FARMS. 99 



applicable to Yankees as well as Romans, " Whoever would de- 

 vote himself to the pursuits of agriculture must cultivate the 

 faculty of spending." 



This leads us to say, as our final negative, that good farming 

 requires liberal, but not extravagant expenditure. The man 

 who lives upon the productions of his land cannot lavish money 

 upon it, as he who makes his farm a mere plaything. The city 

 gentleman and the country gentleman, can learn much from 

 each other, but the country-seat must not furnish the model for 

 the farm. We welcome the denizens of our crowded cities, to 

 our pure air and beautiful scenery, and are much obliged to 

 them for crowning our hills with their mansions, introducing 

 much good stock, giving us specimens of landscape gardening, 

 and setting us an example of the amenities of city life, but as 

 the tailor cuts his coat according to his cloth, so must the farmer 

 expend according to his means. There is a golden mean between 

 parsimony and extravagance. Nature deals bountifully with 

 those who deal bountifully with her, and farmers can well afford 

 to spend liberally for fertilizers, good buildings, good tools, and 

 good stock, but not one cent for snobbish display. 



But we must hasten to some of the positive points in good 

 husbandry ; and the first is : there must be some well devised 

 •and thoroughly prosecuted system. Agriculture, like every 

 other art, has many divisions and sub-divisions, and he is a good 

 farm manager, who selects some division to which his soil and 

 capacity are adapted and pursues it with unfaltering faith and 

 systematic energy. If the dairy branch of farming is selected, 

 then dairy it should be, and the dairy business should be studied 

 with all the light the experience of other dairymen in this and 

 other countries, in this and other ages, can throw upon it. He 

 that gropes his way by his own experience solely, must creep 

 when he might just as well walk. Experience is the best school- 

 master, but it does not follow that we cannot learn from the ac- 

 cumulated experience of our cotemporaries, and all who have 

 gone before us, as well as from our own limited observation. 

 No matter what branch of farming is selected, it must be studied 

 thoroughly and pursued perseveringly and systematically, or emi- 

 inence cannot be attained in it. Changing from the dairy to wool, 

 and from wool to stock breeding, with every changing current in 

 business affairs, is most certain to end in partial success, if not in 



