120 THE BOOK OF ENSILAGE. 



the city, and join the already crowded trades, professions, 

 or occupations ; and, in ninety cases out of one hundred, 

 their lives are failures. 



The girls declare they "won't marry a farmer!" 

 (That is one reason why " the boys leave the farm.") 

 They go into the factories, shops, and to God knows 

 where ! let us hope he will watch over them, and guide 

 their footsteps to something better than that which 

 awaits too many who go to the city fresh and pure as 

 the air on their native hills, to meet disappointment and 

 privation, till at last they sink out of sight, ruined, 

 lost! 



What is necessary to change all this, is larger crops, 

 more and better stock, and consequently greater profits. 

 This will give the necessary leisure for improvement, for 

 rest, and recreation. 



By adopting the system of " Ensilage," the labor of a 

 farm can be so systemized that these opportunities can 

 be improved, and the farmer's life become in fact, what it 

 has always been in theory, and sometimes in practice, 

 the most independent and honorable of any class. 



Secondly, Since I opened my Silo, and the papers all 

 gave more or less accurate and detailed accounts of my 

 success in preserving corn-fodder in its green state, I 

 have received an immense number of letters from all 

 parts of the country, asking me to " please give them a 

 little more information 'how* I did it," &c. Well, I 

 have answered several hundred ; I hated to refuse or 

 neglect so civil a request from so large a number of the 

 very men whom I most respect ; but it had come to this 

 pass, that I had got to employ an amanuensis, and devote 

 my whole time to diffusing information through the mails, 

 or refuse to answer nine-tenths of the inquiries. 



Several hundred years ago they used to diffuse knowl- 



