GOOD AND BAD HUSBANDRY. 21 



next May than they were on the 1st of last December 

 who will have required that fodder merely to pre- 

 serve their vitality and escape freezing to death. It 

 has mainly been employed as fuel rather than as 

 nourishment, and has served, not to put on flesh, but 

 to keep out frost. 



Now I am familiar with the excuses for this waste ; 

 but they do not satisfy me. The poorest pioneer 

 might have built for his one cow a rude shelter of 

 stakes, and poles, and straw or prairie-grass, if he 

 had realized its importance, simply in the light of 

 economy. He who has many cattle is rarely without 

 both straw and timber, and might shelter his stock 

 abundantly if he only would. Nay, he could not 

 have neglected or omitted it if he had clearly under- 

 stood that his beasts must somehow be supplied with 

 heat, and that he can far cheaper warm them from 

 without than from within. 



The broad, general, unquestionable truths, on which 

 I insist in behalf of Good Farming are these ; and I 

 do not admit that they are subject to exception : 



I. It is very rarely impracticable to grow good 

 crops, if you are willing to work for them. If your 

 land is too poor to grow Wheat or Corn, and you are 

 not yet able to enrich it, sow Rye or Buckwheat ; if 

 you cannot coax it to grow a good crop of anything, 

 let it alone ; and, if you cannot run away from it, 

 work out by the day or month for your more fortu- 

 nate neighbors. The time and means squandered in 

 trying to grow crops where only half or quarter 



