stone, having consumed about a coomb of barley-meal. Two of the eight pigs were made into porkers, with a little barley-meal; one died, and the other five sold for 31. 11s. When I took the six acres of arable land into my own hands, I agreed with the former tenant, who still continued to farm other land belonging to me, that he should perform all the labour of this little farm for me, charging a fair, though not, of course, a fancy price for the same. He was to plough for me, and cart the produce home. His men were to reap my crops, &c. Of course it would never have done for me to keep a labourer, or a pair of horses, for the work of so small a farm. In giving the following balance-sheet it must be remembered that this was my first year of farming, and that some mistakes were unavoidably made, and that the land was not perhaps cropped to the best advantage. Of the six acres I determined to grow half in corn; and this was right enough, as with a horse and two or three cows and pigs, I have plenty of manure to keep the land in good order under such heavy cropping. But in the light of after-experience I found that I should not have sown carrots or beans, as the soil is not well suited for them. At Michaelmas, then, having as incoming tenant taken the last year's straw, valued at 51. 8s., and manure, for which I had to give 31. 18s., I proceeded to lay out the land in the following way :-One acre to barley, half-acre potatoes, half-acre carrots (a mistake), two acres oats, one acre peas, half-acre beans (a mistake also), half-acre mangolds. I manured the acre for barley, also that for peas, also the half-acre for mangolds. The corn crops I have found since should not be manured, but should succeed some crop, root or other, which has received a heavy manuring the year before. This, then, is the balance-sheet of a farm of thirteen acres-seven being grass land and six arable-from Michaelmas to Michaelmas. CROPS. One acre barley, eleven coombs at 17s. 6d. a coomb... £9 12 6 Half acre carrots, three tons at £1 7 10 0 3 0 0 12 0 0 6 2 6 3 0 0 3 0 0 £44 5 0 In the above balance-sheet I may remark the labour bill is much too high; it should not have been more than 201. Yet it will be seen there is a good profit, though the profit on the arable land, 31. 16s. 6d., is much reduced by the excessive charge for working it. The general calculation is, I believe, that the labour bill on an arable farm should be about another rent; on pasture-land of course, it will be much less. Now, with this little farm, it will be seen I clear 167. 6s. 6d., have my bacon, hay, oats, milk and butter at prime cost, besides numberless little advantages, such as refuse barley (that which is mixed with grit, dust, &c. after winnowing) for the fowls, a food which keeps them well enough, and is not worth anything to the producer. Of course, with the light of experience, I shall expect to do better in the future. At any rate in the accounts here set down I have tried to be fair, putting the profits rather under than over, and charging myself the full value for what I have paid. Wives and Daughters. AN EVERY-DAY STORY. CHAPTER XXVII. FATHER AND SONS. HINGS were not going on any better at Hamley Hall. Nothing had occurred to change the state of dissatisfied feeling into which the squire and his eldest son had respectively fallen; and the long continuance merely of dissatisfaction is sure of itself to deepen the feeling. Roger did all in his power to bring the father and son together; but sometimes wondered if it would not have been better to leave them alone; for they were falling into the habit of respectively making him their confidant, and so defining emotions and opinions which would have had less distinctness if they had been unexpressed. There was little enough relief in the daily life at the Hall to help them all to shake off the gloom; and it even told on the health of both the squire and Osborne. The squire became thinner, his skin as well as his clothes began to hang loose about him, and the freshness of his colour turned to red streaks, till his cheeks looked like Eardiston pippins, instead of resembling "a Katherine pear on the side that's next the sun." Roger thought that his father sate indoors and smoked in his study more than was good for him, but it had become difficult to get him far afield; he was too much afraid of coming across some sign of the discontinued drainage works, or being irritated afresh by the sight of his depreciated timber. Osborne was rapt up in the idea of arranging his poems for the press, and so working out his wish for independence. What with daily writing to his wife-taking his letters himself to a distant post-office, and receiving hers there-touching up his sonnets, &c., with fastidious care; and occasionally giving himself the pleasure of a visit to the Gibsons, and enjoying the society of the two |