TAKING REINS IN HAND 



Izaak Walton, let him disabuse his mind. In 

 place of it all, he will sniff boots that remind 

 of a damp cattle yard, and listen to sharp 

 brogue that will be a souvenir of Donnybrook 

 Fair. In briefest possible terms, the inferior 

 but necessary labor of a farm must be per- 

 formed now, in the majority of cases, by the 

 most inefficient of Americans, or by the rawest 

 and most uncouth of Irish or Germans. 



There lived some twenty or thirty years ago 

 in New England, a race of men, American 

 born, and who, having gone through a two 

 winters' course of district school ciphering and 

 reading, with cropped tow heads, became the 

 most indefatigable and ingenious of farm 

 workers. Their hoeing was a sleight of hand ; 

 they could make an ox yoke, or an axe helve on 

 rainy days ; by adroit manipulation, they could 

 relieve a choking cow, or as deftly, hive a 

 swarm of bees. Their furrows indeed were 

 not of the straightest; but their control of a 

 long team of oxen was a miracle of guidance. 

 They may have carried a bit of Cavendish 

 twist in their waistcoat pockets ; they certainly 

 did not waste time at lavations; but as farm 

 workers they had rare aptitude; no tool came 

 amiss to them; they cradled; they churned, if 

 need were; they chopped and piled their three 



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