Mean while I began my farming with great eagerness,
and that very winter planted these groves that please you so
much. -- As for the neighbouring gentry, I had no trouble from that
quarter during my first campaign; they were all gone to town
before I settled in the country; and by the summer I had taken
measures to defend myself from their attacks. -- When a gay
equipage came to my gates, I was never at home; those who visited
me in a modest way, I received; and according to the remarks I
made on their characters and conversation, either rejected their
advances, or returned their civility -- I was in general despised
among the fashionable company, as a low fellow, both in breeding
and circumstances; nevertheless, I found a few individuals of
moderate fortune, who gladly adopted my stile of living; and many
others would have acceded to our society, had they not been
prevented by the pride, envy, and ambition of their wives and
daughters. -- Those, in times of luxury and dissipation, are the
rocks upon which all the small estates in the country are
wrecked.
'I reserved in my own hands, some acres of ground adjacent to the
house, for making experiments in agriculture, according to the
directions of Lyle, Tull, Hart, Duhamel, and others who have
written on this subject; and qualified their theory with the
practical observations of farmer Bland, who was my great master
in the art of husbandry.
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