Another winter finished it.  The cow had to be sold, but a third time the ‘hat’ was sent round and saved the horses.  Grown wiser now, the ‘farmer’ stuck to his hauling, and only worked his plot at odd times.  In this way, by hauling and letting out his team in harvest, and working himself and family at the same time for wages, he earned a good deal of money, and kept afloat very comfortably.  He made no further attempt to live out of the ‘farm,’ which was now sown with one or two crops only in the same rotation as a field, and no longer cultivated on the garden system.  Had it not been for the subscriptions he must have given it up entirely long before.  Bitter experience demonstrated how false the calculations had been which seemed to show—­on the basis of the produce of a small allotment—­that a man might live on three or four acres.

He is not the only example of an extravagant estimate being put upon the possible product of land:  it is a fallacy that has been fondly believed in by more logical minds than the poor cottager.  That more may be got out of the soil than is the case at present is perfectly true; the mistake lies in the proposed method of doing it.

There was a piece of land between thirty and forty acres in extent, chiefly arable, which chanced to come into the possession of a gentleman, who made no pretence to a knowledge of agriculture, but was naturally desirous of receiving the highest rental.  Up to that time it had been occupied by a farmer at thirty shillings per acre, which was thought the full value.  He did not particularly want it, as it lay separated from the farm proper, and gave it up with the greatest alacrity when asked to do so in favour of a new tenant.  This man turned out to be a villager—­a blustering, ignorant fellow—­who had, however, saved a small sum by hauling, which had been increased by the receipt of a little legacy.  He was confident that he could show the farmers how to do it—­he had worked at plough, had reaped, and tended cattle, and had horses of his own, and was quite sure that farming was a profitable business, and that the tenants had their land dirt cheap.  He ‘knowed’ all about it.

He offered three pounds an acre for the piece at once, which was accepted, notwithstanding a warning conveyed to the owner that his new tenant had scarcely sufficient money to pay a year’s rent at that rate.  But so rapid a rise in the value of his land quite dazzled the proprietor, and the labourer—­for he was really nothing better, though fortunate enough to have a little money—­entered on his farm.  When this was known, it was triumphantly remarked that if a man could actually pay double the former rent, what an enormous profit the tenant-farmers must have been making!  Yet they wanted to reduce the poor man’s wages.  On the other hand, there were not wanting hints that the man’s secret idea was to exhaust the land and then leave it.  But this was not the case—­he was honestly in earnest, only he had got an exaggerated notion of the profits of farming.  It is scarcely necessary to say that the rent for the third half year was not forthcoming, and the poor fellow lost his all.  The land then went begging at the old price, for it had become so dirty—­full of weeds from want of proper cleaning—­that it was some time before any one would take it.