142 A FARMER'S YEAR 



triangular knobs of steel are apt to be clogged with bits of slick 

 and rubbish, and occasionally must be cleared by lifting, or now 

 and again by turning, the chain fabric. Before the harrow walks 

 Buck with a basket full of seed strapped on his breast. He 

 goes to and fro across the meadow scattering the clover seed with 

 which it is to be refreshed, about a peck and a half of it to the 

 acre. The method is very neat and pretty. Grasping handfuls 

 of seed first with the right and then with the left hand, by alter- 

 nate motions of his arms he casts them in a fine shower so that 

 each handful is spread evenly over a certain space of ground in 

 front of him. Watching him, it is easy to see that his farming 

 education began before the day of drills. I doubt whether a man 

 of the present generation could perform this task with half his 

 nicety, as I understand that the necessary evenness of spread 

 depends upon the exact force of the swing of the arm and the 

 loosening in its proper order of the grip of each finger upon the 

 seed. When the pasture has been harrowed transversely it is 

 again harrowed lengthwise, thereby burying the seed. After this 

 it only remains to roll it and leave the issue to the kindly in- 

 fluences of Spring. 



Last night we had a tragedy. The sheep, having finished 

 No. 1 1, were penned upon a little stretch of grass (not more 

 than an acre in extent) that is separated from it by a fence which 

 it is proposed to remove, laying drainage pipes in the ditch and 

 filling it up, so soon as we can find time for the task. I must 

 explain that among the movable hurdles, which are of iron and 

 mounted upon wheels, is what is known as a lamb-hurdle — that is, 

 an ingenious contrivance fitted with rollers set horizontally, too 

 narrow to admit of the passage of ewes, but large enough to allow 

 the lambs to pass in and out of the fold, as they do not grow well 

 if kept constantly confined with their mothers. Doubtless some 

 of these wandered out in the darkness, and while they were thus 

 away from the ewes, that could not go to protect them — as they 

 will do with great courage if free — were attacked by a dog or dogs. 

 The ravening brute, or brutes, seized one of the lambs — the finest 



