He could plan nothing out for next year.

He spent nothing, or next to nothing, on improved implements; but, on the other hand, he saved nothing, from a lack of resource and contrivance.
As the years went by he fell out of the social life of the times; that is, out of the social life of his own circle.

He regularly fed the pigs; but when he heard that the neighbours, were all going in to the town to attend some important agricultural meeting, or to start some useful movement, he put his hands behind his back and said that he should not go; he did not understand anything about it.

There never used to be anything of that sort.

So he went in to luncheon on bread and cheese and small ale.