THE END OF THE FARM 249 



This melancholy but facetious sale was typical of the past 

 rather than the present. 



Some of the strangest heaps of old iron were the 

 machines and appartus once costly and shining. Among 

 the bidders was a man well known among machinists, 

 and he was repeatedly urged by the auctioneer to buy a 

 drill or a reaper and binder or a rake for his museum ; 

 and I fancied that one appeal was successful. The 

 machines were deep in rust, and, indeed, a large number 

 of farmers &quot; harden off &quot; their apparatus very much as a 

 gardener hardens off his lettuces by mere exposure to 

 the weather. The interior ridge of one cart was com 

 pletely fringed with growing grass. The light seed of a 

 dry season had blown into the crevices and the recent 

 rains had germinated it. When the cart, whose wheels 

 looked scarcely capable of revolution, would not sell, a 

 humorist suggested that the man who purchased would 

 have some excellent grazing thrown in. The humble 

 sums seldom amounting to a pound, which were offered 

 and taken for such scrap heaps would have been yet 

 smaller but for the animated bidding of a professor. He 

 was making research into the life history of many small 

 insects and such cattle ; and for research purposes he 

 keeps a goat farm. So it came about that a last home for 

 the old forks and drills and tools will be a modern biolo 

 gical research station ! 



The first part of the sale ended with a wholly vain effort 

 to sell a cupboard with &quot; imitation Adam decoration in 

 the front &quot; as a chicken coop or rabbit hutch ; and, with 

 some laughter and much relief, we trapesed off to the 

 second part of the sale the livestock. &quot; Two powerful 

 cart-horses &quot; had been spoken of; and the auctioneer led 

 us to a pretty green pasture behind the decaying out 

 houses. There appeared an infinitely pathetic creature 



