He has hired a labourer to work with him, and will incur but little expense for horse-labour, as he and his assistant together are able to dig an acre very deeply in ten days; and he considers one such digging equal to three light ploughings; and from his experience of the last year, he is of opinion that spade-husbandry is far cheaper than that which is effected by the plough. As he reaps his vetches and rye for the pigs, he cuts out the stubbles with a bean-hoe for litter; and for the perfect cleansing of the ground before he digs it up, he collects the stubbles and clears them from earth with a little harrow drawn by the ass, and will pursue the same plan with all his stubbles. Last year he cut and bound half an acre of wheat himself with a fagging-hook, which I have described in my Cyclopædia, in one day; and he and his labourer intend to cut down an acre this year in the same way. I could enumerate many other particulars of this man’s excellent husbandry--such as burning the clay of headlands for manuring his turnip-crop and cabbage seedling beds--but I fear to be tedious, and therefore shall only add, that Johnny Halfacre is a true exemplification of the sacred proverb, that “the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.” He is always diligent (not only in seed-time and harvest, but all the year round), but never so busy with his field or garden crops as to choke the seed of God’s word in his heart, and render _that_ unfruitful by sloth or negligence. As far as I can judge, he does not permit his worldly to supersede his eternal interests; and as he knows the value of the _present_ TIME, so does he estimate aright the infinitely superior importance of that which is _future_. * * * * * IDLENESS.--The worst vices springing from the worst principles--the excesses of the libertine, and the outrages of the plunderer--usually take their rise from early and unsubdued idleness.--_Farr’s Discourses on Education._ LIFE AND ITS ILLUSIONS. “Lean not on Earth--’twill pierce thee to the heart-- A broken reed at best, but oft a spear, On whose sharp point Peace bleeds, and Hope expires.” YOUNG. We are but Shadows! None of all those things, Formless and vague, that flit upon the wings Of wild Imagination round thy couch, When Slumber seals thine eyes, is clothed with such An unreality as Human Life, Cherished and clung to as it is; the fear, The thrilling hope, the agonizing strife, Are not more unavailing there than here. To him who reads what Nature would pourtray, What speaks the night? A comment on the day. Day dies--Night lives--and, as in dumb derision, Mocks the past phantom with her own vain vision!