1922.] 



COBBBTT ON THE CROPS. 



455 



bottom to top." He proceeds: " we have had so much heat 

 that the grain is pretty sure to be plump, let the weather for 

 the rest of the summer be what it may." After referring to his 

 experience in America, where, he states, about fifteen days with 

 the thermometer at 90 degrees, before the ear forms, ensures 

 the maize crop, however unfavourable the weather may be after- 

 wards, he continues : " This tallies with the old remark of the 

 country people in England that ' May makes or mars the 

 wheat ' ; for it is in May that the ear and the grains are 

 formed." 



Not all the crops he saw impressed him so favourably. About 

 Chesham " the barley, on the land that is not very good, is 

 light, begins to look blue and the backward oats are very 

 short," while around High Wycombe, a district which he re- 

 gards as " an average of England as to corn crops," the wheat 

 would be a fair average crop and very early; barley, oats and 

 peas light; and beans not half a crop. Nevertheless, the farm- 

 ing report generally is optimistic. Already there has been 

 gathered " such a crop of hay as I believe England never saw 

 before ' ' ; the sun ' ' will have done more to enrich the land than 

 all the dung-carts " and, " in short, this is one of the finest 

 years I ever knew." 



Whether it was due to the fine weather, or the appearance 

 of the crops, Cobbett found rather less cause than usual, in 

 these two Rides, for censoriousness. He girds, it is true, at 

 the Scotchmen whom he found in gentlemen's gardens, and 

 remarks that the division of work among the nations is curious, 

 all the mowers being English and all the haymakers Irish, 

 while the Scotchmen " toil hard enough in Scotland, but when 

 they go from home it is not to work, if you please." They 

 leave the back-breaking, sweat-extracting work to others who 

 have less " prudence." This leads to a characteristic 

 apothegm : " The great purpose of human art, the great end 

 of human study, is to obtain ease, to throw the burden from 

 our own shoulders and fix it on others." This is, however, the 

 expression of a mood, for at other times Cobbett preached vehe- 

 mently the dignity, the duty and the happiness of work. But 

 the spontaneity and the inconsistency of the chronicle, which 

 is in fact a spasmodic diary, are the distinction of the Rural 

 Rides. 



One reason why the prospect pleased him on this occasion 

 was that he did not see more than three acres of potatoes. 

 These usually excited his vituperation. 11 Ireland's lazy root " 



