MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



drainage. Exact equipoise is difficult, and im- 

 plies no advance. It is neither easy nor desir- 

 able to be forever balancing oneself upon a 

 tight-rope. If progressive farming will not 

 pay, it is quite certain that no other farming 

 will. 



I know there are many quiet old gentlemen 

 among the hills, who have a sleepy way of 

 putting in their corn patch year after year, 

 and a sleepy way of clearing out their meagre 

 pittance of drenched manure, and a sleepy way 

 of never spending, who drop off some day, 

 leaving money in their purse ; but such success 

 does not tempt the young; it gives no promise 

 of a career. "Pork and cabbage for dinner, 

 and the land left lean/' — might be written on 

 their gravestones. 



The faculty of not-spending, is cultivated 

 by many farmers, a great deal more faithfully 

 than their lands ; but the faculty of right-spend- 

 ing (facultas impendendi) ,^ is at the bottom 

 of all signal success in agriculture, as in other 

 business pursuits. This kind of enterprise is 

 what farmers specially lack; and the lack is 



^The language of Columella, which is as keen and as 

 much to the point now as in the time of Tiberius : — 

 "Qui studium agricolationi dederit, sciat hmc sibi advo- 

 canda: prudentiam rei, facultatem impendendi, volun- 

 tatem agendi." 



234 



