that he did not dare. He took everything out of the soil that it was
possible to take out. The last Michaelmas was approaching, and he walked
round in the warm August sunshine to look at the wheat.

He sat down on an old roller that lay in the corner of the field, and
thought over the position of things. He calculated that it would cost the
incoming tenant an expenditure of from one thousand two hundred pounds to
one thousand five hundred pounds to put the farm, which was a large one,
into proper condition. It could not be got into such condition under three
years of labour. The new tenant must therefore be prepared to lay out a
heavy sum of money, to wait while the improvement went on, must live how
he could meanwhile, and look forward some three years for the commencement
of his profit. To such a state had the farm been brought in a brief time.
And how would the landlord come off? The new tenant would certainly make
his bargain in accordance with the state of the land. For the first year
the rent paid would be nominal; for the second, perhaps a third or half
the usual sum; not till the third year could the landlord hope to get his
full rental. That full rental, too, would be lower than previously,
because the general depression had sent down arable rents everywhere, and
no one would pay on the old scale.

Smith thought very hard things of the landlord, and felt that he should
have his revenge. On the other hand, the landlord thought very hard things
of Smith, and not without reason. That an old tenant, the descendant of
one of the oldest tenant-farmer families, should exhaust the soil in this
way seemed the blackest return for the good feeling that had existed for
several generations. There was great irritation on both sides.

Smith had, however, to face one difficulty. He must either take another
farm at once, or live on his capital. The interest of his capital--if