THE WASTE. 5 



it was that strange, incomprehensible, infatuated, 

 damaging thing, which from my cradle upwards I 

 had heard described and deprecated under the almost 

 forbidden name of Farming. Dr. Johnson calls 

 it the delight of destiny to counterchange the plans 

 and purposes of man ; but some other wise man, I 

 think it is Lord Bacon, tells us to ' choose the life 

 that is most useful, and habit will make it the most 

 agreeable.' But accident seems more potent than 

 destiny, plan, purpose, choice, or habit On a long 

 sea-voyage, and in a rather resourceless foreign land, 

 a couple of unbidden companions had stuck by me 

 with persecuting tenacity, and attracted first my 

 acquaintance, then my intimacy, for sheer want 

 of anything else : they were two books : to "\vit, 

 Cobbett's edition of Tull's Works, and the Useful 

 Knowledge Society's volumes on British Husbandry. 

 I read them, and re-read them ; and then began 

 again : for nine mortal months I was reduced to 

 gorge my literary appetite upon these husks, as I at 

 first regarded them. The Georgics of Virgil had 

 begun and ended all my previous acquaintance with 

 farming; they were the sole associating tie that con- 

 nected me with this sudden and enforced onslaught 

 upon the ' theory and practice of Agriculture ; ' and 

 I returned to England poor wretch in worse 



