The Country Gcntlcuiaii s Llagar^ine 



I? 



SMALL MATTERS. 



THE world is made up of atoms, and 

 hourly experience shews the folly of 

 despising small things. A feather indicates 

 how the wind blows, and we are frequently 

 led to form an estimate of a man's character 

 from little peculiarities, although such may 

 not perhaps force themselves broadly on our 

 notice. 



The same principle is equally applicable 

 to farming pursuits. When we see an old 

 cart shoved into a gap in a fence, or a pair of 

 disabled harrows along with some dead 

 thorns, doing duty as a field-gate, we do not 

 feel particularly desirous to go any further in 

 order to examine the management pursued on 

 that farm more closely. We feel assured that 

 such evidences of slovenliness sufficiently in- 

 dicate what remains behind — dirty fields, im- 

 perfect tillage, and all the results which follow 

 adherence to a system based on the principle 

 of " it will do well enough." 



We own to a partiality for order and neat- 

 ness in farm management ; and we feel that 

 the absence of such features is sadly damaging 

 to any place, although it may be tolerably 

 well conducted in other respects. We like 

 to see the right thing in the right place. An 

 old hat or a pair of ruined unmentionables 

 are quite in keeping when we find them used 

 in constructing a scarecrow, but they are 

 grievous blots when stuck in a broken win- 

 dow. A ragged hedge is, no doubt, a very 

 picturesque feature in a landscape painting, 

 but it is neither profitable nor pleasant when 

 it is part of the belongings of a farm. 



We are aware there are some who despise? 

 or affect to despise, in their own case at 

 least, those smaller matters which, however, 

 give a character to a place, according as they 

 are attended to or not. Yet we often find 

 those very persons, unconsciously, perhaps, 

 awarding their tribute of praise when any 

 instance of more than ordinary neatness 

 comes under their notice, forgetful, appa- 

 rently, how contradictory are their expressions 



of praise to their own actual practice. It is, 

 however, one of the results of neatness in 

 connexion with farm management, that it 

 elicits expressions of approval, even from 

 those who are strangers to the details of 

 agricultural practice ; and although, perhaps, 

 such people cannot define precisely what it is 

 which pleases them, still they feel there is 

 something in the scene peculiarly gratifying 

 to their perceptions. 



Such things may, indeed, be regarded as 

 small matters, but if we take them in the 

 aggregate, or if we take the principle in its 

 different bearings, we shall find that it is 

 really of far greater importance than might 

 at first be acknowledged. Thus, the same 

 principle which produces tidiness in one 

 matter, produces also thoroughly efi'ective 

 and systematic management in another. It 

 is, in fact, the principle of doing every thing 

 in the best possible manner, and of keeping 

 every thing in the best possible order, so that 

 the greatest results may be obtained at com- 

 paratively the least expense. The same 

 principle which induces a man to thorough- 

 drain a field, work it well, manure it highly, 

 and clean it perfectly, will, if extended to 

 other matters, induce him to see that 

 his fences are neat and efficient, that his 

 implements are always cleanly kept, 

 preserved in good order, and protected 

 from unnecessary damage ; that his 

 farm-roads are in proper repair and kept 

 free from weeds as well as the crop- 

 growing parts of his farm, and that his farm 

 buildings are maintained in as good condition 

 as circumstances will admit. These, as well 

 as other matters of a similar kind, arise merely 

 from the extension of the same governing 

 principle ; and, although the practice in some 

 districts would lead us to think otherwise, it 

 is the greatest possible fallacy to imagine that 

 slovenliness is in any way an inherent feature 

 in the business of the farmer. 



\Yq wish, therefore, to press upon our 



