AUTHOR'S NOTE 



IT may be recalled that Josh Billings in his 

 famous essay, ''What I Kno about Pharming," 

 makes this open confession: ''What I know about 

 pharmin' iz kussid little." But there are few 

 like the humorous essayist. Ever since the first 

 pioneer felled the first tree in the forest primeval, 

 there has been a crowd eagerly anxious to mount 

 the stump and tell the farmer how to farm. If 

 a man plants a hill of cucumbers in his backyard, 

 or, as a boy, has helped herd the potato bug off the 

 family patch, it just seems that he cannot restrain 

 himself from telling the fellow in the furrowed 

 fields how to make farming pay. This book does 

 not give advice to farmers. Advice is the cheapest 

 thing in the world, and so there is a price on this 

 volume. Having driven the cows across the mead- 

 ows sweet with clover, carried the cool grey jug 

 to the harvest field of other days, and ploughed 

 with an old ox-team, I had to struggle heroically 

 to keep myself out of the armchair agriculturist 

 class. But like Paul of old, I feel I have fought 

 a good fight and won. 



"Old Days on the Farm" was the title given a 

 series of articles contributed to the St. Marys 

 Journal, most of which articles, with changes and 



ix 



