2 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



ardent agriculturists who are just beginning to recog- 

 nize the last of human Sciences in the first of human 

 Arts, and to "only wish, like duteous sons, their 

 parents were more wise." 



I shall not tell when it was, nor where it was, nor 

 why it was, that I first ' broke ground:' the first 

 would be too cruel, the second too particular, and the 

 third too personal. But I shall describe my Farm 

 geologically, and myself categorically, which must 

 answer every proper inquiry of the curious, and will 

 leave a little untold besides, the better to keep alive 

 the interest of the narrative. 



Somewhere or other in England there is a flat, 

 bleak, high-lying district, which a shallow or very 

 terse geologist might haply describe as part of the 

 New red-sandstone formation ; but where, if he 

 would take the trouble to plough an acre, he would 

 hear now and then a suspicious kind of sound from 

 the share and coulter, which I may describe by. the 

 word ' soapy ; ' and where, whenever the nose of the 

 plough chanced to dive an inch deeper than usual, he 

 would see certain blue-looking indications turned up, 

 that would rather startle his complacency, if a lover 

 of light soils, by a suggestion of the proximity of that 

 terrible antagonist the blue Lias. Should this dis- 



