272 



NEW ENGLAND FAHSfER. 



JcNi 



His fences are old and poor — ;iust sucli as to 

 kt h\a neiglibor'y cattle break into his ficM, and 

 teach his oivn to be unruly and spoil his crop. 



He neglects to keep the manure from aroun<J 

 the sills of his barn — if ho has mio — by which 

 they ai-c i^rematurcly rotted, ami his barn de- 

 etroyal - 



lie tills, or skima ovor the suyfaco O'f his land, 

 until it is exhausted, but never thinks it vro-rth 

 Tvliile to manure or clover it. For the first, he has 

 no time, for the last he "is not able." 



He has a place for nothing, and nothing in its 

 place. He consequently -wants a lioe or a rake 



or a hammer, or an augur, but knows not where- 

 to find them, and thus lose&much time. 



He loiters away stormy days and evenings when 

 he should' be repairing hia utcnmls, or improving 

 his mind by reading useful books or newspaper. 



He spends much time in town, at tlie corner of 

 the street, or m the "snake holes," complaining: 

 of hard times, and goes homo in the evening, 

 "pretty well tore.'- 



He hiis no shed for his fire wood — consequently 

 his wife is out of humor, and his meals out of sea- 

 son. 



He plants a few fruit trees^ and his cattle forth - 



IIOMKSTEAD OF THE TIIKIFTLE9S FARMKR. 



with destroy them. He ''has no luck in raising 

 fruit." ^ ^ 



One-half the little he raises is destroyed by his 

 own or his neighbors' cattle. 



His plow, drag, and other implements, lie all 

 winter m the field where last used ; and just as he 

 in getting in a hurry, the nest season, his plow 

 breaks, Ixjcause it was not housed and properly 

 eared for. 



Somebody's hogs break in, and destroy his 

 garden, because he had not stopped a hole in the 

 fence, that he had been intending to stop for a 

 week. 



He is often in a great hurry, but will stop and 

 talk as long as he can find any one to talk with. 



He has, of course, little money ; and when he 

 must raise some to pay his taxes, &c., he raises it 

 at a great sacrifice, in some way or other, by pay- 

 ing an enormous shave, or by selling his scanty 

 crop when prices are low. 



He is a year behind, instead of being a year 

 ahead of his business — and always will be. 



When he pays a debt, it is at the end of an 

 execution ; consequently his credit is at a low ebb. 



He buys entirely on credit, and merchants and 

 all others with wliom he deals, charge him twice 

 or thrice the profit tliey charge prompt paymas- 

 ters, and are unwilling to sell him goods at any 



cost. He has to beg and promise, and promise and 

 beg, to get them on any terms. The merchants 

 dread to see his wife come into their stores, and 

 the poor woman feels depressed and degraded. 



The smoke begins to come out of his chimney 

 late of a winter's morning, while his cattle are 

 suffering for their morning's feed. 



Manure lies in heaps in his stable ; his horses are 

 rough and uncurried, and liis harness trod under 

 their feet. 



His bars and gates are broken, his buildings un- 

 paintod, and boards and shingles falling off — he 

 has no time to replace them — the glass is out of 

 the windows, and the holes stopped with rags and 

 old hats. 



Ho is a great borrower of his thrifty neighbor '» 

 implements, but never returns the borrowed arti- 

 cle, and when it is sent for, it can't be found. 



He is, in person, a great sloven, and never at- 

 tends public worship, or if he does occasionally do 

 so, he comes sneaking in when the service is half 

 out. 



He neglects his accounts, and when his neighbor 

 calls to settle with him, has something else to at- 

 end to. 



Take him all in all, he is a poor farmer, a poor 

 husband, a poor father, a poor neighbor, and a 

 poor Christian. 



