n. 



GOOD AND BAD HUSBANDRY. 



NECESSITY is the master of us all. A farmer may 

 be as strenuous for deep plowing as I am may firmly 

 believe that the soil should be thoroughly broken up 

 and pulverized to a depth of fifteen to thirty inches, 

 according to the crop ; but, if all the team he can 

 muster is a yoke of thin, light steers, or a span of 

 old, spavined horses, which have not even a speaking 

 acquaintance with grain, what shall he do ? So he 

 may heartily wish he had a thousand loads of barn- 

 yard manure, and know how to make a good use of 

 every ounce of it ; but, if he has it not, and is not 

 able to buy it, he can't always afford to forbear sow- 

 ing and planting, and so, because he cannot secure 

 great crops, do without any crops at all. If he does 

 the best he can, what better cam, he do ? 



Again : Many farmers have fields that must await 

 the pleasure of Nature to fit them for thorough culti- 

 vation. Here is a field sometimes a whole farm 

 which, if partially divested of the primitive forest, is 

 still thickly dotted with obstinate stumps and filled 

 with green, tenacious roots, which could only be re- 



(18) 



