He found this sort of practical apiculture very agreeable, and as a man is apt to talk about the things that please him, Axel did not fail to exhibit his attainments, and was soon known among his comrades as a shining light, quite an agricultural tallow candle, four to the pound. Since most of them were the sons of noble landed proprietors, and destined to the same life, and looking forward with horror to the time when they must leave their jolly soldier-life, for the hard work of gentlemen farmers, Axel seemed to them an unusual example of diligence, and they looked upon him as upon some wonderful animal who out of pure love for labor had put his head into the yoke. Most of them admired him accordingly, though a few blockheads turned up their noses, and insinuated that for a lieutenant his conversation savored too strongly of the farm-yard. Having set himself up as an authority in agricultural matters, it was necessary to sustain his reputation, and to make progress with time. And that was a period of wonderful progress in agricultural science, for Professor Liebig had written a famous book for the farmers, which was brimful and running over of carbon and saltpetre, and sulphur, and gypsum, and lime, and sal-ammoniac, and hydrates and hydropathy, enough to drive one crazy. People who wished to dip their fingers in science procured this book, and sat down to it, and read and read, until their heads were dizzy; and if they tried to recollect, they could not tell whether gypsum were a stimulant or a nutriment,--that is to say, for clover, not for human beings. Axel bought this book, and it fared with him as with the rest, he read and read, but kept growing dizzier, and his head turned round as if there were screws getting loose in it, and he shut the book. It would probably have stopped here, with him, as with the others, he would have forgotten the whole concern, if he had not had the fortune to know a good-natured apothecary, who could let him take all the drugs, of which the book treated, into his own hands, and smell them with his own nose. This was the practical way, and from that moment he understood the business, yes, as well as Liebig himself, so that he had no occasion to read farther in the book. The branch of agriculture which gave him particular pleasure was farming-implements and machinery. He had from a child taken great delight in all sorts of inventions; as a boy he had made little mills, he had pasted, and, although his mother had a great dislike to anything that smacked of handicraft, he had, during his school-days, taken private lessons in book-binding. These tastes came into exercise now; he was uncommonly pleased to see a design of a new-fashioned American rake, or a Scotch harrow, and it was not long before he indulged in the innocent amusement of cutting little rakes and harrows and rollers himself.