THE RURAL SOCRATES. 39 



Jcbt under which many of the peafants fink, is not an 

 infurmountable objeiTbion to the re eflablKhment of agri- 

 culture. We have Teen in the inflance before us an 

 cflate, whofe appearances denounced ruin and decay, 

 having few natural advantages, and being loaded with a 

 confiderable mortgage : yet in a few years improved to 

 a height almofl: incredible, and yielding very near dou- 

 ble the crops of grain and hay which it formerly pro- 

 duced. 



Some of KHyogg's neighbors, who are far from 

 being partial in his favor, have afTured me, that when 

 he engaged in his undertaking, the lands which be- 

 longed to him were ranked among the worft ; and thab 

 now; in proportion to their extent, they always produce 

 tlie finefl crops in that divifion. They iikewife regard- 

 ed his enterprise, as I have before obferved, as themofl: 

 rafh imprudence, which could not fail in a very iliort 

 time, to involve the tv/o brothers in dedruclion ; and' 

 they expe<Sled their bankruptcy every day. This con- 

 clufion was not altogether the refult of envy,- which is 

 ever ready to calculate the poiribillty of another's ilr 

 fortune. 



I am greatly miflaken if all indifrerent perfcns would- 

 not have pronounced the fame fcntence on the follcvv- 

 ing queflion : — Whether a family, confiding of four 

 parents and eleven fmall children, could be comfortably 

 Supplied- with the neceffaries of life from an eflatc 

 Icarcely valued at 875I. which mufl pay annual interefl: 

 for 547 1. 6s. ? A quef!:ion which the event has, ho^v- 

 ever, determined in favor of the proprietors, thanks to 

 the a(ftivityand wifdoni of this extraordinary man. 



I will endeavor to render the fadl (till ftsoi) gcr by 

 calculation ; in hopes of exciting, as far as I am able^ 

 the emulation of all good farmers. 



Fifteen acres fown with wheat, produced 1500 

 flieaves ; which, at the rate of ioo Theaves to iixty buih- 

 els of iinwinnowed corn, yield 50 malters 4. bafncls. 



The 



