208 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



a caucus or a jury trial ; and so on until one-third of 

 the year is virtually wasted. 



Now, the men who have achieved eminent success, 

 within my observation, have all been rigid economists 

 of time. They managed to transact their business at 

 the county-seat while serving there as grand or petit 

 jurors, or detained under subposna as witnesses ; they 

 never attended an auction unless they really needed 

 something which was there to be sold, and then they 

 began their day's work earlier and ended it later in 

 order to redeem the time which they borrowed for 

 the sale. I do not believe that any American farmer 

 who could count up three hundred full days' work in 

 every year between his twenty-first and his thirtieth 

 ever yet failed, except as a result of speculation, or 

 endorsing, or inordinate running into debt. 



I would, therefore, urge every farmer to keep a 

 rigid account current of the disposal of his time, so 

 as to be able to see at the year's end exactly how 

 many days thereof he had given to productive labor ; 

 how many to such abiding improvements as fencing 

 and draining ; and how many to objects which neither 

 increased his crop nor improved his farm. I am sure 

 many would be amazed at the extent of this last 

 category. 



If every youth who expects to live by farming 

 would buy a cheap pocket-book or wallet which con- 

 tains a diary wherein a page is allotted to each day 

 of the year, and would, at the close of that day, or at 

 least while its incidents were still fresh in his mind, 



