Ko. 4.] PLEASUKES OF FARMING. 381 



then don't let the first man that drives in your barn hitch 

 his horse where he will eat out a cavern to be an eyesore all 

 winter. Sweep the barn floor as often as is necessary to 

 have it always clean. To have unused hay on it in good 

 shape for feeding is not uncleanly, but to have it scattered 

 around to be trodden on by man and beast is. A clean barn 

 is always a joy to its owner, and every one who enters it will 

 say, " How nice this is." Every barn to be perfect needs a 

 good-sized, pleasant, well-lighted, finished room ; one that 

 you can have a fiie in. Hundreds of persons, including 

 ladies of " high degree," visit my " crib" in my barn, annu- 

 ally, who do not enter my house. It is a good place to read, 

 write or visit as well as to mend or dry blankets. It is 

 filled with pictures and hric-a-brac. Besides such a room, 

 a workshop is indispensable. In it there should 1)e a long, 

 heavy work-bench with two vises, one for iron and one for 

 wood work, and with a few tools it is surprising how many 

 things can be made or repaired there. The shop is the best 

 l)lace on the farm to teach a boy to put things in their places. 

 Nothing annoys me more when I want a tool than not to be 

 able to put my hand on it at once. The habit of putting 

 everything where it belongs is one of the first things to be 

 taught any farm boy. It saves a vast amount of time, vexa- 

 tion and " cuss words." All tools needed on the farm or in 

 the shop should be owned by the farmer, not borrowed. A 

 good farmer will rather lend than borrow, and if proi)erly 

 taken care of and housed, most of the tools, from a hannner 

 to an ox cart, will last a lifetime. A half hogshead in its 

 })urchased state is perishable, but paint it and hoop it with 

 old wagon tires and you have it to lend to all your neighbors 

 forever, every time they kill their hogs, and to go after 

 when you want to kill your own. 



Pages might be written upon the pleasures of feeding 

 stock and seeing it improve under kind treatment in warm 

 quarters. It is a great pleasure to mc, in the howling 

 storms that often occur in my region, with the mercury at 

 zero or below, to know when I go to my bed that all of my 

 stock is as warm and comfortable as I am. 



There is one thing about some of our fiirms that has 

 neither pleasure nor humanity in it, and that is in watering 

 stock at distant streams or springs. Where water has to be 



