WASTE LANDS AND WASTE WATERS. 159 



^^Well, then," exclaim these markct-garclener- 

 taug'lit professors, ^^ break tlirough the pan, and 

 tlien voii will come to productive soil." Not so, 

 for beneath the pan, of whatever kind that pan may 

 bo, there often is a worse sand and gravelly flintago 

 than there was above in the siiperstructm-e, for 

 luiderneath the pan the sand is quite white, and 

 shines in the sun like pulverized glass, and perhaps 

 below that a rock of stalwart stone or flints. 



If these stump orators are really anxious to grow 

 food for the tottering ^^Constitution," whose detri- 

 mental limbs they themselves assuredly represent, 

 why do they not take to agriculture ? I will pledge 

 myself to the assurance that they can have large 

 farms of these so-called ^^ waste lands" at a very 

 moderate rent, giving good security for their tenure 

 of course, on which to try to grow anything they 

 like. They will find it a healthful recreation, with 

 as much air and exercise as they can desire, and, 

 iDOsides, it will relieve them from the unpleasant 

 charge of being ^' vox et prceterea nihil,^^ or likened 

 in an unsavoury simile to a young crow, the mean- 

 ing of which reference I leave to their more 

 profound judgment and self-application. 



If we cannot let these impossible-to-be-cultivated 



