MANAGEMENT OF FARMS. 23 



fertilizers also. The same economy induces him to keep the 

 grass-margin of the roads free of weeds, and if his neighbors 

 do not illegally pasture their cattle on the road, he reaps an 

 increased good crop of hay, and avoids the reputation of a 

 slovenly farmer. He plants fruit and ornamental trees, and 

 is too good an economist to let them be overgrown with 

 suckers and weeds ; and when he has the misfortune to find 

 wild carrot and Canada thistles, he roots them out at once, 

 instead of cultivating them by mowing them, or permitting 

 them to spread by neglecting them till the seed matures. A 

 few minutes in July and August, each day, devoted to pulling 

 these pests of the'farmer, — the wild carrot and thistle, — will 

 exterminate them in a couple of seasons, unless an untidy 

 neighbor, or a railroad embankment filled with the annual 

 crops of weeds, is permitted to scatter fresh seed over your 

 premises, in which cases there ought to be influence enough 

 in the agricultural societies of the State with the legislature, 

 to compel every owner of property to abate such a nuisance. 



Warm stables for cattle and horses are an economical sys- 

 tem of saving feed, as well as merciful to your animals. Gates 

 well hung and fastened, instead of bars, and few fences as 

 possible, are things well understood, but, I regret to say, not 

 well practised through the country. Our roads, too, do 

 not come up to an economical standard. They are badly 

 engineered and worse worked ; and our wear and tear of 

 vehicles, backsmith's bills for extra shoeing, added to the loss 

 of time in passing over mud-holes, or stony, rough side-hills, 

 and the necessity of driving two horses, when, on a good 

 road, one would be sufficient, produce an annual cost to our 

 farmers over threefold the sum for which good roads could be 

 maintained. Wet roads should be tile-drained and gravelled, 

 as the most economical mode of keeping them dry and hard 

 in fall and spring and free of dust in summer. 



The expensive macadamized roads of Great Britain have 

 been found the most economical, because one horse on these 

 roads will draw a heavier load than two can draw on the com- 

 mon roads ; and the wear and tear of the vehicles so reduced, 

 to say nothing of the comfort as well as the saving of time to 

 the farmer and the travelling public, all combine to render 

 the road-tax a popular public expenditure, yielding, as it 



