176 
WALDEIf. 
sake of tropes and expression, to serve a parable-maker 
one day. It was on the whole a rare amusement, 
which, continued too long, might have become a dissipa¬ 
tion. Though I gave them no manure, and did not hoe 
them all once, I hoed them unusually well as far as I 
went, and was paid for it in the end, “ there being in 
truth,” as Evelyn says, “ no compost or Isetation what¬ 
soever comparable to this continual motion, repastina- 
tion, and turning of the mould with the spade.” “ The 
earth,” he adds elsewhere, 66 especially if fresh, has a 
certain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, 
power, or virtue (call it either) which gives it life, and 
is the logic of all the labor and stir we keep about it, 
to sustain us; all dungings and other sordid temperings 
being but the vicars succedaneous to this improvement.” 
Moreover, this being one of those “ worn-out and ex¬ 
hausted lay fields which enjoy their sabbath,” had 
perchance, as Sir Kenelm Digby thinks likely, attracted 
“ vital spirits ” from the air. I harvested twelve bushels 
of beans. 
But to be more particular, for it is complained that 
Mr. Coleman has reported chiefly the expensive ex¬ 
periments of gentlemen farmers, my outgoes were, —• 
For a hoe,.$ 0 54 
Ploughing, harrowing, and furrowing, . . . 7 50, Too much. 
Beans for seed,.3 12| 
Potatoes “.1 33 
Peas “ 0 40 
Turnip seed, ........ 0 06 
White line for crow fence,.0 02 
Horse cultivator and boy three hours, ... 1 00 
Horse and cart to get crop,.0 75 
In all, ........ $14 72| 
My income was, (patrem familias vendacem, non 
emacem esse oportet,) from 
