en. The
scene altogether seems so thoroughly, so intensely English. The spirit of
it enters into the spectator, and he feels that he, too, must try his hand
at the reaping, and then slake his thirst from the same cup with these
bronzed sons of toil.

Yet what a difficult problem lies underneath all this! While the reaper
yonder slashes at the straw, huge ships are on the ocean rushing through
the foam to bring grain to the great cities to whom--and to all--cheap
bread is so inestimable a blessing. Very likely, when he pauses in his
work, and takes his luncheon, the crust he eats is made of flour ground
out of grain that grew in far distant Minnesota, or some vast Western
State. Perhaps at the same moment the farmer himself sits at his desk and
adds up figure after figure, calculating the cost of production, the
expenditure on labour, the price of manure put into the soil, the capital
invested in the steam-plough, and the cost of feeding the bullocks that
are already intended for the next Christmas. Against these he places the
market price of that wheat he can see being reaped from his window, and
the price he receives for his fattened bullock. Then a vision rises before
him of green meads and broad pastures slowly supplanting the corn; the
plough put away, and the scythe brought out and sharpened. If so, where
then will be the crowd of men and women yonder working in the wheat? Is
not this a great problem, one to be pondered over and not hastily
dismissed?

Logical conclusions do not always come to pass in practice; even yet there
is plenty of time for a change which shall retain these stalwart reapers
amongst us, the strength and pride of the land. But if so, it is certain
that it must be preceded by some earnest on their part of a desire to
remove that last straw from the farmer's back--the last straw of
extravagant labour demands--which have slowly been dragging him down. They
have been doing their very best to bring about the substitution of grass
for corn. And the farmer, too, perhaps, must look at home, and be content
to live in simpler fashion. To do so will certainly require no little
moral courage, for a prevalent social custom, like that of living fully up
to the income (not solely characteristic of farmers), is with difficulty
faced and overcome.

CHAPTER XXVII

GRASS COUNTRIES

On the ground beside the bramble bushes that project into the field the
grass is white with hoar frost at noon-d