126 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



large a scale in the latter case you mostly find, such 

 at least was my discovery that your unprofitable ex- 

 pense is for ever peeping out in the niggling nature 

 of your plans field by field, hedge by hedge, drain 

 by drain, a tank here, a cowhouse there you have 

 waddled through your Farm, denying your better in- 

 stincts, resisting the true economy which would have 

 prompted a complete and comprehensive plan that 

 looks the whole matter in the face at once : as though 

 a man should build a mansion room by room, and 

 paint and furnish and roof them in, one by one, 

 solemnly -counting the cost all the way, and shutting 

 his eyes to the conviction that the next room and 

 the next story, must come at last, and that one roof, 

 one plan, one outlay, the cheapest because the most 

 compendious, might have covered all, and saved the 

 worry and mortification of jobs wmlone, arrangements 

 altered and blunders deplored. 



Architects are expensive things it is true but still 

 the comprehensive plan is the cheapest in the end. 

 We want Farm-architects. Not (Heaven help us !) 

 that we want more expense in farming, or in farm 

 buildings, but a kind of knowledge in the whole laying 

 out of a farm, analogous to that of the architect who 

 plans a building. Tho Landlord, the Tenant, the 



