.

It surprises us that he had such a bountiful list from which to draw,
and yet the kinds are not more than might be secured from any good land
property, if one set about securing them:

"Beef, mutton, and pork, shred pies of the best,
Pig, veal, goose, and capon, and turkey well drest,
Cheese, apples, and nuts, joly carols to hear,
As then in the country, is counted good cheer."

In these days we should draw less heavily on the meats, for in the three
centuries we have gained greatly in the vegetable foods. Tusser did not
have the potato. But nevertheless, these materials are of the very bone
of the land. They grow up with the year and out of the conditions, and
they have all the days in them, the sunshine, the rain, the dew of
morning, the wind, the cold foggy nights, and the work of laborious
hands. Every one of them means something to the person who raises them,
and there is no impersonality in them. John's father drained the land
when yet he was a boy; the hedges were set; long ago the place was laid
out in its rotations; the old trees in the fields are a part of it;
every stall in the stables and every window-seat in the old house hold
memories; and John has grown up with these memories, and with these
fields, and with the footpaths that lead out over brooks and amongst the
herds of cattle. It is a part of his religion to keep the land well; and
these supplies at Christmas time are taken with a deep reverence for the
goodness that is in them, and with a pride in having produced them.

And Thomas Tusser, good husbandman, rejoiced that these bounties cost no
cash:

"What cost to good husband, is any of this?
Good household provision only it is.
Of other the like, I do leave out a many
That costeth a husbandman never a penny."

To farm well; to provide well; to produce it oneself; to be independent
of trade, so far as this is possible in the furnishing of the
table,--these are good elements in living. And in this day we are
rapidly losing all this; many persons already have lost it; many have
never known the satisfaction of it. Most of us must live from the box
and the bottle and the tin-can; we are even feeding our cattle from the
factory and the bag. The farmer now raises a few prime products to sell,
and then he buys his foods in the markets under label and tag; and he
knows not who produced the materials, and he soon comes not to care. No
thought of the seasons, and