THE OLD AND THE NEW. 291 



true. Surrounding, or, as \vc have before written, central 

 circumstances, have seemed at least, to demand this course. 



While our farmers have generally displayed much sagacity in 

 adapting their course to the demands of the times, we must 

 admit that there are some exceptions to this rule. Individuals 

 fail to comprehend the difference between this and their grand- 

 fathers' time, if the line pursued is any criterion by which we 

 can judge. Storing their hay and grain in the same old rickety 

 barns, they of course tie their cattle in the stalls with about five 

 and a half feet of space between the floor and scaffold over head, 

 compelling a man of medium height to assume a bending 

 posture on entering ; reminding one of rheumatism, receiving 

 an occasional bump on the occiput, with other slight inconven- 

 iences, all of which would naturally teach one to exercise cau- 

 tion, a due share of which every one should possess. Then, of 

 course, the solid part of the manure is daily thrown out at the 

 same board windows behind the cattle, while the liquid portion 

 is permitted to run through the floor, to be absorbed by the 

 ground underneath, and kept out of the way of everybody. 



Two hundred rods of board-fence are kept up around some 

 worn-out piece of pine plains, that ten sheep may be pastured 

 thereon, because grandsire did eo. If a hog is to be killed for 

 home use, 'tis done at the full of the moon, that there may be 

 no Joss by shrinkage, when boiling the pork. 



The family are domiciled in the same old house, which has 

 received just repairs enough to keep it from tumbling down and 

 no more. If the orchard that grandsire planted continues to 

 produce apples, the old musty barrels are filled up, and " horsed 

 up " as we sometimes hear, in the same dark cellar, so that the 

 old gentleman may have the means at hand for quenching his 

 raging thirst and straightening his back-bone, when coming in 

 from feeding and " cleaning' out " the cattle on a cold winter 

 morning. Grandfather, used to take his mug in one hand and 

 a pine torch, or lighted splinter in the other, and go down, 

 down into what he called " sullur " to draw his cider ; but the 

 grandson, after looking and sometimes expressing audibly his 

 regrets that the pine-knots are all used up, is compelled to resort 

 to what he regards as the next best thing — a tallow candle, when 

 he enters the dark regions below. Some, are so far demented 

 as to keep a jug or cask of the miserably extended liquor of the 



