89 



CHAPTER IX 



A prize farm — A Yankee fellow traveller — American and English 

 farmers compared — Turning the tables— An English farmei^s bill 

 of fare — A farmer's ' pretty turn-out ' — Discomfiture of the Professor 

 — Wheat-growing in England and the United States — The Pro- 

 fessor's apology. 



I HAVE done my share of travelling during a long 

 and active life, and although I cannot say I have 

 ever told them, I have sometimes listened to what 

 are proverbially known as 'travellers' tales.' To 

 see ourselves as others see us — well, if the sight 

 is not always instructive, it seldom fails to amuse. 

 And especially is it diverting when the observer 

 happens to belong to the sort of traveller Dickens 

 had in his mind's eye when he invented, or adapted, 

 Count Smorltork. I am reminded in this connection 

 of an experience of mine, on a railway journey from 

 Worcester, about twenty years since, in associa- 

 tion with Mr. Charles Whitehead, who resides at 

 Barming, near Maidstone, in Kent, and who is one 

 of our highest authorities in fruit-growing and on the 

 insects which affect our crops. I had been appointed 

 with him as a judge of the farming of Worcestershire, 

 to award the prizes for the best cultivated farms in 

 the county. I believe the proprietor of the leading 

 county newspaper offered lOo/. as a first prize, and the 



