I 



THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 141 



This had a healing and restorative effect on the un- 

 healthy body, by changing its impure conditions." I 

 remember Mr. Frank Buckland making a similar re- 

 mark with respect to Mr. Moule's patented earth 

 closets. Did not Moses send the Israelite with a spud 

 out into the wilderness ? And so there's nothing new 

 under the sun. 



The gardener has just shown me several pots of 

 young pelargoniums, the result of our hybridising 

 last summer. I wish I could just hook and haul in 

 next June for an hour, that I might see what sort of 

 blooms will reward our labour ; I should then ease it to 

 its place again amidst the hot months, for there is 

 much of winter enjoyment yet due that one were loath 

 to spare ; e.g., the Christmas parties, the gallops across 

 country, and the afternoon saunter on our freshly- 

 littered fold. But by the powers ! I must be off; for 

 there is an uproar in the nursery : and when I get 

 there I find the two youngest boys, despite the cold of 

 this frosty night, larking about and playing like kit- 

 tens, as naked as they were born ; but at the sight of 

 ourself there is a bound to the bed-clothes and a dive 

 into night-shirts and a plunge into sheet-lane, as 

 though they were aware that therein lay their only 

 chance of an effective rear-guard ; and so we could not 

 but laugh ("in'ardly, werry in'ardly, my lord"), and 

 tuck them in, and return to our toil in the study. 



" Good news from home !" the bailiff has just hurried 

 up to say that at last, after much waiting, we have been 

 rewarded by the birth of a heifer-calf from a valuable 

 Towneley cow, which upon the spot we christen Lady 

 Culshaw, in consideration of her belonging to the emi- 

 nent Joseph's favourite Barmpton Rose tribe, and of 



