He now set up as a farmer, ploughed and sowed, dug and weeded, kept his own hours, and went into the market and walked about as independent as any one.  After a while the three acres began to absorb nearly all his time, so that the hauling, which was the really profitable part of the business, had to be neglected.  Then, the ready money not coming in so fast, the horses had to go without corn, and pick up what they could along the roadside, on the sward, and out of the hedges.  They had, of course, to be looked after while thus feeding, which occupied two of the children, so that these could neither go to school nor earn anything by working on the adjacent farms.  The horses meantime grew poor in condition; the winter tried them greatly from want of proper fodder; and when called upon to do hauling they were not equal to the task.  In the country, at a distance from towns, there is not always a good market for vegetables, even when grown.  The residents mostly supply themselves, and what is raised for export has to be sold at wholesale prices.

The produce of the three acres consequently did not come up to the tenant’s expectation, particularly as potatoes, on account of the disease, could not be relied on.  Meantime he had no weekly money coming in regularly, and his wife and family had often to assist him, diminishing their own earnings at the same time; while he was in the dilemma that if he did hauling he must employ and pay a man to work on the ‘farm,’ and if he worked himself he could not go out with his team.  In harvest time, when the smaller farmers would have hired his horses, waggon, and himself and family to assist them, he had to get in his own harvest, and so lost the hard cash.

He now discovered that there was one thing he had omitted, and which was doubtless the cause why he did not flourish as he should have done according to his calculations.  All the agriculturists around kept live stock—­he had none.  Here was the grand secret—­it was stock that paid:  he must have a cow.  So he set to work industriously enough, and put up a shed.  Then, partly by his own small savings, partly by the assistance of the members of the sect to which he belonged, he purchased the desired animal and sold her milk.  In summer this really answered fairly well while there was green food for nothing in plenty by the side of little-frequented roads, whither the cow was daily led.  But so soon as the winter approached the same difficulty as with the horses arose, i.e., scarcity of fodder.  The cow soon got miserably poor, while the horses fell off yet further, if that were possible.  The calf that arrived died; next, one of the horses.  The ‘hat’ was sent round again, and a fresh horse bought; the spring came on, and there seemed another chance.  What with milking and attending to the cow, and working on the ‘farm,’ scarcely an hour remained in which to earn money with the horses.  No provision could be laid by for the winter.  The live stock—­the cow and horses—­devoured part of the produce of the three acres, so that there was less to sell.