frequency and the amount of his loans went on increasing.

We have seen in these latter days bank directors bitterly complaining that
they could not lend money at more than 7/8 or even 1/2 per cent., so
little demand was there for accommodation. They positively could not lend
their money; they had millions in their tills unemployed, and practically
going a-begging. But here was Frank paying seven per cent, for short
loans, and upon a continually enlarging amount. His system, so far as the
seasons were concerned, was something like this. He took a loan (or
renewed an old one) at the bank on the security of the first draught of
lambs for sale, say, in June. This paid the labourers and the working
expenses of the hay harvest, and of preparing for the corn. He took the
next upon the second draught of lambs in August, which paid the reapers.
He took a third on the security of the crops, partly cut, or in process of
cutting, for his Michaelmas rent. Then for the fall of the year he kept on
threshing out and selling as he required money, and had enough left to pay
for the winter's work. This was Frank's system--the system of too many
farmers, far more than would be believed. Details of course vary, and not
all, like Frank, need three loans at least in the season to keep them
going. It is not every man who mortgages his lambs, his ewes (the draught
from a flock for sale), and the standing crops in succession.

But of late years farming has been carried on in such an atmosphere of
loans, and credit, and percentage, and so forth, that no one knows what is
or what is not mortgaged. You see a flock of sheep on a farm, but you do
not know to whom they belong. You see the cattle in the meadow, but you do
not know who has a lien upon them. You see the farmer upon his
thoroughbred, but you do not know to whom in reality the horse belongs. It
is all loans and debt. The vendors of artificial manure are said not to be
averse sometimes to make an advance on reasonable terms to those