turist that he should keep pace with a world whose maxims day
by day tend to centralize and concentrate themselves into the one
canon, Time is Money, when he cannot by any ingenuity get his
machinery to revolve more than once a year. In the old days the
farmer belonged to a distinct class, a very isolated and independent
class, little affected by the progress or retrogression of any other
class, and not at all by those waves of social change which sweep
over Europe. Now the farmer is in the same position as other
producers: the fall or rise of prices, the competition of foreign
lands, the waves of panic or monetary tightness, all tell upon him
quite as much as on the tradesman. So that the cry is gradually
rising that the idle earth will not pay.

On arable land it is perhaps even more striking. Take a wheat crop,
for instance. Without going into the cost and delay of the three
years of preparation under various courses for the crop, take the
field just before the wheat year begins. There it lies in November,
a vast brown patch, with a few rooks here and there hopping from one
great lump to another; but there is nothing on it--no machine
turning out materials to be again turned into money. On the
contrary, it is very probable that the agriculturist may be sowing
money on it, scarifying it with steam ploughing-engines, tearing up
the earth to a great depth in order that the air may penetrate and
the frost disintegrate the strong, hard lumps. He may have commenced
this expensive process as far back as the end of August, for it is
becoming more and more the custom to plough up directly after the
crop is removed. All November, December, January, and not a penny
from this broad patch, which may be of any size from fifteen to
ninety acres, lying perfectly idle. Sometimes, indeed, persons who
wish to save manure will grow mustard on it and plough it in, the
profit of which process is extremely dubious. At the latter end of
February or beginning of March, just as the season is early or late,
dry or wet, in goes the seed--another considerable expense. Then
April, May, June, July are all absorbed in the slow process of
growth--a necessary process, of course, but still terribly slow, and
not a penny of ready-money coming in. If the seed was sown in
October, as is usual on some soils, the effect is the same--the crop
does not arrive till next year's summer sun shines. In August the
reaper goes to work, but even then the corn has t