Farming as a Profession 193 



So much for those who can combine culture 

 with cabbage, but what of him with six children 

 on ten shillings a week, whose existence is valued, 

 like that of the horse, by the length of his working 

 days and then the workhouse ? He has done 

 his work, justified his existence ; therefore the 

 shame of the workhouse is really not on him but 

 on the economic and social system that ends him 

 so. A vital defect remains in every society that 

 leaves a good old man or a good old woman to die 

 in disgrace when too old to work. Yet the life, 

 apart from the manner of its end, is probably much 

 undervalued. The real question is not the amount 

 of a man's income in money, but rather how he 

 can live on it ; and probably the healthy man on 

 the soil with ten shillings a week gets more out of 

 life than the city clerk on two pounds a week and 

 permanent indigestion. Army figures have shown 

 us the difference of chest measurement between 

 town recruits and those from the dales of West- 

 morland ; and it is to the soil that the armies 

 ever return to renew their strength. It is not 

 easy to assume that life must be less where we go 

 for our strongest men. 



Probably those above Hodge have not con- 

 sidered how much a little might be to him, and 

 to themselves indirectly ; and it is certain that 

 they have not applied themselves to make the 

 most of him with any such efficiency as we find 

 in the employers of other industries. The return 

 to skill and capital is probably not less on the 

 whole in agriculture, but the industry is less 



N 



