s up the
paper, sees himself described as a brutal tyrant to the labourer,
and ten minutes afterwards in walks the collector of the voluntary
rate for the village school, which educates the labourers' children.
April arrives; grass grows rapidly. May comes; grass is now long.
But still not one farthing has been made out of that twenty acres.
Five months have passed, and all this time the shafts in the
manufactories have been turning, and the quick coppers accumulating.
Now it is June, and the mower goes to work; then the haymakers, and
in a fortnight if the weather be good, a month if it be bad, the hay
is ricked. Say it cost L1 per acre to make the hay and rick
it--_i.e._, L20--and by this time half the rent is due, or L27 10s.
= total expenditure (without any profit as yet), L47 10s., exclusive
of stone-picking, ditch-cleaning, value of manure, etc. This by the
way. The five months' idleness is the point at present. June is now
gone. If the weather be showery the sharp-edged grass may spring up
in a fortnight to a respectable height; but if it be a dry
summer--and if it is not a dry summer the increased cost of
haymaking runs away with profit--then it may be fully a month before
there is anything worth biting. Say at the end of July (one more
idle month) twenty cows are turned in, and three horses. One cannot
estimate how long they may take to eat up the short grass, but
certain it is that the beginning of November will see that field
empty of cattle again; and fortunate indeed the agriculturist who
long before that has not had to 'fodder' (feed with hay) at least
once a day. Here, then, are five idle months in spring, one in
summer, two in winter; total, eight idle months. But, not to stretch
the case, let us allow that during a part of that time, though the
meadow is idle, its produce--the hay--is being eaten and converted
into milk, cheese and butter, or meat, which is quite correct; but,
even making this allowance, it may safely be said that the meadow is
absolutely idle for one-third of the year, or four months. That is
looking at the matter in a mere pounds, shillings, and pence light.
Now look at it in a broader, more national view. Does it not seem a
very serious matter that so large a piece of land should remain idle
for that length of time? It is a reproach to science that no method
of utilizing the meadow during that eight months has been
discovered. To go further, it is very hard to require of the
agricul