THE STATEMENTS OF MR. GOWER. 



211 



has he grappled with the arguments I adduced, or disproved 

 a single assertion that I ventured to make. Nor is his want 

 of a college education" to be admitted as an excuse for the 

 perversion of my declaration that "91. 17 s. 6<i. an acre net pro- 

 fit, is 9/. lOs. more than has been realized upon average 

 farms in Norfolk during the last seven years." Had the elu- 

 cidation of truth been the onl?/ object, his task would have 

 been comparatively easy. The intricacy, however, occasioned 

 by an attempt to overthrow the value of the flax crop, brought 

 upon him the painful consciousness of a want of those logical 

 and rhetorical acquirements -which college men are expected to 

 possess. 



When a counsellor has the good fortune to plead the cause 

 of innocence, his task is both easy and agreeable. But when 

 guilt requires his aid, he is compelled to resort to well-arranged 

 premises, acute reasoning, and clever quibbles, to blind the 

 eyes of the jury, in which he is too often successful. Hence 

 Mr. Gower's dilemma ; for, wanting the above panoply, he 

 was constrained to cover the profits of his flax with an abun- 

 dance of straw. And, in order to swell the profits of his grain 

 beyond his flax crop, he resorted to the extraordinary expe- 

 dient of valuing at 3Z. per acre the straw, that forms no part 

 of a farmer's direct return. Had Mr. Gower properly defined 

 the only account to which straw could be turned, and I he net 

 profit from each separate crop of wheat, barley, oats, turnips, 

 grass, and hay, and added them together, I affirm that the 

 average profits would appear to be not only nine times but 

 nineteen times less than the profits of an acre of flax at 

 9/. 175. 



1 made no exclusive comparison between a ''crop of flax 

 and a crop of corn," as Mr. Gower insinuates, but clearly re- 

 ferred to the acreahle profit of a whole farm, which will be seen 

 in the following extract : — 



''Ample profit, because 9/. \7s. ^cl. an acre net profit is 

 9Z. IO5. more than has been realized upon average farms in 

 Norfolk during the last seven years, if not upon the best ; 

 ample profit, because the grower ought to be content with the 

 same return for flax that he obtains for other crops ; ample, 



p 2 



