FARMS. 119 



ment of his farming, of raising all his own grain. Sometimes 

 he raised wheat and sometimes rye. 



He was now able to keep eight cows, and he had raised tliem 

 all himself, except the first two. He took good care of his 

 calves, and fed them well, from the time they were taken from 

 the cows, and kept them always in a thriving condition. He 

 never allowed them to get lousy, or become stunted, but 

 supplied them well the fii-st winter with rowen hay, and turnips 

 and other roots. His cows too, were well cared for, and he 

 found that by keeping them warm in the winter, and feeding 

 them with a mess of turnips daily, through the cold weather, 

 they gave more and better milk, and came out strong and 

 healthy in the spring, and did not have to lose two or three 

 months in the summer, to recruit what they had lost in the 

 winter. 



He became quite proud of his stock of cows, for he had the 

 reputation of having the best cows in town, and of making the 

 most butter for the number of cows. This resulted, as he was 

 well aware, from having raised none but promising calves, and 

 his having taken good care of them. His wife always took 

 great pains with her butter, and the man who carried it to 

 market, always returned her one or two cents a pound above 

 the price of common butter. Neighbor Wiseman learned by 

 experience the value of the turnip crop, and always laid out 

 for a good supply of flat turnips for the fall and early part of 

 winter, and of ruta-bagas, for the remainder of the winter. 

 Although most of his neighbors believed that turnips were of 

 little value, yet somehow, by their use, his cows did better and 

 made more butter than theirs, and when he had occasion to 

 fatten one, she made good beef, in less time, and at less cost, 

 tlian they could make it. 



In about three years from the time he purchased the twenty- 

 acre lot, he purchased a piece of meadow with a strip of wood- 

 land adjoining. He now had his barn quite full of hay and 

 grain when he gathered in his harvest, and began to think it 

 necessary to enlarge it. So he made his arrangements, and 

 prepared to add forty feet to his barn the next season ; and as 

 he now had four stout oxen, he soon had the timber on the 

 ground, and the board logs at the mill, and before the end of 

 the next season, he had a fine barn, one hundred feet long and 



