24 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



all things in the world the most out of hand, (if that 

 may be called so which empties the hand and the 

 pocket too.) Such seemed the only alternative. At 

 first it was an impossibility then an improbability 

 and then, as the ear of bearded Corn wins its forbid- 

 den way up the schoolboy's sleeve, and gains a point 

 in advance by every effort to stop or expel it, so did 

 every determination, every reflection counteract the 

 very purpose it was summoned to oppose, and, in 

 short, one fine morning I almost jumped a yard back- 

 ward at seeing my own name on a wagon! * 



* We have known move than one man sell out his " home- 

 stead," lying within a few miles of a populous town in the 

 eastern states, because there was too much "swamp" upon 

 it, and remove several hundred miles to the west, where ho 

 must for years combat the embarrassments of a new country, 

 to settle himself on land intrinsically worth far less, for 

 productive purposes, per acre, in its best condition, than the 

 repulsive swamps which he had left, simply because he was 

 ignorant of the simple process of draining them. Such men 

 were no "book farmers." They ignored all connection of 

 science with agriculture, by way of agricultural publications, 

 or the association of themselves with agricultural societies, 

 and consequently were profoundly ignorant of the existence 

 of a mine more valuable than California gold in the hateful 

 morasses which had driven them away. Had they been 

 reading and inquiring men, they would have converted such 



