218 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



yards, shows that the owner has not fixed up as he ought 

 to have done. 



If your stables are old, examine the floor ; or some night 

 may let a horse through, to come out lame for life. If you 

 have a dirt floor, see that it is carefully laid, and remember 

 that if it be inclined either way, it should be from the rack 

 and not toward it. Let yoixr wagons, carts, fJows, etc., be 

 repaired during the fall and winter, and not be left till spring. 

 See that your shingles are all sound on the house, barn, 

 and shed. The leak which you have allowed to drop, drop, 

 drop all summer has at last taken oif a yard or two of 

 plaster, and it is time now to put on a shingle or two. 

 There is another leak or two that must be stopped. That 

 pocket of yours which has let out dime after dime for liquor, 

 the hole getting bigger and bigger every year, now is the 

 time to sow it up, or it will rip you up. A pocket is a small 

 place, to be sure, but we have seen barns, cattle, and acre 

 after acre slip through a hole in it which, at first, was 

 only large enough to let sixpence through. 



See that all your tools have a safe and dry standing- 

 place; hoes, rakes, scythes, sickles, yokes, spades, shovels, 

 chains, pins, harrows, plows, carts, and sleds, axes, mattocks, 

 hammers, and everything, but your geese and ducks, should 

 be kept from wet and snoAv. 



If you have no stables for your cattle, you should have 

 good sheds provided, opening to the south. Even when 

 cattle are allowed to run through the stock-fields, there 

 ought to be in some warm place an ample shed to which 

 they can resort during wet and cold weather ; and one sufii- 

 ciently snug can be made without calling in the carpenter 

 or buying lumber. 



