50 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



up the reader to habits of thought ; they make him more 

 inquisitive, more observing, more reasoning, and, therefore, 

 more reasonable. 



Now, as to the contents of agricultural papers, whose 

 fault is it if they are not practical? Who are the prac 

 tical men ? who are daily conversant with just the things a 

 cultivator most needs to know? who is stumbling upon 

 difficulties, or discovering some escape from them ? who is 

 it that knows so much about gardens, orchards, farms, 

 cattle, grains and grasses ? Why, the very men who wortt 

 write a word for the paper that they read, and then com 

 plain that there is nothing practical in it. Yes there is. 

 There is practical evidence that men are more willing to be 

 helped than to help others ; and also that men sometimes 

 blame others for things of which they themselves are 

 chiefly blameworthy. 



GOOD BREEDS OF COWS. 



THERE is hardly one thing which conduces more to the 

 comfort of a family than a good cow. A family well sup 

 plied with rich milk twice a day cannot have poor fare ; for, 

 besides the use of pure milk by itself, there is no article, 

 except flour, which enters into so many forms of cooking. 

 Next in importance to the family, are the relations of the 

 cow to the dairy ; we say next to the family, for it is more 

 important that there should be good cows for private fami 

 lies than that dairies should have them. All the dairy 

 herds might be destroyed, and if each family has its cow, 

 the loss would be bearable. But take from families their 

 one cow, and all the dairies in the land could ndfc compen 

 sate. 



The- question of a good breed of milch cows is important, 

 then, to the whole community ; to the dairymen of course ; 



