372 Effects of Habit. — Bad Practice of Farmers. — Ploughs. Vol. lY. 



near him half an hour,) instruct him to stand 

 nearly erect, the hips being further advanced 

 than the shoulders, and under no circum- 

 stances to stoop, and when inserting his 

 scythe into the grass be sure to keep the heel 

 nigh the ground ; and when cutting the clips 

 and after let the point be equally near it; 

 let the body turn with the scythe as on a 

 pivot, the heel of the scythe passing within 

 two or three inches of the advanced foot. 

 This will relieve the arms, and so divide the 

 effort, that he will mow with as little fatigue 

 as he can perform light work, and soon laugh 

 at the " six footer " who stoops to reach his 

 grass. 



Let the boy also at first be instructed to 

 clip only ten or twelve inches of grass, until 

 his erect posture and the horizontal position 

 of his scythe become habitual, when his love 

 of ease, his interest, and desire to triumph, 

 will require a long scythe, perfect in temper, 

 yet light, and forming from heel to point the 

 segment of a circle of about seven feet 

 radius. — Monthly Visitor. J. W. W. 



Effects of Habit on the Infant Mind. 



I trust every thing to habit; habit, upon 

 which, in all ages, the lawgiver, as well as 

 the schoolmaster, has mainly placed his re- 

 liance ; habit, which makes every thing easy, 

 and casts all difficulties upon the deviation 

 from the wonted course. Make sobriety a 

 habit, and intemperance will be hateful and 

 hard ; make prudence a habit, and reckless 

 profligacy will be as contrary to the nature 

 of the child grown an adult, as the most 

 atrocious crimes are to any of your lordships. 

 Give a child the habit of sacredly regarding 

 the truth — of carefully respecting the pro- 

 perty of others — of scrupulously abstaining 

 from all acts of improvidence which can in- 

 volve him in distress, and he will just as 

 likely think of rushing into an element in 

 which he cannot breathe, as of lying, or 

 cheating, or stealing. — Lord Brougham. 



Bad Practice of Farmers. 



BY PRESIDENT MABISON. 



1. That of cultivating land either naturally 

 poor, or impoverished by cultivation. He 

 attributes this to the effect of " habit," con- 

 tinued after the reason for it had ceased to 

 exist. Whilst there was an abundance of 

 fresh and fertile soil, it was the interest of 

 the cultivator to spread his labour over as 

 great a surface as he could. Land being 

 cheap and labour dear, and the land co-ope- 

 rating powerfully with the labour, it was 

 profitable to draw as much as possible from 

 the land. Labour is now comparatively 



cheaper and land dearer. Where labour has 

 risen in price fourfold, land has risen tenfold 

 at least. 



2. The evil of pressing too hard on the 

 land, has also been much increased by the 

 bad mode of ploughing it. Shallow plough- 

 ing, and ploughing up and down hilly land, 

 have, by exposing the loosened soil to be 

 carried off by rains, hastened more than any 

 thing else the waste of its fertility. 



3. The neglect of manure is another error. 

 It is traced to the same cause with excessive 

 cropping. In the early stages of cultivation 

 in this country, it was more convenient and 

 more profitable to bring new land into cul- 

 tivation, than to improve old land. The 

 failure of new land has long called tor the 

 improvement of old land ; but habit has 

 kept us deaf to the call. 



4. Among the best means of aiding the 

 productiveness of the soil is irrigation — a 

 resource which abounds in this to a much 

 greater extent than in any other country. 



5. Mr. Madison conceives it a gross error 

 that horses should be used instead of oxen, 

 and his reasoning is pretty conclusive ia 

 favour of the ox. 



6. Too many neat cattle are kept. As a 

 farm should not be cultivated beyond the 

 point at which it can be kept in good heart, 

 so the stock of cattle should not be kept in 

 greater number than the resources of food 

 can keep in good plight. If a poor farm is 

 unprofitable, so are poor cattle. 



7. Of all the errors in our rural economy, 

 none perhaps is so much to be regretted, be- 

 cause none so difficult to be repaired, as the 

 injudicious and excessive destruction of fire- 

 wood. It seems never to have occurred that 

 the fund was not inexhaustible, and that a 

 crop of trees could not be raised as quick as 

 one of wheat or corn. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Ploughs and Ploughing. 



Sir, — I observe in the last number of the 

 Cabinet, a list of premiums for crops, and 

 am given to understand that there is to be a 

 show of cattle, horses, crops, &c., in the 

 autumn. 



Now, I would take the liberty of hinting 

 to the committee on premiums, the extreme 

 interest which would be felt, just at this 

 time of agricultural improvement, if a sum 

 could be devoted to the encouragement of 

 ploughs and ploughing. The almost num- 

 berless varieties of the " very best ploughs " 

 seem to call for the public test of experiment 

 to place their merits in a proper point of 

 view, so that practical men may have an op- 

 portunity to judge, by sight and feelingj 



