Economical Management of Materials, Sfc. on the Farm. 375 
thropist, is that even the known, the obvious sources of supply 
patent to every one are not taken advantage of to their fullest 
extent, nay, in many cases, not taken advantage of at all. 
Causes of this neglect. — It is somewhat dilficult to account 
for this apathetic indifference, as being so widely spread. One 
can understand how it might exist, and why it does exist, 
amongst a certain class ; it is not so easy to understand why 
it should amongst classes so well educated as our landlords 
and farmers and the better or well-to-do classes in rural 
districts are. All the more puzzling when we consider how dis- 
tinguished they are for enterprise and energy in other depart- 
ments, some of those even not so important in their issues as 
this of water-supply is. Of its importance they need as a class 
no one to tell them. Examples enough, and painful withal, 
have they had of the suffering entailed both upon man and beast, 
and of the enormous losses in the aggregate brought upon them 
in consequence of a long-continued drought. I am inclined, 
however, to suspect that all this arises not so much from the 
apathetic indifference which no amount of suffering or loss will 
arouse to action, as from the influence of certain considerations 
which have greater weight with them than they care perhaps to 
acknowledge. The first is the very commonplace one — that is, 
commonplace from one point of view — that the climate of this 
country is on the average more of a rainy than a dry one ; and 
that the droughts, consequently exceptional, show their worst 
effects not universally, but only or chiefly, as a rule, in certain 
districts. The second reason, not so commonplace, and for the 
holding of which much more excuse can be made than for the 
first, is that this indifference to water-supply is only apparent, 
not real; that the supply would be gladly received, nay, gladly 
looked after ; but that a fear exists that the attainment would 
only be reached after a larger expenditure of money than even 
the actual getting of the supply would seem to justify. 
It is not necessary to say anything here as to the first of these 
assumed causes for the existence of such apathy as we find to 
exist in rural districts on the subject of water-supply. Enough 
has been said in other places, and more will yet be said, to 
expose its fallacies, and show how dangerous it is to trust to its 
assumptions. It is simple folly to trust to exceptional causes, 
not acting in the circumstances in which we ourselves are 
placed. But the second reason carries with it matter of more 
reasonable import, and therefore deserves to be more fully 
noticed and explained. And the best way to meet its difficulties, 
and to show how groundless to a great extent is its assumptions, 
is simply to explain the various details of the different classes 
into which the subject divides itself. These will bring out 
