75 



be a good investment. Again, you fear to buy lest a better 

 implement will shortly be introduced, and you will wait for 

 that. But, by the same rule, when that comes, you will wait 

 for its successor, and so on, till you miss your opportunity. So 

 fares it with some farmers, and you can easily tell whether 

 they are among the most thrifty. Others run to the opposite 

 extreme, buy every new implement that comes along, and have 

 a good deal of useless machinery to fill their sheds. Of course 

 there is discretion to be exercised here, as in other things, and 

 by it you must direct your path. 



Of implements of acknowledged utility, we say in the words 

 affixed to the advertisements of Webster's Dictionary : " Get 

 the best." Depend upon it, the best is in the long run the 

 cheapest. Only be sure to use and house your tools carefully. 

 As a general thing, you will be more likely to do this, if you 

 buy the best, than if you buy the cheapest. Yet we would 

 not be understood as claiming that high cost is an infallible 

 guarantee of the best quality. There may be fixtures about 

 tools, as well as tools themselves, that are more ornamental 

 than useful. A farmer needs to have his eyes open when he 

 is shown a churn, for example, that has a variety of arrange- 

 ments by which it is asserted that butter can be churned by a 

 small child, and that too in five or ten minutes. He may be 

 wheedled into a purchase, but after a few trials he will be no 

 more proud of it than Franklin was of his whistle. 



A farmer, of all men, needs to have a wise caution in pur- 

 chasing things that promise large results. He must look into 

 them for himself, or must rely upon the judgment or experience 

 of others who have tested them. If he takes only the word 

 of the vendor, or the certificates of persons unknown to him, 

 he will be liable to be swindled, as some in our county have 

 been this very season. 



AVith reference to new implements, it may truly be said that 

 one trial will not fully test them. " One swallow does not 

 make a summer," is a good adage for farmers. Many new 

 agricultural tools, like new brooms, work well at first, but be- 



