Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/157

 Rh ) and uniform; with less of privation and much more of occupation for mind and body than I had anticipated. But where are all the flocks and herds?—Where?

It cost me 32l. to get a cow and a calf, and the cow is dead. Sheep are 3l. each; so that it would take all my capital to possess a flock—even less than the patriarch's—such as would afford the keeping of a shepherd. From one sow I have had thirty pigs—the only stock which has multiplied with me—and a much larger number I could not support. It is easy for a person at home to say, "You can keep pigs and poultry without limit as to numbers," but they must be fed in summer at considerable expense; and as our fences are generally bad, the pigs eat down the wheat and destroy the gardens, and the poultry soon devour their own value in grain. These are among our checks; however, I am giving you the worst side of the picture—the features of the reversed one you will trace through the sketching lines of my whole journal.

The truth is, I hate high colouring in these cases, which may mislead, and therefore strip the portraiture of all ornament and exhibit the naked truth, "which when unadorned is adorned the most." An awful responsibility would rest on me were I to hold out inducements to any one, when success depends so much on the taste, physical adaptation, amount of capital, &c. It costs a