"It will not amuse you unless you make money by it," suggested Hope.
"And nobody can do that nowadays. Farms don't pay."
"Ploughing and sowing don't pay, but brains and money pay wherever found together."
"Why not, sir? You have only to go with the times. Observe the condition of produce: grain too cheap for a farmer because continents can export grain with little loss; fruit dear; meat dear, because cattle can not be driven and sailed without risk of life and loss of weight; agricultural labor rising, and in winter unproductive, because to farm means to plough and sow, and reap and mow, and lose money. But meet those conditions. Breed cattle, sheep, and horses, and make the farm their feeding-ground. Give fifty acres to fruit; have a little factory on the land for winter use, and so utilize all your farm hands and the village women, who are cheaper laborers than town brats, and I think you will make a little money in the form of money, besides what you make in gratuitous eggs, poultry, fruit, horses to ride, and cart things for the house--items which seldom figure in a farmer's books as money, but we stricter accountants know they are."
"I'll do it," said Bartley, "if you'll be my neighbor, and work it with me, and watch the share market at home and abroad."
Hope acquiesced joyfully to be near his daughter; and they found a farm in Sussex, with hills for the sheep, short grass for colts, plenty of water, enough arable land and artificial grasses for their purpose, and a grand sunny slope for their fruit trees, fruit bushes, and strawberries, with which last alone they paid the rent.
"Then," said Hope, "farm laborers drink an ocean of beer. Now look at the retail price of beer: eighty per cent. over its cost, and yet deleterious, which tells against your labor. As an employer of labor, the main expense of a farm, you want beer to be slightly nourishing, and very inspiriting, not somniferous."
So they set up a malt-house and a brew-house, and supplied all their own hands with genuine liquor on the truck system at a moderate but remunerative price, and the grains helped to feed their pigs. Hope's principle was this: Sell no produce in its primitive form; if you change its form you make two profits. Do you grow barley? Malt it, and infuse it, and sell the liquor for two small profits, one on the grain, and one on the infusion. Do you grow grass? Turn it into flesh, and sell for two small profits, one on the herb, and one on the animal.