e position of
their owner. But a plough! It means that he requires to take off his
coat and stop doing nothing. The Boer would like to argue that if God
had meant the soil to be disturbed by ploughs and such like, He would
not have left the solution of this problem in the hands of mere
inventors: He would have ordained a means whereby the soil would have
of itself turned over once a year at springtime.

The Boers are a pastoral people--one can hardly say an agricultural
people. They have been that sort of people from the start, and they
will never change. They are used to waggons and oxen and sheep, and
the waggons and oxen and sheep have got quite used to them. There is
abundance of proof in the Dutch Republics to satisfy any ordinary
person that a Boer, no matter if he can count his sovereigns by the
million, would never dream of giving up his farm and turning country
gentleman. He may take no part in the actual work (and this is not
much in his line under any circumstances), but he exercises that
amount of careful supervision necessary to successful farming, and
continues to do so until the end. Even the members of the Volksraad,
who are usually well-to-do farmers, never neglect their crops, albeit
a handsome income is assured in their official capacity.

But does farming in the Dutch Republics pay? Most emphatically, No. I
am not making this assertion because I have tried it myself, I am
simply quoting the dictum of every Boer. I have been careful to
obtain a consensus of opinion on this question for the guidance of
those who may contemplate embarking upon such an unsatisfactory and
dangerous undertaking. Farming does not pay. For my own satisfaction,
I recently questioned a Boer with regard to his average yearly income,
and he was good enough to humour me.

The value of his stock worked out as follows:

1,000 sheep say L 500
100 head of cattle " 1000
48 horses " 480
-----
L1980
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L s. d.
His yearly clip averaged 10 bales @ L10 = 100 0 0
On an average he sold:
20 head of cattle " L 8 = 160 0 0
10 horses " L10 = 100 0 0
Butter, 1,000 pounds " 1s. = 50 0 0
Hides and skin say 5 0 0
Horns