night he knew as well as Mr. von so and so whether the partridges were good. He liked that way of farming very much, and as people generally enjoy talking of what pleases them, our friend Alick was not behindhand in this respect, and so of course soon gained a reputation of understanding such matters, and was regarded as a shining light by his comrades. As most of his brother officers were the sons of noblemen who were possessed of large estates they knew that in course of time they would have to give up their easy comfortable garrison life and undertake the difficult task of managing a property in such a way as to gain the largest possible income from it, they therefore looked upon Alick as a miracle of diligence and imagined that he enjoyed the thought of the hard work before him. The greater number of them admired him heartily for it, but there were several foolish fellows amongst their number, who were such fine gentlemen, that they considered taking an interest in such matters beneath the dignity of an officer in his majesty's service. Alick was always chosen as umpire in any dispute on farming matters, and as he had to defend his position by argument, he was obliged to keep his eyes open lest he should be worsted, and so his knowledge gradually increased. Great progress had been made in the science of agriculture during the last few years, for Professor Liebig had written a learned book for the benefit of country-gentlemen, which was filled with analytical observations about coal, and nitre, and sulphur, and gypsum, and chalk, and ammonia, and which explained hydraulics and irrigation--it was enough to make any sane man go mad only to read it! And yet everyone who wished to increase his knowledge of such matters, and to dip his fingers into science, bought the book, and sitting down, read and read till his brain whirled, and when he had finished the book he hardly knew whether gypsum was nutritious or otherwise--for clover, not for men--or whether he ought to attribute the odour of the farm-yard to the presence of ammonia or not.--Alick got the book and read it diligently, but it quite stupified him, he felt as if his head were going to burst, and his mind became a blank, so he shut it up, and would soon have forgotten all about it, if he had not made the acquaintance of a good-natured chemist, who showed him the different substances specified by the professor and let him examine and smell them for himself. This was learning the thing practically, and from that moment he understood the whole matter as well as Liebig himself, and so never needed to look into the book again.