THE TIM BUXKEU PAPEltS. 209 



suppose I ought to have been thinking of something else 

 on Sunday, but the application hit my case so exactly, 

 that I made up my mind right off that I wouldn t muzzle 

 the horse-pond lot any longer. It got a dose of manure 

 right away after mowing, without fail. The grass looks 

 as green as a leek now, as much as to say, &quot; Thank you, 

 Squire Bunker, for your kind attentions.&quot; 



But Mrs. Bunker s mind took another tack, thinking, I 

 suppose, how the bounty was going to help enlistments, 

 and that the new soldiers would help John down on the 

 James River ; she thought it wa n t worth while to have 

 Parson Spooner muzzled after such a sermon, and hinted 

 that I had better leave a barrel of potatoes and a hind 

 quarter of lamb at the parsonage next day. Well, you 

 see, that was a scriptural application of the doctrine, and 

 as I believe in facing the music, I left them, and added a 

 bag of corn on my account, and a beet ham, that he might 

 know that the oxen and corn part of his text at least was 

 remembered. 



But to return to the subject, as Mr. Spooner sometimes 

 says in the pulpit, I think we make a great mistake in 

 not top-dressing our meadows ofteuer, say as often as once 

 in two years. In a small lot of an acre and a quarter, 

 where I cut four tuns last year, I only cut three this, and 

 the only difference was in manure. Five dollars worth 

 of compost would have made a difference of at least one 

 tun of hay. 



Deacon Little and Jake Frink are mighty afraid of hav 

 ing too large grass. Jake often says that he had rather 

 have &quot;two tun than three to the acre.&quot; Now I don t be 

 lieve this notion, that heavy grass makes less nutritious 

 fodder than light. A beef steak out of a corn-fed ox is 

 enough sight better than one out of a thin, grass-fed animal. 

 Why should not grass from a well-fed soil be more nour 

 ishing ? I have watched this thing at the manger pretty 

 close, and have grown three tuns and a half to an acre, 



