When we were all
here I thought that Lord Rufford admired her, and that poor Mr.
Morton was a little jealous."
"I wasn't at Rufford then. Here we get out of the park on to the
home farm. Rufford does it very well,--very well indeed."
"Looks after it altogether himself?"
"I cannot quite say that. He has a land-bailiff who lives in the
house there."
"With a salary?"
"Oh yes; 120 pounds a year I think the man has:"
"And that house?" asked the Senator. "Why, the house and garden are
worth 50 pounds a year."
"I dare say they are. Of course it costs money. It's near the park
and had to be made ornamental."
"And does it pay?"
"Well, no; I should think not. In point of fact I know it does not.
He loses about the value of the ground."
The Senator asked a great many more questions and then began his
lecture. "A man who goes into trade and loses by it, cannot be
doing good to himself or to others. You say, Sir George, that it is
a model farm;--but it's a model of ruin. If you want to teach a man
any other business, you don't specially select an example in which
the proprietors are spending all their capital without any return.
And if you would not do this in shoemaking, why in farming?"
"The neighbours are able to see how work should be done."
"Excuse me, Sir George, but it seems to me that they are enabled to
see how work should not be done.
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