ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS IN FARMING. 9 



and being ready, it was cut and cured, a large part of it in tlie 

 barns. But one day, at evening, some twenty-five tons were 

 still standing in the cock, ready to go in the next morning ; 

 but the afternoon had given indications of rain, which the 

 evening more fully confirmed. Instead of doing as most farmers 

 would have done, sitting down quietly, hoping that by some 

 possibility the signs might fail, and vainly regretting that he 

 had not began his work a day earlier, he called his men together 

 after supper, and said : that hay must be in the barn before 

 morning ; I want you to work to-night. The men, seeing tlie 

 receipts of the extra labor, and feeling the influence of their 

 employer's energy, went to work with a will, and just as the 

 first drops began to patter in early morning, the last load was 

 standing upon the floor of the barn. And the next day, and 

 the next week, the rains that with scarcely a glimpse of sun- 

 shine between the showers, were souring and rotting the mown 

 grass of a majority of our farmers, were refreshing and invigor- 

 ating his closely-mown fields, and sending up a second and 

 luxuriant crop, while the first was safely housed in his spacious 

 barns. Another farmer, with like energy, finding the weather 

 just preceding the rains favorable for curing liay, employed a 

 large extra force, and thus secured his crops by the expenditure 

 of much labor in a short time. Tliese are but simple illustra- 

 tions of what energy will accomplish in individual instances ; 

 but this trait of character carried into the daily business of life 

 shows its results almost as conspicuously as in the cases above 

 related. To men possessed of energy and courage, circumstances 

 are compelled to yield ; without them, circumstances govern 

 and control. 



Courage, which commands the admiration of the masses, is 

 considered merely that quality of the mind which looks upon 

 physical danger with unblanched cheek and unshaken nerve, 

 although necessary to the soldier and those exposed to great 

 personal risk, has not been thougiit essential to the more quiet 

 labors of the farm, and those civil pursuits where a well-ordered 

 life has been supposed to be under the protection of law, and 

 safe from violence or encroachment. Yet courage is as needful 

 to the farmer, as to the soldier or sailor. To be sure, in hi&. 

 avocations he is not exposed to the danger of carrying batteries 

 or storming forts ; to climbing masts and reefing sails in a, 

 2 



