' FALLOWS ' AND WHAT FOLLOWS. 59 



truth be said that until this be done, the Plough can 

 ever start, with a fair chance? Does any one seri- 

 ously believe that the employment of his farm-la- 

 bourers for a few winters, in the execution (as much 

 as possible by fairly-paid task-work) of these prelimi- 

 naries, is a matter of supererogation or an unprofit- 

 able outlay? Suppose it cost .10 to the acre, and 

 including all, we must prepare for such an average, is 

 it so extravagantly disproportionate to the looked-for 

 return in the shape of Interest for Capital as to exceed 

 the ordinary ventures of man in other branches of in- 

 dustry ? Is the abolition of the bare summer Fallow, 

 of the half cultivated and therefore half productive 

 Headlands, of the eternal labour of hedging and 

 ditcliing, the depredations of birds and vermin, the 

 everlasting turning of the plough and other imple- 

 ments of culture, with time-losing, harness-breaking, 

 and horse-laming, to correspond ; the injurious shade 

 and droppings of trees, the stagnating water, and the 

 barren furrows, is the immunity, I say, from all 

 these and many other evils recurring not once, but 

 every mortal year, and year after year, to the end of 

 time, is all this to be borne, because of the dreaded 

 outlay, (and is it a loss of the interest?) of 10 per 

 statute acre ? 



