that 'summer's flood' was as destructive as in the
olden time. But then there would have been a rise of prices, according
to the saying,--

When the vale shall feed the hill,
Every man shall eat his fill.
But when the hill shall feed the vale,
The penny loaf shall be but small.

Now, last season, so far as our home harvests were concerned, the
'hill' did feed the 'vale,' but the penny loaves were as large and as
plentiful as usual, owing to foreign grain. In those old days, seventy
or eighty years since, the whole population of the kingdom watched the
weather with anxiety; and it was then that the signs and tokens of
birds and plants and the set of the wind at particular times were
regarded as veritable oracles to be inquired into not without fear and
trembling.

Hilary heard all about it when he was a lad from old Jonathan, who had
a corn-farm up on the hills, and where he used to go to plough. Hilary
never stated the exact degree, but there was some relationship between
them--two branches, I fancy, of the same family. He seemed to have a
very bitter memory of the old man (now dead), who had been a hard
master to him in his youth; besides which, some family jar had arisen
over money matters; still, he was fond of quoting Jonathan in reference
to wheat and the heyday of corn-farming. Jonathan remembered when a
load of wheat fetched 55_l._--a load being five quarters or ten
sacks--or 11_l._ a quarter. The present average of wheat was about
2_l._ 6_s._ per quarter. At the same time bread was at 3_s._ a gallon;
it is now about 1_s._ 6_d._ The wages of an agricultural labourer were
6_s._ a week. It was gambling, positive gambling, in the staff of
life.

No farmer was held in any esteem if he did not keep his wheat ricks
till harvest came again before threshing them out: men grew rich
suddenly and knew not what to do with their money. Farmers who had
been brought up 'hard,' living like labourers, working like labourers,
and with little more amusement than labourers, all at once found their
pockets full of coin. The wheat they had been selling at 5_l._ a load
ran up to 50_l._ With their purses thus crammed full, what were they
to do? There was nothing but drink, and they did drink.

In those days the farmer in his isolated homestead was more cut off
from the world than the settler at the present time in the backwoods
or on the prairies. The telegraph wires span the continent of America,
and are carried