THREE:"It'll want a tedious lot of fighting, will that plot," he asserted, to counteract any idea his eagerness might give that Boarzell was a mine of hidden fertility��"Dunno as I shall m?ake anything out of it. But it's land I want��want to m?ake myself a sort of landed praprietor"��a lie��"and raise the old farm up a bit. I'd like to have the whole of Boarzell. Reckon as Grandturzel 'ud sell me their bit soon as I've got the rest. They'll never m?ake anything out of it."He was dismayed by the lack of local enthusiasm. He dug up one or two of his own pastures and planted wheat; he even sacrificed ten acres of his precious hops,[Pg 410] but nobody seemed inclined to follow his example. The neighbourhood was ornately patriotic, flags flew from the oast-houses at Socknersh, union Jacks washed to delicate pastel shades by the chastening rain��while the Standard misleadingly proclaimed that the Royal Family was in residence at Burntbarns. On Odiam the boys sang: