Taking three wine-glasses--No. 1 representing the farmer, No. 2 the
bailiff, and No. 3 the purchaser--he filled No. 1 with port and poured
the contents into No. 3; what few drops were left in No. 1 remained
the property of the farmer. But if the wine were poured into No. 2,
and from thence into No. 3, however much the complete transference was
attempted, some small portion always remained for the benefit of the
intermediary.
I always conducted my sales personally, except in small matters, and
my experience in the latter proved an exception to the above rule, as
I have previously related (pp. 17 and 20).
I commend _Talpa_, with George Cruikshank's clever illustrations, to
the attention of all readers of the curiosities of agriculture, as
well as to practical men; it is one of those uncommon books which
enters into the humorous side of farming under disadvantages--as, for
instance, prejudiced labourers who have long been employed upon such
work as draining. The author found one of the men, after instructions
to lay the pipes at a depth of three feet, cutting a drain about
eighteen inches deep, _laying in the tiles, one by one, and filling
the earth in over them as he went_. "I've been a-draining this forty
year and more--I ought to know summat about it." The author adds,
"Need I tell you who said this? or give you the whole of the colloquy
to which it furnished the epilogue?" _Talpa_ was published sixty-seven
years ago, but it contains much that might well be taken to heart by
our post-war amateur agricultural reconstructionists.
Pages:
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197