AN OLD-STYLE FARM 



of growing the better English grasses, which 

 are not susceptible of improvement under oc- 

 casional tillage. Draining, indeed, may be 

 first needed, and a scarifying with the harrow, 

 to root out the old mosses and foul growth; 

 but after this, a clean lift of the plow and judi- 

 cious dressing will work wonders. 



But, to return, (for I wish to make the 

 picture of an old-fashioned farm complete,) 

 there were mossy meadows lying along the 

 borders of a great romping millstream, which 

 had been mown for forty years without inter- 

 mission ; here and there, where these meadows 

 lifted into gravelly mounds, patches of plow 

 land had been taken up at intervals of five or 

 eight years, and by dint of heavy, laborious 

 cartage of the scant manures from the barn- 

 yard, over the intervening meadow "swales," 

 had shown their periodic growth of corn or 

 potatoes, these followed by oats — more or 

 less rank as the season was wet or dry — and 

 again, on the following year by clover, which 

 in its turn was succeeded by red-top and timo- 

 thy—upon which the wild meadow-growth 

 steadily encroached. 



There was, of course, the "barn-lot," of 

 which all old farmers boasted, maintained in 

 a certain degree of foodful succulence and 



