HINDEANCES TO SUCCESSFUL FARMING. 103 



or even thirty pounds of butter, is too much of a lift and 

 strain for any woman, except she be very robust and strong. 

 Churning and working butter in a chilly cellar or milk-room, 

 for the coolness of the place to make the butter firm, plung- 

 ing her hands and arms into ice-cold salted water when she 

 ouirht not, liftino: buckets of cream and bowls of butter, have 

 laid many a wife under the green turf, a sacrifice to her hus- 

 band's greed and her own ambition. 



Laborers. — The difficulty of hiring good farm laborers is 

 certainly a great hindrance, and the solution of this important 

 question is far oft". 



Farmers have tried sending to the cities for immigrants, 

 l)at not always, perhaps not. generally, with satisfactory 

 results. The men are ignorant, unskilled, often stupid when 

 no worse. A new-comer on a farm in Vernon, a few years 

 ago, was on one Sunday morning given the oil can, and 

 directed to go out and grease the .wagon ; and he did, top, 

 body, wheels, boot, and even the cushions. The owner was 

 not pleased nor grateful, nor did he attend divine service 

 that day. Another was told by a farmer in a neighboring 

 town to take a brush scythe and bog hoe, and clear up the 

 weeds and brush on a certain lot, unfortunately out of sight. 

 He returned the second day and reported that he had finished ; 

 and he had, so thoroughly that not one was left of four hun- 

 dred apple trees set on the lot two years previously. The 

 owner being one of the world's people, I was told that the 

 English language was considerably torn to pieces ; but the 

 unfortunate laborer, being a fresh German, didn't fully com- 

 prehend the situation. Such experiences are not calculated 

 to improve the temper, nor to inspire us to cultivate our 

 foreign relations. 



Improved animals. — A farmer, to be successful in his 

 stock raising, if he cannot aftbrd thoroughbred animals, 

 should by all means grade up his stock of all kinds by the 

 use of a thoroughbred male, which is always obtainal)le at 

 some neighboring farm. For ordinary purposes of the dairy 

 and for the shambles, grades are better than thoroughbreds, 

 and there is no better evidence of thrift in a farmer than to 

 see him carefully improving his stock in that way. 



Im])lemenls. — A farmer should buy the best implements 



