Yet he was not bigoted or prejudiced to the customs of his
ancestors--another proof that he was a man of mind. Hodson foresaw, before
he had been long at Upcourt Farm, that corn was not going in future to be
so all in all important as it had been. As he said himself, 'We must go to
our flocks now for our rent, and not to our barn doors.' His aim,
therefore, became to farm into and through his flock, and it paid him
well. Here was a man at once economical to the verge of meanness, prudent
to the edge of timidity, yet capable of venturing when he saw his chance;
and above all, when that venture succeeded, capable of still living on
bacon and bread and cheese, and putting the money by.

In his earlier days Hodson was as close of speech as of expenditure, and
kept his proceedings a profound secret. As he grew older and took less
active exercise--the son resident at home carrying out his
instructions--he became more garrulous and liked to talk about his system.
The chief topic of his discourse was that a farmer in his day paid but one
rent, to the landlord, whereas now, on the modern plan, he paid eight
rents, and sometimes nine. First, of course, the modern farmer paid his
landlord (1); next he paid the seedsman (2); then the manure manufacturer
(3); the implement manufacturer (4); the auctioneer (5); the railroad, for
transit (6); the banker, for short loans (7); the lawyer or whoever
advanced half his original capital (8); the schoolmaster (9).

To begin at the end, the rent paid by the modern farmer to the
schoolmaster included the payment for the parish school; and, secondly,
and far more important, the sum paid for the education of his own
children. Hodson maintained that many farmers paid as much hard cash for
the education of their children, and for the necessary social surroundings
incident to that education, as men used to pay for the entire sustenance
of their households. Then there was the borrowed capital, and the short