46 My Little Farm 



tendency to fits and starts came back upon me, 

 and it might have resulted awkwardly but for the 

 heather plot, so potential in money. To-day, I 

 got a bill, which must be paid next month ; 

 to-night I caught an unsuspecting editor in the 

 heath, and he delivered up the required cash, 

 leaving my cows and calves to flourish undisturbed 

 until the right time to sell them, at their best. I 

 was not, like my neighbours, in a position to 

 repudiate rent and to play at the expense of my 

 landlord, since I had no landlord ; but I had a 

 heather plot, and I sometimes wonder whether the 

 certainty of the income from it had not the same 

 effect on me as agitation on other people, minis- 

 tering to my indolence. That, however, would 

 lead to a subtlety of self analysis outside the present 

 purpose. Productive and profitable as the farm 

 is, I know that I have made more than twice as 

 much every year from my half rood of heather, 

 which, indeed, has done very much to capitalise 

 the rest of the land. 



A certain class of agrarian pessimist will object 

 that the experiment is valueless, because the 

 ordinary farmer cannot get capital out of a heather 

 plot by writing about it. The ordinary farmer 

 has no such need. He is better situated than I 

 was. He suffers from no such disability. He has 

 the advantage of me, in that he has his capital 

 alreldy, which I had not. It does not matter 

 how or where the capital is derived ; what matters 

 is the result of its application. The ordinary 

 fanner has more capital than he knows how to use, 



