244 THE MANSE GARDEN. 



vants did nothing but kill and steal as they were bid, 

 we find their wicked, and in the long run ungainful 

 employments, substituted by a system of field labour, 

 which for a long period had indeed its busy seasons 

 those of sowing and reaping, of collecting hay and 

 fuel with comparative idleness all the rest of the 

 year. But now the dead of winter has less of leisure 

 than the stirring summer had then ; and the farm, 

 more like a factory, finds work for all hands at all 

 times. The fields, it is true, differ from the factory 

 as to the matter of a roof for shelter; but the genius 

 of the farmer compensates the deficiency by suiting 

 the work to the weather ; and the gleeful toil goes 

 on as steady as in a house full of spindles and cards. 

 Such an arrangement, if it do not cheapen provisions, 

 must raise the rent of land as well as the labourer's 

 hire ; and hence, as an idle day is now rare upon the 

 farm, so an idle man, whether about the farm or the 

 manse, becomes a nuisance to be no longer tolerated. 

 But a man with a pair of horses is equal to the 

 task of cultivating seventy or eighty acres, whereas 

 the glebe, consisting only of twelve, may have nine 

 under the plough ; and whilst the expense of such 

 an equipment cannot be less than seventy or eighty 

 pounds per annum, the whole proceeds of the glebe 

 crops will probably not do more than cover half that 

 sum. And if to diminish the cost of management 

 only one horse is kept, then is the power inadequate 

 to the plough, and the next resource is a good neigh- 

 bour, possessed in like manner of a little farm and a 

 solitary beast. But the neighbour is not long good 

 in a ticklish time when the dust is on the harrow 

 and the turnip seed has the promise of a shower. 



