ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 27 



FARMERS' LIBRARY. 



It is of the highest importance that farmers should pos- 

 sess reading Iiabits; and that they should bring up their 

 children to a love of books. Every farmer should have a 

 library ; it may, at first, be small ; but it should be select. 

 As soon as a farmer is beforehand enough to own an acre, 

 he is prosperous enough to begin a library. It is said by 

 many, books won't make money. Yes they will. To-be- 

 sure, their best effect is the production of intelligence in the 

 reader; but a man well informed in his own business is just 

 the man to make money. Who ever thought of making 

 money by buying grindstones and whetstones ? But they 

 sharpen the scythe, and sickle, and the axe, and they pro- 

 duce money. Books are grindstones and whetstones for a 

 man's mind. 



Many are unwilling to buy a treatise upon the disease of 

 the horse, although there are several which will prevent most 

 of the evils which affect this noble animal. In the West, the 

 horse is used, in town and country, by almost every man. 

 But very few profess to know how he should be treated ! 

 And, of those who think they are wise, how many havQ any 

 knowledge except of a few nostrums for sickness? The 

 horse, in man's service, is living in an entirely artificial 

 state. He takes care of himself if left wild. But living in 

 stables, laboring every month of the year in harness, and 

 under the saddle, not selecting his own food, but fed at the 

 ^vill of his master, his own instincts become of little use, 

 and he is dependent entirely on the mercy and knowledge 

 of those whose slave he is. It ought not to be thought 

 xinreasonable to say that every man who is "willing to ow7i a 

 horse, ought to be willing to know how to manage him, in 

 the stable and out of it. There is no work in the English 

 language containing more, or better instructions than* Stew- 



• A Treatise on the management of horse* in relation to stabling, groom- 

 inj, feeding, teatering, and working: published by A.O.Moore &Ck)., N. Y. 



