304 WHAT 1 KNOW OF FAKMING. 



land. Those who chose to work with ax or team 

 were seldom idle in Winter. Now, there is little 

 timber to cut, little land to clear, and coal is rapidly 

 supplanting wood as fuel. So a larger and larger 

 number of farm laborers is annually turned off when 

 the ground freezes to live as they may for the next 

 three or four months. 



I recognize the right of the farmer, who has given 

 twelve or more hours per day to the tillage of his 

 acres and the saving of his crops throughout the 

 genial months, to take the world more easily in Win- 

 ter. He should now have leisure to return visits, to 

 post and balance his books, and to improve his mind 

 by study and reflection. Having worked hard when 

 he must, he ought to rest and recuperate when he 

 can. But he gravely errs who supposes that, the 

 ground being frozen, there is no longer work to be 

 done on the farm until the ground is fit to plow a- 

 gain. On the contrary, he who realizes that the far- 

 mer is a manufacturer of food and fibrous substances 

 from raw materials of far inferior value must see 

 that, so soon as one harvest has been secured, the 

 cultivator should devote his attention to the collec- 

 tion and utilization of the elements wherefrom a larger 

 crop may be obtained from the same acres next season. 



And first as to Muck. No one who has not valued 

 and sought it is likely to know how generally abun- 

 dant and accessible this material is. I have found it 

 in inexhaustible supply on the land of a pretty good 

 cultivator who, after working a fair farm ten years, 



