"FALLOWS" AND WHAT FOLLOWS. 89 



" A hundred to one upon the farm-yard manure ! " 

 of course, or any other amount of odds : all bid- 

 ders, and only one moonstruck, misguided taker. 

 It proved a miserable year for Turnips generally. 

 Everywhere "The Fly" was omnipotent and omniv- 

 orant : the odds fell a little when the highly backed 

 " farm-yard " ridges had to be sown a second time, 

 but a crop came at last, about the size of apples. 



And what on the guano ? 



From twenty to twenty-four tons, by weight, per 

 acre. Not "the best" but "the only" crop to be 

 seen in the neighborhood. 



If people sometimes get less credit than their due 

 in this world, they muet not forget to balance the 

 account with that which they get without deserving. 

 The Penguin of the vast Pacific was the "Wizard that 

 had made this crop, not I : yet, had the wise Chief 

 Justice Hale been living, not all the waters of the 

 Pacific would have saved me from roasting alive. 



So much for ten acres out of the twenty-two, and 

 the modern fallow : now for ancient practice, and 

 the other twelve.* 



* With that beautiful adaptation of things to circum- 

 stances of means to ends by divine Providence, how 

 opportunely has the discovery of the vast guano deposits of 

 the islands of the southern hemisphere come forward to tho 



