He ought to take fifty dollars for a
hundred acres. You forget the tenants have paid for their farms, over
and over again, in rent. They _feel_ as if they have paid enough, and
that it was time to stop."

Extraordinary as this reasoning may seem in most men's minds, I have
since found it is a very favourite sentiment among anti-renters. "Are we
to go on, and pay rent for ever?" they ask, with logical and virtuous
indignation!

"Und vhat may be der aferage value of a hoondred acre farm, in dis part
of de coontry?" I inquired.

"From two thousand five hundred to three thousand dollars. It would be
more, but tenants won't put good buildings on farms, you know, seein'
that they don't own them. I heard one of our leaders lamentin' that he
didn't foresee what times was comin' to, when he repaired his old house,
or he would have built a new one. But a man can't foretell everything. I
dare say many has the same feelin's, now."

"Den you dinks Herr Littlebage ought to accept $50 for vhat is worth
$2500? Das seem ferry little."

"You forget the back rent that has been paid, and the work the tenant
has done. What would the farm be good for without the work that has been
done on it?"

"Ja, ja--I oonderstandst; and vhat vould der work be goot for vidout der
landt on vhich it vast done?"

This was rather an incautious question to put to a man as distrustful
and rogueish as Joshua Brigham. The fellow cast a lowering and
distrustful look at me; but ere there was time to answer, Miller, of
whom he stood in healthful awe, called him away to look after the cows.

Here, then, I had enjoyed an opportunity of hearing the opinions of one
of my own hirelings on the interesting subject of my right to my own
estate. I have since ascertained that, while these sentiments are
sedulously kept out of view in the proceedings of the government, which
deals with the whole matter as if the tenants were nothing but martyrs
to hard bargains, and the landlords their task-masters, of greater or
less lenity, they are extensively circulated in the "infected
districts," and are held to be very sound doctrines by a large number of
the "bone and sinew of the land." Of course the reasoning is varied a
little, to suit circumstances, and to make it meet the facts. But of
this school is a great deal, and a very great deal, of the reasoning
that circulates on the leased property; and, from what I have seen and
heard already, I make no doubt that there are _