currier insist on stripping the victim of his fleece, and even flaying
his skin, before they can assure us of fit clothing and covering against
cold and rain for our bodies and our belongings. And what a wretched
plight we should be in, if the sheep, or their like, did not come to the
rescue, or the help they are fitted to render were not laid under
contribution! For not only might we be fated to go often dinnerless to
bed, and to live all our days in a body imperfectly nourished, but our
evenings would in many cases be spent without light, and our journeys
undertaken without comfort, and our outer man left to battle at odds,
unshod and unprotected, with the discomforts of the highway and the
inclemency of the seasons. Of all the services rendered by the sheep to
the race of man, perhaps the most invaluable is that which is accorded
in the gift of wool; and it is for the sake of this alone that, in many
quarters, whole flocks, and even breeds, are reared and tended,--so
great is the demand for it, and such the esteem in which it is held for
the purpose of clothing the body and keeping it in warmth.

3. But, again, to advance a step further, there are, as the landlady of
the inn remarked, "neeps intilt." On this part of the subject, that I
may pass to the next topic on which I mean to speak, and which is of
wider range, I intend to say little. I have already referred to the
important place assigned to this vegetable by a living economist as
affording a basis for grouping society into two great classes. To the
farmer it is of equal, and far more practical, importance; for it is, by
the manner of its cultivation, a great means of clearing the land of
weeds; it is the chief support of sheep and cattle through the months of
winter; and it is one of the most valuable crops raised on British soil,
and of equal account in the agriculture of both England and Scotland.
The culture of turnips on farms involves considerable expense indeed,
and is sometimes attended with loss, and even failure; but they are of