CHAPTER XLIL 



SHORT SERMON. 



N conclusion, friends, I want to give you a little 

 agricultural sermon. I will take my text from the 

 Bible, too, in a regular, orthodox manner. Here 

 you have it : " We ought to give the more earnest 

 heed to the things which we have heard." 



Now, in this little book which this chapter 

 closes, I am well aware that there is not much that is new. Some 

 of my readers have heard, or read, or thought, of everything, per- 

 haps, that may -be found in these pages. A few may get some 

 new ideas, but to most it will simply be a reminder of what they 

 knew before. Therefore, it seems to me, that what most of us 

 really need is to put in practice what we already know to give 

 more earnest heed to the things which we have heard. We do 

 not do as well as we know how, not by a good deal. 



Let us look .over some of the points brought out in this book. 

 Every reader knows the value of manure, to start with. It is 

 plant food. A very little of it may make a big ear of corn, 

 instead of a nubbin. Which is worth the most ? Or it may make 

 three tons of hay to the acre, instead of one. It will pay for this 

 reason to take care of it, the liquid as well as the solid. The 

 former is worth as much as the latter. Still thousands and 

 thousands of dollars' worth will leak through the cracks 

 of stable floors this winter, or soak into the earth about 

 the barns. Other thousands will be scattered along lanes or in 

 fence corners or out of the way places, where cattle, that should 

 have been enclosed in a yard or stable, have stood. Many a pile 

 will have much of its value washed out by rains, or carried into 

 the air by excessive heating. Things go to waste so easily. All 

 this has been thoroughly considered in this little book, and, doubt- 

 less, you knew about it before. But have yon done it? That is 

 the question. If not, then my text hits you. You know, but 

 do not do as well as you know. You need to give more earnest 

 heed to these things you have heard. 



You have all heard, and you know it is true, that you cannot 

 afford to raise two crops on the same land at once a crop of 

 weeds along with a crop of corn, potatoes, wheat or clover ; but, 

 alas ! how many fields one sees, in the best farming districts, 

 where the weeds are robbing the crops more than it is profitable 

 to allow them to ! I wish I could go through a township and 

 just be able to put the exact figures on each farm for the damage 



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