GENERAL FARM MANAGEMENT. 21 



ease, and the situation of the buildings or the location of wells, 

 drains, or barnyard may be such as to cause contamination of the 

 air or water, and bring disease. 



The Water Supply. On every farm there should be an 

 unfailing supply of pure water, convenient to house and barn. 

 I would not purchase a farm that was deficient in this respect.. 

 In some of the finest farming lands with which I am acquainted 

 there is nearly every year a surplus and a famine of water. In 

 the Winter and early Spring the wells are flooded, and the water 

 stands at the surface, while in the drought of Summer they fail 

 entirely, and the supply for both man and beast is precarious and 

 unwholesome. In some localities this defect can be remedied 

 by constructing cisterns, but where the supply is deficient and 

 there are serious natural obstacles in the way of overcoming this 

 difficulty, it will be well to think twice before locating. 



Roads and Convenience to Market should receive care- 

 ful consideration. The farmer who must wagon his crop for 

 many miles over mud roads to reach a market, and who is often 

 mud-bound for months in an open Winter, is living at a decided 

 disadvantage. The cost of marketing grain from a farm on a 

 good turnpike within two or three miles of a railroad station is 

 seldom more than one or two cents a bushel, but if ten miles of 

 hilly and muddy roads intervene between the farm and the mar- 

 ket, this cost will be doubled or even quadrupled. Convenience 

 to post-office, store, blacksmith shop, schools, and churches will 

 add largely to the value of the farm and the comfort of the far- 

 mer and his family. 



In going to a new locality, one can not be too careful in his 

 inquiries as to the character of the community. There are neigh- 

 borhoods entirely destitute of public spirit. The citizens are con- 

 tent to drag through the mud rather than to make good roads, 

 although plenty of material lies near at hand. They allow their 

 stock to roam at large and trespass upon their neighbors, and 

 would quarrel with any one who would try to enforce the law 

 against it. Again there are neighborhoods where there is a 

 spirit of infidelity or immorality prevailing, where the Sabbath 

 is disregarded and profanity openly indulged in. The wise par- 



