4:0 WHAT I KNOW OF FABMOTG. 



the rear or not far distant, and clumps or belts of 

 timber irregularly lining brook and ravine, or lurk- 

 ing in the angles and sinuosities of walls and wooden 

 fences, and a ragged, mossy orchard sheltered in some 

 quiet nook, or sprawling over some gravelly hill-side. 

 A brook, nearly dry in August, gurgles down the 

 hill-side or winds through the swamp ; while fields, 

 moderately sloping here and nearly level there, in- 

 terposed as they can be, have severally been devoted, 

 for a generation or more, alternately to Grain and 

 Grass the latter largely preponderating. We will 

 suppose this farm to measure from 50 to 150 acres. 



Now, the young man who has bought or inherited 

 this farm may be wholly and consciously unable to 

 enter upon any expensive system of improvement 

 for the next ten years may fully realize that four or 

 five days of each week must meantime be given to 

 the growing or earning of present bread yet he 

 should none the less study well the capacities and 

 adaptations of each acre, and -mature a comprehen- 

 sive plan for the ultimate bringing of each field into 

 the best and most useful condition whereof it is sus- 

 ceptible, before he cuts a living tree or digs a solitary 

 drain. He is morally certain of doing something 

 perhaps many things that he will sadly wish un- 

 done, if he fails to study peculiarities and mature a 

 plan before he begins to improve or to fit his several 

 fields for profitable cultivation. 



And the first selection to be made is that of a pas- 

 ture, since I am compelled to use an old, familiar 



