with its chalk scores, unhung and brought into court, would be 

 allowed to justify a suppletovy oath. But barn doors and 

 kitchen ceilings are unsafe and clumsy journals. Paper and 

 pen and ink are much more trustworthy and quite as convenient. 

 All that is wanted is ordinary penmanship, a knowledge of the 

 simplest rules of arithmetic, and that habit of punctuality 

 which will record the transaction at the time of its occurrence. 

 If the farmer is advanced in years, and his hands cramped by 

 toil, let him use the nimbler fingers of his wife or daughter, 

 only let him have the account kept. But let his son, when he 

 begins farming, start fair in this respect, and accustom himself 

 to keep his accounts regularly and correctly. It. will not only 

 save him money, it will save him much annoyance, vexation 

 and strife. It may be said that this is a small matter. Be it 

 so. " Take care of the little things, and the large ones will 

 take care of themselves," — or, as the tradesman has it, and he 

 knows the value of poor Richard's maxim, " Take care of the 

 pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves." It has 

 been said by good authority, " More 2^>'ofit is made on a farm 

 from trifles than from the large crops." The sooner the young 

 man learns this invaluable lesson, the better will be his chances 

 of success. The Dutch have a proverb, "No one is ever 

 ruined who keeps good accounts." They will not only enable 

 a man to understand his whole affairs, and avoid being cheated, 

 but their moral effect is important ; — they prevent habits of ir- 

 regularity, procrastination and indolence ; they induce habits 

 of order, promptness and industry. 



Among those things which attract the attention of an outside 

 observer, there is no one which so excites his surprise as the 

 indifference manifested by farmers in availing themselves of the 

 aids furnished to successful culture by improved instruments of 

 labor and by modern scientific research. Although as to the 

 former, there has, of late years, been a great and growing 

 change, and men who but recently looked with distrust and 

 aversion upon what they called new-fangled inventions, will 

 now cheerfully use, and, if they cannot afford to buy, will hire 



