The answer was, "I'm not paid to think."
The hop-kiln was a great success, and later, with the same workmen, I
added two more, as my hopyards extended, on exactly the same lines.
They would probably have been annually in use in the picking season up
to the present time had it not been that the low prices ruling
latterly have rendered a crop which requires so much labour,
knowledge, and supervision, not worth growing.
I hear, however, with much satisfaction, that these old hop-kilns and
storerooms have been of great service during the war for drying
medicinal herbs, chiefly belladonna and henbane, and that in 1917 the
turnover exceeded L6,000.
CHAPTER V.
AN OLD FASHIONED SHEPHERD--OLD TRICKER--A GARDENER--MY SECOND HEAD
CARTER--A LABOURER.
"Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."
--GRAY'S _Elegy_.
I had experiences of various shepherds, and the man I remember best
was John C. Short, sturdy, strong, and willing, he was somewhat
prejudiced and old-fashioned, with many traditions and inherited
convictions as to remedies and the treatment of sheep. John had a
knowing expression; his nose projected and his forehead and chin
retreated, so that his profile was angular. He wore the old-fashioned
long smock-frock--not the modern short linen jacket which goes by the
name of smock, but a garment that reached to his knees, with a
beautifully worked front over the chest.
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