122 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



there too large and daring a system, which risks the 

 whole space upon a single crop. Every variety and 

 sub- variety of character is self- drawn and pictured on 

 the soil, a photographic portrait of the cultivator. And 

 so it is upon that great Allotment-field could one but 

 as easily look over it the Farms spread, border-to- 

 border, over the various geological systems of England, 



Scotland, and Ireland. 



* * * # 



To this same wide Field, with its many modes of 

 tillage, its various kinds of produce, and equally varied 

 character both of occupation and of ownership, in- 

 sensibly flew the thoughts of the puzzled reader of a 

 certain budget of fourteen letters, and of another 

 about the same in dimension, which the following post 

 brought from the punctual Messrs. Penn and Debbitt. 



Reflection might well be allowed to be more long- 

 winded, and Imagination itself to be more fanciful 

 than usual even with the Chronicler, when arrived 

 at the end of the last of these missives and the ques- 

 tions they contained, as varied as the Postmarks they 

 bore, he threw his eyes up at a many-coloured Geo- 

 logical Map of the United Kingdom, hanging close 

 beside him, and pictured to himself the possibility, 

 and the value, of just such a Map, with its strong 



