192 My Little Farm 



precluding that sordid elaboration of material 

 chance which so largely corrupts the world and 

 often keeps a man essentially miserable on millions. 

 Should a man love Nature, and have intelligence 

 to study her without being a fool in business 

 affairs, then agriculture is almost ideal and certain 

 to be remunerative. Its competition is across 

 oceans rather than across fences or streets, preserv- 

 ing the mind from the effects of direct greed and 

 necessarily enlarging vision in anyone who comes 

 to see the world-process in which he has his part. 

 For instance, the clearing of Russian forests, re- 

 ducing the rainfall, is said to have diminished the 

 production of grain, which would affect the 

 position of the barley-grower in Scotland ; and 

 such a far-reaching influence, even when operating 

 to disadvantage, tends to raise the mind that 

 studies it beyond the meanness of narrower issues. 

 Farmers on either side of a hedge need no such 

 envy of one another as shopkeepers on either side 

 of a street, their prices being fixed by forces farther 

 removed or at least less personal and less directly 

 apparent at any given time. Accordingly we find 

 peasant communities who spend the winter nights 

 in each other's houses, while their shopkeepers, 

 though derived from the peasantry, and meeting 

 every day in the same street, remain really un- 

 acquainted, and never meet in the social sense. 

 There are towns in Connaught where the shop- 

 keepers never call on each other unless for a 

 weak or a funeral, and then the spoons are 

 locked up. 



