Fai-ming. — Catise of Inferior Stock, 



10 



ought to debit himself with the value of every 

 article which he has withdrawn trom the farm 

 in the shape of meat, drink and clothing, lor 

 himself and family ; rent, the keep of mdoor 

 servants and horses for pleasure, ni which 

 every farmer sometimes indulges — and all 

 these things lie imist put at tlie market-price, 

 or what he would have to pay for them were 

 he to purchase as a tradesman — eggs at 20 

 cents a dozen, milk at 6 cents a quart, cab- 

 bages 4 and cents apiece, and cucumbers, 

 apples, &c., at their real value, not permit- 

 ting himself to indulge even in a pair of 

 chickens, without charging for them; then, 

 at the end of the year, let him take an ac- 

 count of his stock, the annual increase m 

 value of which must be great, and calculate 

 the permanent improvements which have 

 been made upon his property ; and if he is 

 sucii an one as he ought to be, and has sub- 

 scribed for and read the agricultural periodi- 

 cals of the dav, I should not fear to show up 

 the state of his affairs by the side of many, 

 whose returns— s^s they are called— from bu- 

 siness, have been many times greater than 

 his, but which have at length ceased to re- 

 turn at all, having taken to themselves wings 

 and flown away: while the advantage of 

 doing business for ready money must not be 

 omitted on the farmers' side; the value of 

 which, if he happen not to know, any trades- 

 man can inform him of. 



I know, at the present time, two merchants 

 in partnership, who have as fine a business 

 as could be desired, with every facility for 

 conducting it with success; and yet, at the 

 end of the year their profits are not by any 

 means equal to what might have been ex- 

 pected, tiieir expenses — commencing with 

 the rental of a store at iglSOO a year— being 

 absolutely enormous: their greatest anxiety, 

 however, arises from the uncertainty which 

 they experience at the end of the year 

 — so much of their property being in the 

 hands of others, and scattered to the four 

 quarters of the globe : and it is at that par- 

 ticular season, when they envy the man who, 

 in the midst of his snug business of farming, 

 can sit down quietly and count his possessions, 

 with a certainty that they can never know, 

 and when 5 per cent, profit in reality, would 

 be of far more intrinsic value than 25 in an- 

 ticipation. All things considered, therefore, 

 I by no means admit that " Farming is not 

 •what 'tis cracked up to be." A Merchant. 



August 3, 1&41. 



Vol. VL 



Cause of Inferior Stock. 



Some farmers sell or slaughter their best 

 stock of cows, ewes, or sows, and thus destroy 

 all hope of improvement at a blow. Does a 

 heifer show a disposition to fatten easily? — 

 she is encouraged by feed until fat, and is- 

 then sold or eaten, while her fellows, of the 

 breed of Pharaoh's lean kine, are kept for 

 milk or rearing calves, because they are not 

 and cannot become fit for the butcher. Has 

 a farmer a sow pig that becomes fat with the 

 feed on which the'rest of his swine are starv- 

 ing] — he gives her over to the knife, and 

 propagates from land shads and corn-cribs. 

 Has he a fine, round, bright-eyed ewe ] — she 

 will be fat about the time his half-filled pork- 

 barrels are empty, and she is stripped of her 

 fine skin and fair proportions, simply because 

 she is worth the trouble of killing, and thus 

 many of our farmers perpetuate a breed of 

 animals that are a disgrace to the country : 

 they seem uneasy while they possess an ani- 

 mal that will draw the attention of their 

 neighbours or the butcher ; and woe be to it, 

 if it put on a better appearance than its fel- 

 lows ! From that time its doom is sealed. 



To improve the breed of animals, it is by 

 no means necessary to incur a great expense 

 in the purchase of crack stock from distant 

 parts : if the farmer will take his horse and 

 ride across the country some fine day, and 

 view the live stock of his neighbours, he will 

 soon perceive that there are abundance of 

 means of bettering his circumstances by a 

 cross or exchange at but little cost, and he by 

 this means is improving his judgment by 

 comparison, and hoarding up experience for 

 a future day that will be of more value to 

 him than the expense of many such pleasura- 

 ble excursions ; and improvement once begun 

 and persisted in for a short time, will produce 

 such a correspondent improvement in the 

 mind and circumstances of the farmer as will 

 insure its continuation and richly reward all 

 Iiis labour and outlay. It is only to try it. — 

 Selected. 



Early rising and going to the plough, or 

 on a journey at three or four o'clock in the 

 morning in the summer ; stop at ten, and be- 

 gin again at three or four o'clock in the after- 

 noon until night, is the best mode of working 

 fer man and beast. 



Constitution of Society. 



Society, like nature, knows no vacuum — 

 every place is filled ; every man has his home 

 and also his duties, which belong to him and 

 to no one else. Wherever man is planted, 

 his situation points out, perhaps creates his 

 proper business — a stream here, a sea there ; 

 an earth in one spot, a mineral in another; 

 a species of wood in this district, a plant in 

 that, yields resources to industry, and deter- 

 mines the nature of man's employment ; while 

 one connexion grows out of another, and 

 new social relations give birth to new sen- 

 timents, new labours, and new duties. — Asp- 

 J land. 



