THE GOLDEN FOOT.
"This picture," consisting of some 2,000 acres of upper Down, is of an ex-desert flourishing as the rose. A profitable formula of reclamation has been discovered and invented by a farming genius. In older English farming the sheep was called the " golden foot " : where the flocks were penned, there the most golden crops would presently grow. With what care the ploughing was kept shallow that none of the gold might be lost 1 The gold on the Wiltshire Down comes from the hooves of cattle and the claws of poultry. I am not going to describe again in detail, since he has done it himself in The Spectator, Mr. Hosier's methods ; but the general picture has some features that have escaped observation. You must see the place to feel its full potency.
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