CROPS AND PROFITS. 213 



year, as much of the nutritive elements of land should 

 be restored, as the annual cropping removes, may be 

 good ruling for virgin soil, or for the Lothians, or 

 Belgian gardens ; but for neglected or poor soil, a 

 larger restoration is needed ; if not by manures, then 

 by tillage or drainage. Exact equipoise is difficult, 

 and implies no advance. It is neither easy nor 

 desirable to be forever balancing oneself upon a 

 tight rope. If progressive farming will not pay, it 

 is quite certain that no other farming will. 



I know there are many quiet old gentlemen 

 among the hills, who have a sleepy way of putting 

 in their corn patch year after year, and a sleepy way 

 of clearing out their meagre pittance of drenched 

 manure, and a sleepy way of never spending, who 

 drop off some day, leaving money in their purse ; but 

 such success does not tempt the young ; it gives no 

 promise of a career. " Pork and cabbage for dinner, 

 and the land left lean," might be written on their 

 gravestones. 



The faculty of not-spending, is cultivated by 

 many farmers, a great deal more faithfully than 

 their lands ; but the faculty of right-spending (fac- 

 ultas impendendi) ,* is at the bottom of all signal 



* The language of Columella, which is as keen and as much to 

 the point now as in the time of Tiberius: " Qui studium agricola- 

 tioni dederit, sciat JICEC sibi advocanda : prudentiam rei, facultatem 

 impendendi, voluntatcm agendi." 



