ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 105 



Bethink you of all the mistakes you made last season ; 

 if you made any good hits, improve upon them this year. 

 Every farmer should resolve to do all things as well as he 

 did the last year, and some things a great deal better. 



While everything is merry, birds singing, bees at work, 

 cattle frisky, and the whole animated world is joyous, do 

 but search and see if, among all beasts, birds, or bugs, you 

 can find one that needs whisky to do its spring or summer 

 work on ? 



Look again ; seeds are sprouting ; trees budding ; flowers 

 peeping out from warm nooks. Everj'thing grows in 

 spring-time. 'Youth is spring-time, habits are sprouting, 

 dispositions are putting out their leaves, opinions are form- 

 ing, prejudices are getting root. Now take at least as 

 good care of your children as you do of your fann. If you 

 don't want to use the land you let it alone, and weeds grow ; 

 but when you wish to improve a piece, you turn the natural 

 weeds under, and sow the right seed, and tend the crop. 

 I have heard good kind of folks object to much " bringing 

 ttp^' of their boys. They guessed the lads would come out 

 about right. You break a colt, and break a steer, and 

 break a heifer, and break a soil, and if you won't break 

 your children, they will be very likely to break you — heart 

 and pocket. 



Fermenting manures should not be hauled or spread 

 until you are ready to plow them under. [If you spread 

 manure on meadows it should be fine, and well rotted, and 

 let ashes be liberally mixed with it.] If you let manure lie 

 a week or ten days exposed in the fields to the air, it will 

 waste one half of " its sweetness on the desert air.'* Let 

 the plow follow the cart as fast as possible, and the gases 

 generated by your manure will then be taken up by the soil, 

 and held in store for your grain. 



Deep Plowing. — ^There may be some rare cases where, 

 for special reasons, shallow plowing is adA-isable. But the 

 standing rule upon the farm should be deep plowing. A 

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