178 THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 



hay to pass, should have not less than one stay. The slats fre 

 quently pass through mortises in the stays, but, as a general 

 rule, the stays are nailed, riveted, or bolted to the slats. 







INSTRUCTIONS TO AID IN MAKING A GATE. 



238. Every young farmer should learn to make his own gates. 

 It requires but little mechanical skill to make one, and it will 

 not be any disadvantage to a man to exercise his mechanical fac 

 ulties in using tools a little, even if he is abundantly able to hire 

 every such job performed. It cannot be denied that there 

 are a few men in the world who always make a complete botch 

 of every job they attempt to do, and the true reason is, they lack 

 the exercise of energy and perseverance. If a man will go to 

 work with a determination to succeed in performing a job well, 

 he seldom fails, after a few trials. There are thousands of young 

 farmers who could, with the instructions we shall give in this 

 place, make gates for all their fields, and they need only occupy 

 the hours which they squander in idleness. Come on, then, 

 my good friends, and make a gate, and hang it in the place of 

 those bars which you have taken out and put in a hundred and 

 one times during the busy season, and see if you do not detect a 

 smile on your countenance every time you go through it ; and 

 listen, and you will, doubtless, hear the proprietor soliloquizing 

 thus : " This is truly more convenient than those old bars. I 

 wonder I did not have one years ago. I shall soon save time 

 and strength enough to make a gate ; and, more than this, Eddy 

 can open and shut it, and turn away the cows, and bring them 

 up." Don't be disheartened because you cannot make one quite 

 so neatly and quickly as I can. I can make a gate like any one 

 of the cuts given here, and plane it, paint and hang it in a day, and 

 dig the holes for the posts ; and can make six such gates in a 

 week, in a workmanlike manner, and hang them, too, and I 

 never had one single word of instruction about any part of the 

 business. If you will make as good a one in two days, we will 

 give you a meed of praise, of "well done." 



239. In the first place, have a log of good oak timber for 





