"How would you tackle those wet slopes under Fox Tor?" asked the new-comer.
"Well," answered Beer, "drain, drain, drain an' graze, graze, graze; an' leave the natural herbage as much as you may. You won't better it."
The stranger laughed.
"If Maurice Malherb can't improve upon Nature on Dartmoor, 'tis pity," he declared.
But Richard Beer shook his head.
"You've got to follow in these parts, not lead. Nature do know her own business; an' you can't teach her, for her won't larn. Farming be a sort of coaxing her to your way o' thinking. There's two sorts o' stuff the place be made of: peaty moor, as'll yield good grass; an' swamp, as be useful to nought but a frog. This here Mr. Malherb must drain, an' pare, an' burn in reason; but he must not overdo it."
"Mind you, the natural things have their value," put in old Smallridge. "French furze at four years' growth do fetch a pound an acre. An' if the land be fatted properly the man might grow potatoes."
"Potatoes do eat up all afore you eat them," said Beer; "though the appleing of 'em do keep the earth sweet an' mellow. Then he'll follow with barley, not wheat."
"As to the chances of corn?" asked the stranger. His wet coat smoked and sent up a fire-lit steam in the darkening chamber.
"Corn's a ticklish business, master," replied Beer. "Yet 'tis to be done if you'll bring your soil to a husband-like tilth an' not spare lime. Burn clean, plough, an' dress as generously as your pocket will stand. Then spread fresh mould afore the seed earth. Earth must be fetched, for you've got to remember there's none there. Then sow your wheat—ten pecks to the acre—harrow in, strike out the furrows, and pray God for eighteen bushels to the acre. He can do it an' He's a minded. Next year the man must refresh his stubble, plough, sow, hack in, an' hope for ten or twelve bushels. Then turnips must follow—not broadcast like our fathers sowed 'em—for that's to spread a table for the fly, but the two-furrow way. Then the land must have three years' fallow; an' that's the whole law an' the prophets about it, so far as I know anything."