There are few pigs, there are no gleaners, and there
is little grain in the neighbouring fields either of wheat or barley, so the mill wheel will never revolve again except in times of flood when the water may need a double passage, through the mill as well as down the sluice. The stream will no longer set the wheat stone and the barley stone revolving horizontally on the bed stones : its force will be wholly wasted. We may well lament, in the vein of Edison, who is said to have wept when he saw the waste of power in the " unharvested sea " ; and one cannot but think that some use for such cheap and easy power ought to be found, even though there is not grain to grind. Some products, some words are vanishing with the old mill. Broad bran is no longer easily procurable though rolling devices have been tried for giving the appearance. " Pollards " becomes a word of the past, when every cottager knew precisely what was the value of bran, of " middlings," of pollard for his pigs or poultry.
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