Calculate the loss of milk, the cost of cartage over a wide range of land, the damage done to the pastures by the trampling of heavy cattle in wet weather, all caused by the want of a few sheds, which it is impossible to have under the present system, and you will appreciate the position of a farmer holding under landlords who are careless as to the future, and merely live from hand to mouth.
"There is another improvement, which I offered to make at my own expense.

I asked permission to dam up a little stream, dig some trenches, and irrigate the fields, by which I could have doubled the produce both in quantity and quality.

You will hardly imagine the answer I received.

The monks declared the extraordinary fertility which would result from the irrigation, would be a sort of violence done to nature, by which in the end the soil could not fail to be impoverished.

What could I reply to such reasoning?
These good fathers only think of nursing their income.