197 



How astonishing that Mr. Gower should have been so ill 

 advised as to rest his attempted refutation of No. 9 upon ma- 

 terials so unsound ! I say attempted, because in no respect 

 has he grappled with the arguments I adduced, or disproved 

 a single assertion that I ventured to make. Nor is his " want 

 of a college education " to be admitted as an excuse for the 

 perversion of my declaration that "9/. 17s. 6d. an acre net pro- 

 fit, is 9/. lOs. more than has been realized upon average 

 farms in Norfolk during the last seven years." Had the elu- 

 cidation of truth been the only object, his task would have 

 been comparatively easy. The intricacy, however, occasioned 

 by an attempt to overthrow the value of the flax-crop, brought 

 upon him the painfuV consciousness of a want of those logical 

 and rhetorical acquirements which college men are expected to 

 possess. 



When a counsellor has the good fortune to plead the cause 

 of innocence, his task is both easy and agreeable. But when 

 guilt requires his aid, he is compelled to resort to well-arranged 

 premises, acute reasoning, and clever quibbles, to blind the 

 eyes of the jury, in which he is too often successful. Hence 

 Mr. Gower's dilemma ; for, wanting the above panoply, he 

 was constrained to cover the profits of his flax with an abun- 

 dance of straw. And, in order to swell the profits of his grain 

 beyond his flax crop, he resorted to the extraordinary expe- 

 dient of valuing at 3/. per acre the straw, that forms no part 

 of a farmer's. direct return. Had Mr. Gower properly defined 

 the only account to which straw could be turned, and the net 

 profit from each separate crop of wheat, barley, oats, turnips, 

 grass, and hay, and added them together, I affirm, that the 

 average profits would appear to be not only nine times but 

 nineteen times less than the profits of an acre of flax at 

 9/. Us.iJd. 



I made no exclusive comparison between a " crop of flax and 

 a crop of corn," as Mr. Gower insinuates, but clearly referred 

 to the acreable profit of a whole farm, which will be seen in the 

 following extract : — 



" Ample profit, because 9/. 1 7s. Gd. an acre net profit is 

 9Z. lOv. more than has been realized upon average farms in 



