4:2 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



or through his woods, is so much clear gain that 

 they do the needful work, while he pockets the net 

 proceeds. But the universe was framed on a plan 

 which requires so much for so much ; and this law 

 will not submit to defiance or evasion. Under the 

 unnatural, exceptional conditions which environ the 

 lone squatter on a vast prairie, something may be 

 made by turning cattle loose and letting them shift 

 for themselves; but this is at best transitory, and at 

 war with the exigencies of civilization. Whoever 

 lives within sight of a school-house, or within hear- 

 ing of a church-bell, is under the dominion of a law 

 alike inexorable and beneficent the law that requires 

 each to pay for all he gets, and reap only where he 

 has sown. 



You can hardly have a pasture so small that it will 

 not afford hospitality to weeds and prove a source 

 of multiform infestations. The plants that should 

 mature and be diffused will be kept down to the 

 earth ; those which should be warred upon and eradi- 

 cated will flourish untouched, ripen their seed, and 

 diffuse it far and wide. Thistles, White Daisy, and 

 every plant that impedes tillage and diminishes crops, 

 are nourished and diffused by means of pastures. 



I hold, therefore, that the good farmer will run a 

 mowing-machine over his pasture twice each Sum- 

 mer say early in June, and then late in July or, 

 if his lot be too rough for this, will have it clipped 

 at least once with a scythe. Cutting all manner of 

 worthless if not noxious plants in the blossom, will 



