THE WASTE. 21 



This was my Farm : 250 statute acres ! 



" Why did you take itl" 



I did n't. It took me. That " mysterious lady " 

 who is painted with a bandage on her eyes, (she 

 can see as well as you or I,) made it, with a pat 

 on the back, my property, and shortly afterward, 

 with a slap in the face, my "occupation." It 

 had been performing for a series of years' a sort 

 of "geometrical progression" downward. Each 

 incoming tenant took it at about half the previous 

 rent ; dabbled about for a year or two like a duck, 

 and retired "lame" It was but a simple equa- 

 tion a very simple one to say when the rent 

 would come to zero. It looked on the Rental- 

 book like an annual sum in Reduction ; facilis 

 descensus Averni, literally translated into plain 

 English. What was to be done with it? This 

 brings me to my proposition No. 2 : which is in 

 fact what is commonly called "No. 1" myself. 

 If there was in the catalogue of human pursuits, 

 one which I hated and feared, dreaded and de- 

 spised, didn't know, and didn't wish to know 

 it was that strange, incomprehensible, infatuated, 

 damaging thing which, from my cradle upward, 

 I had heard described and deprecated under the 

 almost forbidden name of Farming. Dr. Johnson 



