X. 



THEOEY AND PRACTICE. 



THE comparative failure of that portion of my first 

 Turnip crop, which had drawn so heavily and so labo- 

 riously upon the meagre resources of the farm-yard, 

 produced a changed position of the game, which gave 

 me some surprise. I found myself at length my own 

 severest critic. Whether from the continuing force of 

 that early prepossession in favour of the 'good old 

 stuff/ M'hich had laid the bets as heavily as the 

 manure upon that part of the field, or whether the 

 fact of the mere germination of a turnip-seed where 

 it had never shown its delicate First-leaf before, was 

 triumph enough, it is hard to say ; but somehow or 

 other it was the fashion to semi-dignify with the title 

 of a ' fair little crop ' even those five acres which so 

 wretchedly disappointed my own expectations. As for 

 the crop where the guano was sown, it went off* from 



