32 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



ment may be terminated by either party at a week's notice, you 

 say to your hand, " If I find you faithful and obliging, at the 

 end of your term I will give you ten cents a day extra for all 

 the time you work, and as I shall not keep you unless you are 

 so, the fact that you remain with me eight months will insure 

 you this amount." You will thus give him a motive to do his 

 best. 



There often comes a time in the life of a farmer when he 

 feels the care and burden of the farm to be too heavy for him. 

 He has reached perhaps the age of fifty, is in comfortable cir- 

 cumstances, and feels that he has fairly earned something of rest. 

 In many cases he rents his farm and moves to town. I think, 

 generally speaking, he makes a mistake in so doing. A man 

 who has been active and industrious up to this time of life will 

 not be happy in idleness; the change in his life is too radical. 

 Besides, he will soon find that his farm is running down. The 

 tenant can not be expected to take the same interest in it as 

 the owner. Stock will be allowed to tramp the fields when soft, 

 fences will run down, a proper rotation will not be followed, and 

 before long the farm will be reduced in fertility. In my judg- 

 ment the best plan is for the farmer to remain on his farm, but 

 he should be relieved from heavy labor and care much earlier 

 than he usually is. The fact is that a majority of farmers work 

 more hours in a day and harder than a day laborer, and keep 

 it up till feeble old age, even though their financial condition is 

 such that there is no necessity for it. Now, the remedy for 

 this is renting, not the whole farm, but fields, to be cultivated 

 on shares. I have never seen a neighborhood in which there 

 were not men ready to take fields in this way. This leaves the 

 farmer in possession of his house, garden, orchard, and pasture, 

 and with full control of the farm as to what part shall be in 

 clover or grass, and what in grain, and at the same time relieves 

 him of the heavy work. 



The terms of grain rent vary in different localities, but 

 where I live there are two systems. One is for the landlord to 

 furnish teams, tools, and seed, and feed the teams, and get two- 

 thirds of the crop, and the other for the tenant to furnish these 



