MANAGEMENT 267 



as well. Any one familiar with the farms of the Middle West 

 will have had occasions to notice some remarkable object lessons 

 of this kind. In a grasshopper year, for example, when pastures 

 are generally suffering from these pests, one farmer will occasion- 

 ally be found whose pastures show very little injury from that 

 source, the reason being that he has a large flock of turkeys 

 roaming over his pastures, literally sweeping their path clean 

 of grasshoppers as they go. Our orchardists have probably not 

 yet begun to appreciate the help which they may get from poul- 

 try in their efforts to fight the multifarious insect pests which 

 always threaten them with ruin. 



That live stock is good for the farmer as well as the farm 

 is due primarily to the fact that they require constant attention 

 and train him in habits of thrift, economy, and foresight. They 

 are thus a source of education in the virtues which go to make 

 the good farmer. The farmer who sells his hay, grain, or cotton 

 crop and has no continuous business interest to occupy his time 

 and thought during the interval between the sale of one crop 

 and the planting of another is, .on the average, more likely to 

 fall into habits of wastefulness and shiftlessness. The fact of 

 his having a herd of live stock helps to keep him alert. Again, 

 animals are more interesting than plants, being a higher form 

 of life, and are more likely to create in the mind of the farmer 

 an interest in themselves. When he develops a kind of love for 

 his animals as animals, in addition to his interest in them as a 

 source of profit, he has a double motive for care and industry 

 in their behalf, and this tends to make a more careful, pains- 

 taking man of him in every respect. However, in some excep- 

 tional cases this has the unfortunate result of leading a farmer 

 to spend more care and attention on his live stock than on 

 his family. 



That good farming is necessary to the highest development 

 of the live-stock industry is shown historically by the fact that 



