1882.] FARM LIFE. 283 



had not wherewith to pay, and was obliged to sell his oxen to pay 

 with. The man asked if he wanted him another year. The reply 

 was " No ! last year I had to sell cows to pay you, and this year I 

 have had to sell my oxen to pay you, and next year I shall have 

 nothing I can sell to pay you." The hired man replied, " Well, I 

 would have no objection to take the farm for pay." " Well, then 

 what shall I do ? " '■ Oh, work for me, and get them back again." 

 Now, there are hundreds of cases in this country like these, and 

 they teach us that it is best to know how we can pay before v/e 

 hire or buy. 



Another very unfortunate thing for "Farm Life as it is," is the 

 general discontent of our boys; the girls we expect very little of 

 now-a-days — their little fingers were not made to soil. But before 

 I get through I will tell what a tiny hand can do. But the 

 Z)o;/s^and it brings a shudder over us when we take the pen to 

 write their histor}^ — it seems as if Satan had been at work a 

 hundred years to spoil all the boys. Their reasons for leaving 

 home are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff ; you 

 search all day ere you find them, and when you have found them 

 they are not worth the search. The shops, stores, and professions 

 take up the boys, consequently the trades get fewer apprentices, 

 and mechanics are stirring up our farmers' boys to learning their 

 trades, telHng them of the daylight to dark labors on the farm, with- 

 out time OT money to see anything hut the farm, and the induce- 

 ments to a trade are very flattering. They are not told of early 

 hours in short days, and the first year they are often set to do 

 something foreign to the trade, such as drawing lumber and tools 

 from place to place ; the second year they work a little, and the 

 boss charges full pay for them, and we have to pay for our own 

 boys' work, what they could have done Just as well had they staid 

 at home; then at the end of three years the boy goes for himself, 

 a poor mechanic, scarcely earning a livelihood all his days, when 

 if he had staid on the farm, adding to what he had learned before, 

 he could have been master of the farm, and when the strength of 

 the father failed then he could start in life with a good home of 

 his own, a good member of society, a power in the land. 



It is often thrown in the farmer's face that we keep our boys 

 too close — up soon as light in the morning, and dig until dark 

 from April to December, not a day of their own unless it be a 

 rainy day to go fishing and get wet through for nothing. There 

 may be some such hard-hearted cases, but they are rare — not half 



