12 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



necessary to re-supply it, just as an open door makes it 

 necessary to have more wood in the stove. If your stock 

 run down in the winter and come out lean and feeble, all 

 the summer will not fully bring them up again. 



2. WORK FOB FEBRUARY. Get out rails, both for present 

 use, and for the fence which you expect to lay in ]\Iun -h and 

 April. Cut, haul ao^atack up near your house a good sup- 

 ply of firer-wood j no matter if the forest is within ten rods 

 of your door, your wife ought to have her wood chopped 

 and dried ready for use. Look at every fence upon the 

 place ; see if the corners of your rail fences are rotting 

 down ; if some rails have not broken ; if pig-holes have not 

 been made ; if boys and cattle have not thrown down top- 

 rails ; and in short, put your fences into proper repair. 



Of course your tools will now be overhauled ; those 

 with steel blades should be thoroughly cleansed when laid 

 aside in the fall, and if you rub a little oil over them and 

 hang them up, all the better. Repair all that are out of 

 order. These things and all your ordinary work, may be 

 done, and still leave you leisure for reading. You should 

 have good books and good papers, and read them carefully 

 for your own sake and for your children's. A man who 

 brings up a family of ignorant children, cheats his children 

 of their rights, and cheats his country of its rights ; it is 

 therefore a crime. 



GARDEN WORK. If there be no snow on the ground, 

 the gardens may be cleared of all rubbish, manure hauled 

 and stacked carefully ; and if you have a clay soil, and can 

 catch the ground without frost for a few days, it will mel- 

 low and ameliorate it to spade it up, leaving it in lumps and 

 heaps, through which the frost may thoroughly penetrate. 



It is time to prepare your hot-bed, if you design having 

 early plants in your garden. 



3. WORK FOR MARCH. Begin the year by thorough, deep 

 plowing, where your fields are in good order for it. De- 

 pend upon it, that deep plowing is the only good plowing. 



