ly abandoned. Several fields were allowed
to become overrun with grass, not the least attention being paid to them;
the weeds sprang up, and the grass ran over from the hedges. The wheat
crop was kept to the smallest area. Wheat requires more previous labour
and care as to soil than any other crop. Labour and preparation cost
money, and he was determined not to spend a shilling more than he was
absolutely compelled. He contrived to escape the sowing, of wheat
altogether on some part of the farm, leaving it out of the rotation. That
was a direct infringement of the letter of the agreement; but who was to
prove that he had evaded it? The steward could not recollect the crops on
several hundred acres; the neighbouring tenants, of course, knew very
well; but although Smith had become unpopular, they were not going to tell
tales of him. He sold everything he dared off the farm, and many things
that he did not dare. He took everything out of the soil that it was
possible to take out. The last Michaelmas was approaching, and he walked
round in the warm August sunshine to look at the wheat.

He sat down on an old roller that lay in the corner of the field, and
thought over the position of things. He calculated that it would cost the
incoming tenant an expenditure of from one thousand two hundred pounds to
one thousand five hundred pounds to put the farm, which was a large one,
into proper condition. It could not be got into such condition under three
years of labour. The new tenant must therefore be prepared to lay out a
heavy sum of money, to wait while the improvement went on, must live how
he could meanwhile, and look forward some three years for the commencement
of his profit. To such a state had the farm been brought in a brief time.
And how would the landlord come off? The new tenant would certainly make
his bargain in accordance with the state of the land. For the first year
the rent paid would be nominal; for the second, perhaps a third or half
the usual sum; not till the third year could the landlord hope to get his
full rental. That full rental, too, would be lower than previously,
because the general depression had sent down arable rents everywhere, and
no one would pay on the old scale.

Smith thought very hard things of the landlord, and felt that he should
have his revenge. On the other hand, the landlord thought very hard things
of Smith, and not without reason. That an old tenant, the descendant of
one of the ol