MR. URBAN AND A COUNTRY HOUSE 



practical man, who has an eye to sale as well 

 as purchase, and to crop as well as tillage. 

 Philosophers, at best, make doubtful farmers : 

 but adventurous philosophers whose brains 

 bristle with theories, and who are without that 

 breadth of knowledge which enables a man 

 to compare theory with theory and understand 

 remote as well as immediate relations, make 

 the worst farmers it is possible to imagine. I 

 have a high regard for our agricultural news- 

 papers, and think they are doing far more 

 good than our agricultural colleges (as de- 

 veloped thus far) but there are weaklings, 

 who, finding support from a newspaper cor- 

 respondent for some ill-digested theory of 

 their own, leap to monstrous conclusions. 



Fourth : the inquiries will show that a 

 shrewd, old-fashioned farmer — no matter 

 where his land may lie — may make fifty acres 

 yield fair return, and not involve inordinate 

 expenditure. True, very possibly, that such as 

 my friend Mr. Urban do not wish to live as 

 Mr. Sloman lived, or to labor as he labored; 

 but his report (which may be well substanti- 

 ated) is a fair indication of the possibilities 

 of fifty-acre farming. 



Fifth : it is clearly enough demonstrated 

 that however inapt a man may be at farming 



271 



