808 



properly directed ; must be laid out in the proper time and in such a 

 manner as to do the most good. Cultivate a field ever so well, and 

 plant it to corn or sov? it to wheat, and what does it amount to if the 

 soil is not adapted to the growth of the crop ' Wheat sown upon land 

 where it is sure to be drowned out by the water, is bestowing labor to 

 be lost, and there are thousands of acres sown in this very way. Corn 

 planted on a stiff clayey soil in the mud had better be left in the crib, 

 and it is so with every ill-directed effort to raise a crop of any kind of 

 grain. In farming operations especially what is not done in the season 

 for doing it might often better not be done at all. We often hear a 

 farmer say, as an excuse for his poor, feeble looking field of corn, that he 

 was obliged to plow the land when it was wet, and it has baked so hard 

 that the corn don't do well. This is no excuse. Plowing land when it 

 is wet not only spoils it for the present crop but for many crops to come, 

 and this is a fact which every farmer ought to know, for it has been es- 

 tablished by the experience of every man who has tried the experiment. 

 Some farmers in the winter, leave everything to be done in the summer, 

 and the consequence is, when summer comes, they are alw^ays working 

 themselves to death, are always behind hand, always in a hurry, always 

 fretting, and never doing anything when it should be done. Winter is 

 the season when farmers can do most of their shopping, can see that 

 their plows, drags, hoes and all their farming implements are repaired , 

 can draw their fire wood, fit it for the fire and put it under shelter, in 

 short when they can do almost everything upon the farm but plowing, 

 sowing, hoeing, reaping and mowing. If their winter chores are well 

 done up, over half of the labor for the summer is disposed of, and twice 

 the amount with the same number of hands can be accomplished in 

 the season of cropping, that can be where everything is left to be done 

 in this busy time. 



Some farmers are constantly losing a large share which they annu- 

 ally raise by means of poor fences and unruly cattle. You can never 

 make them believe that a seven rail fence is easily, in the time of it, 

 made an eight rail fence, and that the top rail is the one that saves 

 the crop, and keeps the cattle, as they should be, orderly. Some farm- 

 ers never stop to put up a panel that has blown or fallen down, and 

 are always wondering where the hogs got into the corn. Another 

 farmer, when he buys an ox or a cow, will surely buy an unruly one, 



