242 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



what Is locally called duck-gravel, a deposit like pumice- 

 stone, into which the ducks push their bills. Every 

 ducker's place has a lump of this duck-gravel, a coralline 

 stuff like little oyster-shells. This is exported to other 

 places, but the ducks do not seem to thrive so well 

 elsewhere, and their bills soon lose their delicacy of 

 colour. 



The first year of my farming experiences, 1S53, '^vas 

 noted as the "wet year" ; it was nearly my ruin ; I had 

 a farm of 200 acres flooded seven times in six months ; 

 my hay was carried away down the river, my corn 

 sprouted In the ear, and I lost 200 sheep by the liver 

 rot. The glanders destroyed all my horses, my cattle 

 scarcely put any fat on to their carcases, and in the 

 end I found myself i^i2QO poorer than when I began. 

 The following year rumours of war sprang up, and I 

 possessed a splendid breadth of wheat, as, despite the 

 covenants of my lease, I had sown with wheat nearly all 

 my ploughed land. The Crimean War broke out, and 

 my crop was sold at nearly Sos. a quarter, and recouped 

 me nearly £600 of my former loss. 



Of stringent covenants in a lease, now happily almost 

 extinct, I must tell a good story of a London lawyer, who 

 went down Into the country as agent for a certain land- 

 lord, knowing as much of agriculture as a tenant would 

 of Chancery practice. He went over the farm at harvest 

 with the tenant, book in hand, to note down the various 

 croppings In each field. On entering one of the fields 

 they came to a heavy crop of oats, and on reference to 

 his book, the lawyer found it had been used for 7u/izte 

 corn crop the year before, and the growth of two white 



