IMPLEMENTS— KEEPING ACCOUNTS. 721 



and usually plow it under. I seed with ten quarts timothy 

 and four of clover per acre, generally in March. 



IMPLEMENTS. 



I have a Buckeye Mower, and the latest style side delivery 

 reaper. I can use cast iron plows in my soil as well as steel. I 

 keep my farm tools always under shelter in the barns or sheds, 

 and never allow any thing to go to waste through neglect. 



KEEPING ACCOUNTS. 



I keep one good hired man the year around, at fifteen dol- 

 lars per month, and hire an extra hand in harvest, and a little in 

 planting. If my own boys are busy in school, I have to get some 

 one to help in the sugar season ; but this extra work rarely 

 ever reaches the sum of fifty dollars per year. This money 

 paid for work, my taxes and repairs, and loss by wear on farm 

 implements, constitute my expense account. I pay nothing out 

 for stock. I give the farm credit for my butter, milk, vegeta- 

 bles, meat, poultry, eggs, firewood, proceeds of the sale of 

 cattle, horses, sheep, milk, butter, wood, timber, stone, maple 

 sugar, grain, and every thing else the farm turns off, after 

 deducting all expenses. I know just what it earns each year. 

 I do no work on the farm myself, save the chores night and 

 morning, but plan it all and set my men to work before break- 

 fast. I reside on my farm, but have a hardware store, banking 

 house, and flouring mill near at hand, which occupy all my 

 time during business hours, and have done so for twenty years. 

 But for fifteen years the farm has paid the best per cent, on the 

 investment of any of my enterprises. 



I have never yet found a farmer who would correctly rep- 

 resent the true earnings of a farm. They eat up half or 

 more they raise, and give no credit for it, and then, after this 

 is wrongfully deducted out of it, report the per cent, the farm 

 earns. A merchant, mechanic, or laboring man, has to pay 

 for every such thing out of his earnings, and it then figures 

 against him ; and there is no good reason why the same rule is 

 not good on the farm. 



Our farm lands in Ashtabula county, Ohio, bordering the 

 46 



