100 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



men and teams to work to the best advantage. In sending off 

 a cart for wood, rails, manure, &c., two men may work to 

 advantage, but if one can do it in twice the time, then the 

 half-hour's travel of the other man each way, out and back, is 

 saved. A shrewd farmer who has outlying fields, would con- 

 trive to have the labor performed on them continuously, avoid- 

 ing all unnecessary travel to and from the house ; he would 

 endeavor to avoid all heavy carting, and if possible to use his 

 yard manure near home, using light manure and special 

 fertilizers abroad. 



About the house and barn, and especially in doing that 

 unceasing round of most important work concisely expressed in 

 the derivative from that good old Saxon as " chores," system 

 and method are essential, in the division of labor, and in the 

 regular and faithful execution of it in feeding, watering and 

 milking stock, cleaning stables, &c. Numberless illustrations 

 of this subject will occur to every thinking farmer which need 

 not be mentioned here. 



When we say that there is a great waste by vermin, we 

 intend to be general in our charge, taking a wide range, placing 

 dogs at the head, and running down to the least insect that 

 torments the steer, or saps the green leaf. The fidelity of the 

 dog is a beautiful thing in prose, or verse, and as almost every 

 family has a dog, eminent for attachment and fidelity to that 

 family, perfectly free from all vice, guiltless of the blood of 

 sheep or the feathers of poultry, we wish it understood that the 

 objections here mentioned against dogs do not obtain against 

 their dog, but strictly to every other one in the State. 



Passing the everlasting nuisance of a dog in the house, wast- 

 ing patience and good temper by soiling the clean floors, making 

 his resting-place on the sofa, in the best chairs or wherever 

 most in the way ; feloniously appropriating every accessible piece 

 of meat, or pan of milk ; worrying the cat and the cows, and des- 

 troying the poultry ; scratching up the garden and flower- 

 beds for his bone deposits ; digging up the meadow for hypothet- 

 ical moles or suppositional mice ; allowing that these are mere 

 trifles, not worthy of notice, we say that the waste caused by 

 dogs among sheep amounts to more than the value of all the 

 dogs in the Commonwealth, even at the exaggerated valuation 

 of their owners, to say nothing of the risk of life and limb. 



