They shrugged their shoulders, and made no movement The energetic lady resolved to set an example, and to prove to them that they were wrong.
She rented an acre of arable land (at the side of the field), giving the tenant a fair price for it.

First it had to be enclosed so as to be parted off from the open field.

The cost of the palings made the vicar wince; his lady set it duly down to debit.

She planted one-half potatoes, as they paid thirty pounds per acre, and on the rest put in hundreds of currant bushes, set a strawberry bed and an asparagus bed, on the principle that luxuries of that kind fetch a high price and occupy no more space than cabbages.

As the acre was cultivated entirely by the spade, the cost of the labour expended upon it ran up the figures on the debit side to an amount which rather startled her.