COMMUNICATIONS. 869 



pastures by supplying drink to the stock, improves the plow- 

 fields by rational drainage, which leaves them warm and fertile. 

 Under, drain age is not sufficiently estimated. 



Barns. — But while we are liberally and judiciously providing 

 for our comfort, let us not forget the animals which labor for 

 us, or supply the delicious dairy, or furnish the warm clothing 

 for our bodies. And here, a careful experience will prove that 

 mercy or kindness will go with profit — we will find by wise ex- 

 periment that obeying humane promptings towards our animals 

 by furnishing them with comfortable shelter, will result in gain 

 to ourselves in all cases, where the principle is faithfully carried 

 out. An animal warmly sheltered, will perform more service, 

 yield more milk, fleece or fat, and eat less, or keep in thriving 

 condition on less feed, than one left to shiver and suffer in the 

 cold, beating storms ; the difference of advantage or gain derived 

 from animals well protected over those cruelly neglected, and 

 the amount saved in feed, will more than pay the cost of proper 

 shelter every year ; to say nothing of the increased comfort 

 which the humane farmer will enjoy in knowing that his ani- 

 mals are comfortable. 



From the indifferent manner in which too many farmers 

 leave their tools and implements to decay from exposure to the 

 weather, through fall and winter, it seems they are not aware 

 of how much per cent, they are all continually going to waste. 

 It can be proved that plows, wagons, reapers, fanning mills, and 

 all other implements, when left standing out through the year, 

 without shelter, suffer far more decay and destruction than is 

 caused during the same time by all necessary fair use ; the waste 

 and injury caused by the weather is more than enough to pay 

 for providing the necessary shelter to protect fairly them. So 

 that any farmer with a team and implements enough to keep 

 them at work on his land, can better afford to furnish them all 

 with good shelter than to neglect it ; for the loss by such neglect 

 is more than enough to pay the cost of reasonable barn-room. 

 And while the groute or gravel walls are so cheap and sufficient, 

 in all localities, no one, scarcely, can have a reasonable excuse 



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