270 



Dialogue between a Father and Son. 



IV. 



the united force of half a dozen of their weak 

 teams to move from his purpose : and what 

 was better than this, he was blest with a 

 wife, almost unequalled in the experience of 

 the necessary duties of a farm, and a family 

 of six children, some of both sexes, able to 

 assist their parents, both within doors and 

 without. 



On coming' to the farm, as he found the 

 neighbours would not call upon him, he made 

 a point of visiting them ; told them candidly, 

 he meant to manage his own concerns; that 

 nothing would give him more pleasure than 

 to be on good terms with them, wiiile to have 

 it in his power to assist them, he should con- 

 sider a real luxury — but he must be permitted 

 to follow his own way — that was all he stipu- 

 lated for. At parting, he would offer them 

 his hand, which, when they grasped — about 

 the size, as one of them declared, of a small 

 shoulder of mutton — and received a grip in 

 return, which made them feel it to the elijow, 

 they perceived that he was not a man to be 

 played with. He was compelled to hire help 

 from the neighbourhood, and on meeting 

 these men for the first time, said, " Now, my 

 good fellows, 1 am come a stranger amongst 

 you, and I dare say you will think my ways 

 strange also: all I expect of you is, to do ex- 

 actly what I shall tell you to do, and leave 

 the consequences to me. Never care how 

 ridiculous my plans may appear to you; 'tis 

 I alone who must answer for them ; and if 

 you get tired of me, or I should grow tired of 

 you, let us not be afraid to say so, and part 

 good friends. As I have the fullest confidence 

 in my own abilities, 1 do not wish you to take 

 the trouble to tell me how they do things in 

 this country, or even to mention the way in 

 which others proceed; all I shall ever re- 

 quire of you is, obedience, while you are with 

 me; so God bless all our endeavours to do 

 what is right !" And on separating with 

 them, he gave each a shake by the hand, 

 which reminded them of the squeeze which 

 Jack Sharuj got in the horse-mi// ! He was 

 up the firiiin the house, and the last in bed ; 

 was always upon their backs, as they ex- 

 pressed it, but cheerful as a lark, and always 

 pleasant in manners, but very distant — that 

 was the secret of his management — like the 

 captain of the ship, who, on first coming on 

 board, said to his men — " I wish to treat you 

 well, but look in my face, and say if you think 

 I am a man you can take liberties with." 



In the midst of a country, where the great- 

 est recommendation of a cow was, that she 

 would winter cheaply, or in other words, 

 would bear starving, he introduced a dairy, 

 that would pay for keeping — for shelter and 

 good food in the winter — and a portion of 

 these cows being winter milk, he was enabled 

 to supply the market with — what had never 



before been seen there — excellent fresh but- 

 ter in winter, for which he obtained his own < 

 price. And while his neighbours were kill- 

 ing off their sheep before winter, and dispos- 

 ing of them for about the value of their skins, 

 he would stall-feed his, and have mutton in 

 the market about Christmas, that almost 

 made the poor farmers about him fat, even to 

 look at. 



Frank. — x\h, I see how all this was done ; 

 it was by good management in the summer : 

 by preparing for such weather as that which 

 we now experience. 



Father. — Exactly — his object was to keep 

 his stock in the winter and make them pay 

 for it : and instead of boasting that he had 

 wintered his cattle for almost nothing, and 

 in return, to have but little besides a bag of 

 bones for his pains, 1 have often heard him 

 declare, that he would not exchange his win- 

 ter dung-heap, for the whole dairy of some of 

 his neighbours. 



One remarkable mode of his management 

 was, to grow large quantities of oats, and the 

 silesian, or white sugar beet ; never to thresh 

 any of his oats, but to cut them all up in the 

 straw, by means of a chaff-cutter attached to 

 his threshing mill, and to feed them, with 

 plenty of the beets, to his horses, fattening cat- 

 tle, cows in milk and fatting sheep — a plan 

 of fattening stock in the winter, about as near 

 perfection as can well be conceived of — so, 

 he never sold any oats, but all his corn, and 

 fed the stalks to his young stock. His great- 

 est care was, to provide most abundantly for 

 all his stock during winter ; and I have 

 known him purchase capital cows of his 

 neighbours during that season for a very 

 small sum, and sell them to them again in 

 the summer, as they had not the means of 

 keeping them: and instead of fattening stock 

 in the summer, he would mow as much hay 

 as possible, prow abundance of oats and beets, 

 and purchase lean stock in the autumn for 

 winter feeding; by which means he obtained 

 better prices for his fat cattle, and, what he 

 valued much more, mountains of dung for 

 spring-dressing — this he called the moving 

 principle of his machinery. 



He had not been on his farm a year, before 

 the natives were astonished, and no more 

 was heard of " the new-school ;" but they 

 yet stick to their old prejudices, and cannot 

 believe that their farms will ever pay for 

 good management; for, as thesmkh said, al- 

 though they never tried it, yet they are fully 

 convinced it would never pay the expense in 

 their part of the country to manure, and weed 

 the crops, and house cattle in the winter, and 

 feed them. 



Frank. — Then the new system is simply 

 this, \afeed stock in the winter, instead of 

 starving it. 



