50 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



rather under the earth was to be done with them ? 

 Favoured occupiers of the valleys and meadow-lands 

 of our Island, you hardly know what I mean ! lend 

 me your attention then for a moment, while I read a 

 short chapter from that Geological Economy which 

 experience and the clays have taught me. 



Amongst the manifold varieties which Nature offers 

 to the mind and gratitude of man, not the least bene- 

 ficent and beautiful is the Undulation of the earth's 

 surface. How little do we value gifts and blessings 

 that are quite familiar ! Imagine for a moment a flat 

 earth with no variety no inclination of outline ; no 

 hills, no dales, no uplands or meadows, no running 

 streams or rivers, no tufted knolls or winding dells, 

 no 'gradients,' but one vast unruffled surface, like 

 the sea in a dead calm, or the Great Desert itself: 

 and then imagine one thing more, a thing which you 

 are in the conventional habit of considering one of the 

 greatest of agricultural blessings a free percolating 

 subsoil, underneath this vast monotony of surface, 

 sucking down every drop of rain as it falls, and pre- 

 serving not the value of an eggshell of liquid for man 

 or beast to slake his thirst withal. What would you 

 have given, under such a state of things, for Two 

 Hundred and Fifty acres of CLAY SUBSOIL? Would 



