But many a race-horse owner has found reason since to doubt if it be so wonderful, as his own stud--to judge by the cost--must live on golden fodder.

Now, before I found this out about the stable, it happened one spring day that I met Hilary in the fields, and listened to a long tirade which he delivered against 'wuts.' The wheat was then showing a beautiful flag, the despised oats were coming out in jag, and the black knots on the delicate barley straw were beginning to be topped with the hail.

The flag is the long narrow green leaf of the wheat; in jag means the spray-like drooping awn of the oat; and the hail is the beard of the barley, which when it is white and brittle in harvest-time gets down the back of the neck, irritating the skin of those who work among it.

According to Hilary, oats do not flourish on rich land; and when he was young (and everything was then done right) a farmer who grew oats was looked upon with contempt, as they were thought only fit for the poorest soil, and a crop that therefore denoted poverty.

But nowadays, thundered Hilary in scorn, all farmers grow oats, and, indeed, anything in preference to wheat.
Afterwards, at the Derby that year, methought I saw Hilary as I passed the sign of the 'Carrion Crow:' the dead bird dangles from the top of a tall pole stuck in the sward beside a booth.