HOW TO KG BETTER FARMERS. 63 



If his one idea was of productiveness and profit, all tliat is 

 ornamental and all that is comfortable might be sacrificed, and 

 yet tlie main object not be gained. 



I am aware that the present occupant is not always responsi- 

 ble for all that we see in passing him. His predecessor may 

 have left him too many poor buildings and quite too many fall- 

 ing fences ; and it may be wise for him, in view of a deficient 

 capital and an expensive family, to be patient, and bear with 

 things out of joint, till better able to have them as he would. 

 But a man of sense and energy will not spend the whole of 

 life on a farm where every fence is in the wrong place, and 

 every building both in the wrong place and of the wrong kind. 

 In passing through your region, one sees veiy mucli to praise, 

 and cannot but lament the exceptions. You all know, I sup- 

 pose, that it requires but half as much lumber exposed to the 

 weather, to shelter your stock and crops in one large barn, as 

 in two or three small ones. I do not apprehend that lumber is 

 ever to be very scarce among you, because I am sure you will 

 see the importance of encouraging its growth on lands better 

 fitted for that than for other purposes ; and it must be admitted 

 that, like most of New England, you have fencing materials 

 that are lasting and abundant ; yet I cannot but think you will 

 agree with me, that fewer lots and larger, fewer fences and 

 better, and fewer buildings in a higli state of preservation, 

 woukl be an improvement upon what has been the general 

 practice. 



A well laid out farm, with all its arrangements convenient, 

 every acre producing what it is best adapted to produce, is one 

 of the most beautiful objects in nature. To make it such, I am 

 well aware, is not the work of a day, nor of a year, nor per- 

 haps of five years, unless in the case of a retired millionaire, 

 who has betaken himself to spending money in farming ; yet 

 the farmer who has not a dollar to spend for mere fancy, may 

 bring it about in ten years. Let him lay his plan, if he is ou 

 one of these unseemly, inconvenient, unprofitably arranged 

 farms, of which there are yet too many. Let it be a compre- 

 hensive plan, reaching some way into the future, and embrac- 

 ing by all means the expenses of living the while. When he 

 alters any of the old arrangements, let it be in harmony with 

 the plan — a part and parcel of its execution, so that when a 



