26 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



he will grow rich. Any farmer can well afford to give his land 

 thorough culture and a liberal dressing, but we must not 

 undertake to do too much in a season. Labor is quite an item 

 at the present time ; it is both high and poor. The fact is, the 

 laborer has become master ; the employer must be the servant 

 in most instances. I have usually called upon my help morn- 

 ings, and I must say, some of them have not been the pleasantest 

 looking men I have seen, when they made their appearance, 

 although I had made them a pleasant call. I believe in com- 

 mencing work early in the morning, and leaving early at 

 evening. 



Some farmers have bog meadows, which have been worked 

 to some extent, and such land produces well when thoroughly 

 reclaimed, but it takes a great amount of labor to do it, and to 

 do it in that way (as the saying is) that it will stay done. The 

 process is, as you all know, by ditching, draining, burning, etc., 

 and if top-dressed once in two years after seeding, it makes the 

 very best of grass land. Then we have certain kinds of wet 

 ground which is very full of rocks and stones, and cannot well 

 be ploughed. In some instances, we have used the spade, — a 

 common, narrow Irish spade. I know that it is expensive, but 

 I had, and have now, some land which needs the spade ; it is 

 about impossible to plough it. I spaded two and a half acres of 

 that ground, at an expense of $42.50 an acre ; the land cost me 

 $45 an acre ; and the first year I cut 5,995 pounds of hay 

 to the acre. I don't remember what hay was worth at that 

 time, but it more than paid the expense. Certainly it will pay 

 to spade these rough pieces of land that cannot be very readily 

 ploughed, if the soil is good. 



It is true that farmers are obliged to live rather short and 

 work pretty hard, but many of them acquire a good property. 

 The farm is really the farmer's bank, where he makes his de- 

 posits, and it is done with the strictest economy, and the very 

 hardest of labor. I remember reading, a few years ago, of a 

 gentlemen in Middlesex County who had fifty apple-trees to 

 set out, and being called away on the day he desired to have 

 his trees set, he directed his gardener to go to work and put 

 them out. When the gentleman came home, he found that the 

 man had set out only ten trees, and complained because he had 

 done so little. The next day, he worked with his gardener, 



