The hare, busy as he was and seeming to see nothing, had crossed his 'wind.' Hilary came to me, and we walked together along the waggon-track, repassing the wheat.

He was full about it: he was always grieving over the decadence of the wheat crop.
There was nothing, he went on, so pleasant to watch as it came up, nothing that required so much care and skill, nothing so thoroughly associated with the traditions of English farming as wheat, and yet nothing so disappointing.

Foreign importations had destroyed this the very mainstay.

Now, that crop which he had just left had 'tillered out' well; but what profit should he get from the many stalks that had tillered or sprung from each single grain, thus promising a fiftyfold return?
It had been well got in, and, as the old saw had it, 'Well sown, half grown;' it had been in the ground the proper time ('Long in the bed, big in the head'); but likely enough the price next autumn would not much more than pay the expenses of preparation.
The thunderstorm before Christmas was not perhaps a favourable omen, since Winter's thunder and summer's flood Bode old England no good.
Last year showed that 'summer's flood' was as destructive as in the olden time.

But then there would have been a rise of prices, according to the saying,-- When the vale shall feed the hill, Every man shall eat his fill.
But when the hill shall feed the vale, The penny loaf shall be but small.
Now, last season, so far as our home harvests were concerned, the 'hill' did feed the 'vale,' but the penny loaves were as large and as plentiful as usual, owing to foreign grain.