82 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



Plow can ever start, with a fair chance? Does any 

 one seriously believe that the employment of his 

 farm-laborers for a few winters, in the execution (as 

 much as possible by fairly-paid task-work) of these 

 preliminaries, is a matter of supererogation or an 

 unprofitable outlay? Suppose it cost 10 ($50) to 

 the acre, and including all, we must prepare for such 

 an average, is it so extravagantly disproportionate to 

 the looked-for return in the shape of Interest for 

 Capital as to exceed the ordinary ventures of man 

 in other branches of industry? Is the abolition of 

 the bare summer Fallow, of the half cultivated and 

 therefore half productive Headlands, of the eternal 

 labor of hedging and ditching, the depredations of 

 birds and vermin, the everlasting turning of the 

 plow and other implements of culture, with time- 

 losing, harness-breaking, and horse-laming, to corre- 

 spond ; the injurious shade and droppings of trees, 

 the stagnating water, and the barren furrows, is 

 the immunity I say, from all these and many other 

 evils recurring not once, but every mortal year, and 

 year after year, to the end of time, is all this to be 

 borne, because of the dreaded outlay (and is it a loss 

 of the interest?) of 10 per statute acre?* 



* A sufficiently good reason for grubbing up three-fourths 

 of all the hedges in England. ED. 



