308 A Walk from 



was the heaviest crop of oats growing that I had yet 

 seen in England ; in another part of the same field 

 there was a large brick-kiln ; in another, an extensive 

 quarry and machinery for sawing the stone into all 

 sizes and shapes ; then a furnace for casting iron, and, 

 lastly, a coal mine ; and all these departments of labor 

 and production were in full operation^ It is quite 

 possible that not one of the hundred laborers on and 

 under this ten-acre patch ever thought it an extraordi- 

 nary focus of production. Perhaps even the proprietors 

 and managers of the five different enterprises worked 

 on the small space had taken its rich and diversified 

 fertilities as a matter of course, as we take the rain, 

 light and heat of summer ; but to a traveller " taking 

 stock " of a country's resources, it could not but be a 

 point of view exciting admiration. I left it behind me 

 deeply impressed with the conviction that I had seen 

 the most productive ten-acre field that could be found 

 on the surface of the globe, counting in the variety 

 and value of its surface and sub-surface crops. 



I took tea with a friend in Leeds, remaining only 

 an hour or two in that town, then pursuing my course 

 northward. The wide world knows so much of Leeds 

 that any notice that I could give of it might seem 

 affected and presumptuous. It is to the Cloth- World 

 what Borne is to the Catholic. Its Cloth Hall is the 



