324 Time of Entry on Farms. 



in the sheds, so that the young colts' hocks do not get capped in 

 rising from their beds, and that it be fresh to tread on, and not 

 foul and fermenting so as to produce thrushes ; to see, too, that 

 no cow be moping or shivering over her food ; that there be no 

 yew cuttings or garden refuse about to poison your herd or pigs. 

 All this, and much more, it should be the farmer's care to notice. 

 Once every day at least, and those who love their farm will 

 never tire of the task, should all the stock be gone over, every 

 animal carefully inspected from heel to horn. It is marvellous 

 how common men, even those who love their horses and their 

 herd, day after day will allow a lame cow or sick horse to go 

 toiling on in misery. " 'Tis the master's eye that makes the horse 

 fat," says the old Greek proverb : not that the men will often 

 defraud their horses of their corn ; I have never known per- 

 sonally an instance. But the regular cleaning, the early feeding, 

 the comfort, the keeping warm, tlie ventilation, must be looked 

 to by the master, or there will some day be neglect. 



Time and Locality. — To catch the wave at its turn is the secret 

 of farming, as of everything else ; to select that which will pay 

 best in the shape of crops and cattle, considering your locality, 

 and to adopt the course that will make it pay the best. Tliis in 

 Essex and South Lancashire is especially neglected. In parts of 

 Lancashire, where, as Mr. Caird remarks, the very flowers at the 

 cottage door might be made a source of profit, still agriculture is 

 backward and the farmer desponding. In Warwickshire, again, 

 the opportunity of dairying near towns is thrown away. The 

 neighbourhoods, again, of Portsmouth and Southampton are blind 

 enough to allow these places to be supplied with potatoes from 

 France. On the other hand, we remember visiting the residence of 

 a gentleman eminent for his ingenious agricultural discoveries no 

 less than for his prize poultry stock of various breeds. It was an 

 instructive study to notice the simple contrivances by which he 

 had made the back-yard of a small suburban London house serve 

 his purpose to the utmost as a farm-yard. Not less instructive 

 was it to hear the history of his success ; how in one year he had 

 cleared 700 guineas by the sale of Cochin China fowls ; how, 

 when he noticed the taste to be subsiding, be had sent to Holland 

 for the best Spanish fowl that could be procured, and at that time 

 their breed was far superior to anything in England ; how, again, 

 when opportunity offered, he had fed the market with carrier- 

 pigeons importea from Persia direct. Surely a man of that 

 stamp must deserve to win. Success must, indeed, eventually 

 crown the honest exercise of practised intelligence and industrious 

 exertion. An instance in point is the following: — 



I remember to have read years ago of a farmer, I think in 

 Kent, who, after an unusually disastrous failure of the hop- crop, 



