62 MY FARM. 



What to Do with the Farm. 



THEEE are not a few entertaining people of the 

 cities, who imagine that a farm of one or two 

 hundred acres has a way of managing itself ; and that 

 it works out crops and cattle from time to time, very 

 much as small beer works into a foamy ripeness, by 

 a law of its own necessity. 



I wish with all my heart that it were true ; but it 

 is not. For successful farming, there must be a well 

 digested plan of operations, and the faithful execu 

 tion of that plan. It is possible, indeed, to secure the 

 services of an intelligent manager, upon whom shall 

 devolve all the details of the business, and who shall 

 shape all the agricultural operations, by the rules of 

 his own experience ; but however extended this expe 

 rience may have been, the result will be, in nine cases 

 out of ten, most unsatisfactory to one who wishes to 

 have a clear and intimate knowledge of the capabili 

 ties of his land ; and very disagreeably unsatisfactory 

 to one who has entertained the pleasing illusion that 

 farm lands should not only be capable of paying 

 their own way, but of making respectable return 

 upon the capital invested. Your accomplished farm 

 manager usually of British birth and schooling, but 

 of a later American finish, is apt to entertain the 



