n porridge or voting, and exchanged them for rice; but, perchance, as
some must work in fields if only for the 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 dissipation. Though I
gave them no manure, and did not hoe them all once, I hoed them unusualy
well as far as I went, and was paid for it in the end, "there being in
truth," as Evelyn says, "no compost or laetation whatsoever comparable
to this continual motion, repastination, and turning of the mould with
the spade." "The earth," he adds elsewhere, "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 exhausted 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 experiments of gentlemen farmers, my
outgoes were,--

For a hoe................................... $ 0.54
Plowing, harrowing, and furrowing............ 7.50 Too much.
Beans for seed............................... 3.12+
Potatoes for seed............................ 1.33
Peas for seed................................ 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

Nine bushels and twelve quarts of beans sold.. $16.94
Five " large potatoes..................... 2.50
Nine " small.............................. 2.25
Grass........................................... 1.00
Stalks.......................................... 0.75
-------
In all.................................... $23.44
Leaving a pecuniary profit,