ORIGIN OF THE WORD FARM.
Spelman derives this word from the Saxon term fearme, or feorme, which signifies victus, food, or provision, as the tenants and country people anciently paid their rents in victuals and other necessaries of life, but which was afterwards converted into the payment of certain sums of money. Hence a ferm was originally a place which furnished or supplied its owner or lord with provisions.
P.T.W.
At an inn in a market town upon the road to Holyhead, a gentleman sat in the kitchen smoking his pipe, and watching with anxiety a fowl that was roasting for his supper. At length a tall, meagre figure stalked in, and after an earnest and melancholy look at the fowl, retired with a sigh. Repeating his visit he exclaimed, "That fowl will never be done in time." "What do you mean?" said the gentleman, "that fowl is for my supper, and you shan't touch a bit of it." "Oh," replied the other, "you misunderstand me; I don't want the fowl; but I am to play Oroonoko this evening, and we cannot begin for want of the jack chain."
C.C.