In A Place Where The Soil Was Sand,
With Much Heath, On Elevated Ground, There Was No Annoyance From Flies.
There Were Crowds Of Them, But They Did Not Attack Human Beings.
You
might sit on a bank in the fields with endless insects passing without
being irritated; but everywhere out of doors you must listen for the
peculiar low whir of the stoat-fly, who will fill his long grey body with
your blood in a very few minutes.
This is the tsetse of our woods.
STEAM ON COUNTRY ROADS.
Losses year after year and increasing competition indicate that the crops
now grown are not sufficient to support the farmer. When he endeavours,
however, to vary his method of culture, and to introduce something new,
he is met at the outset by two great difficulties which crush out the
possibility of enterprise. The first of these - the extraordinary
tithe - has already come into prominent notice; the second is really even
more important - it is the deficiency of transit. An extensive use of
steam on common roads appears essential to a revival of agricultural
prosperity, because without it it is almost impossible for delicate and
perishable produce to be quickly and cheaply brought to market. Railways,
indeed, now connect nearly every town of any size whatever throughout the
country with the large cities or London; but railways are necessarily
built as lines of communication between towns, and not in reference to
scattered farms. Upon the map the spaces between the various rails do not
look very broad, but those white bands when actually examined would be
found to be six, eight, ten, or even twenty miles wide.
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