2 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



Arts, and to ' only wish, like duteous sons, their 

 parents were more wise.' 



I shall not tell when it was, nor where it was, nor 

 why it was, that I first ' broke ground : ' the first 

 would be too cruel, the second too particular, and 

 the third too personal. But I shall describe my 

 Farm geologically, and myself categorically, which 

 must answer every proper enquiry of the curious, 

 and will leave a little untold besides, the better to 

 keep alive the interest of the narrative. 



Somewhere or other in England there is a flat 

 bleak high-lying district, which a shallow or very 

 terse geologist might haply describe as part of the 

 New -red -sandstone formation ; but where, if he 

 would take the trouble to plough an acre, he would 

 hear now and then a suspicious kind of sound from 

 the share and coulter, which I may describe by the 

 word * soapy' ; and where, whenever the nose of the 

 plough chanced to dive an inch deeper than usual, he 

 would see certain blue-looking indications turned up 

 that would rather startle his complacency, if a lover 

 of light soils, by a suggestion of the proximity of 

 that terrible antagonist the blue Lias. Should 

 this discovery stimulate further exploration, and his 

 plough be set a couple of inches deeper, his ears 



