94 STATE BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



have been wortli to-fl:iy witli the time you have spent in farming by practicing 

 economy on a small scale? 



Farmer B. goes to town to trade ; he bnys twelve yards of calico. The mer- 

 chant asked him seven cents a yard, but by shrewd argument and long entrea- 

 ties he buys it for six cents. The merchant has not made one farthing on the 

 sale, but lets him have it thinking to get another chance at him. The farmer 

 goes home thinking he has saved or economized twelve cents on the calico; 

 but what does he do when he gets home? The hogs are to be fed; he takes a 

 bushel of corn and throws it into the mud for the hogs to eat. They don't 

 get but half of it, which is twelve cents — all he saved on the calico. And this 

 is not all ; when those hogs go to bed there is not one straw for twelve or four- 

 teen hogs to lie on ; they grow poor every day; he says they are not a good 

 breed, or have got the distemper, or something is the matter. Next he goes 

 to the barn to fodder and feeds in a similar way that the hogs were fed, having 

 no rack to feed in, scatters around the yard ; cattle and sheep stamp it into 

 the mud, don't eat half. When winter is over he has wasted enough to have 

 bought more calico at seven cents a yard than his wife could have worn out 

 in ten years, or enough to have dressed his wife in first class style the year 

 round. Now this is only one of the instances of economy in small things that 

 a farmer can practice. Let us look at this matter squarely, with a view to 

 improve our methods, and. the addition to our income thus gained will sur- 

 prise us. 



T. C. Abbot, President of the Agricultural College of Michigan, gave an 

 address on "Manual Labor in the Michigan Agricultural College." (See 

 lectures given at more than one Listitute.) 



Mr. Geo. S. Eawson read the following paper: 



THE FARMER IN SOCIETY. 



In an occupation which contains about one-half the population, and so large 

 a portion of tlie entire wealth of the nation, it is certainly to be expected that 

 we will find all classes of minds, all grades of society, and all degrees of intel- 

 ligence. Nor does the occupation of the farmer differ, in this respect, from 

 that of others. Human nature is pretty much the same throughout all trades 

 and professions. But the farmer's life differs in some respects from that of 

 all others. His is, perhaps, a more isolated existence. He is brought more in 

 contact with nature, and less, it may be, with the treachery of man. His 

 companions, outside of his own family circle, and his help, are to some extent, 

 domestic animals, which never sink to the degradation of which man is capa- 

 ble. The haunts of vice, which infest the large cities, he sees only through 

 the public press. If he deals fairly with mother earth, starvation never stares 

 him in the face. He may be a bad character, but if so he is such in spite of 

 his surroundings. 



It is not our purpose to exalt the business of farming above that of any other 

 avocation in which men are engaged ; but the time has certainly gone by when 

 it was considered the business only of the dull, uncouth, and ignorant. There 

 are many bad men, and ignorant men in its ranks it is true — if you can pro- 

 duce worse, heaven pity your production; but we believe there is too much of 

 a tendency to judge the whole by the few. There are many who forget the 

 noblest efforts of the clergy to make men better; because one man in a thou- 

 sand falls. They have only curses for the whole legal fraternity, though one 

 in ten is honest — probably. They will denounce the merchants in a mass, 

 because some are addicted to giving false weights, and avoiding truth as a leper. 



