

 compared with the acre after grain, must have its 

 reserve fertility increased by the value of at least 

 i. The nitrogen fixed in the soil from the air 

 by a crop of vetches cannot be worth less than 109. 

 per acre at present prices, and a value not less than 

 this in nitrogenous fertility must be taken out by 

 the grain crop. Assuming the cereal to equal the 

 vetch in feeding value per acre, which it does not, 

 the .1 per acre in plus fertility has still to be 

 considered, and then there is the farther gain of a 

 second crop in the same year from the soil pro- 

 ducing the vetches. I am putting these plus 

 values of the legume at the lowest point rather 

 than at the average, and at every point the esti- 

 mates of science are checked by the practical 

 results of experience, since I am not in a position 

 to be scientific at the expense of the taxpayer. 



Before me, there were two men and two women. 

 The work now is the equivalent of one man's at 

 most. The product of the one man's work is 

 three times as much as the product of the two 



