THE FARM OF THE FIRST MINISTER. 7 



as he went, he thought, he recorded his experiences and studied 

 those of others ; sometimes cheered, sometimes depressed, but 

 determined to sooner or later know his business. 



On one occasion, however, he became discouraged. The 

 farm was not paying expenses, and he confided to a neighbor 

 of twice his years and far broader agricultural experience, his 

 purpose to sell it. " Pooh ! " replied his confidant, throwing 

 back his head, until his eagle beak of a nose hung down his 

 face like a bush scythe on a tree, " Pooh ! I don't think much 

 of a young man who is not smart enough to keep what was given 

 to him." 



This remark stung the young proprietor's too thin skin, 

 which has grown thicker since. When, ere long, his temper 

 had become serene, and cool reflection had come to his aid, he 

 concluded that his sympathetic comforter held a justifiable 

 opinion. The old farm was not sold. Thus far, its present 

 owner has been " smart enough to keep it." 



PLOWING. 



The important fact was ere long made known to the present 

 owner, that his hired men worked for pay and not because they 

 loved him, and that if their pay was to come from the farm's 

 income, the farm's products must be largely increased. It was 

 being run upon the old rotations of an hundred years ago. 

 Exhausted sod ground was broken up in the fall, manured the 

 next spring, and planted to corn. The following year it was 

 sown with oats, to be cropped with grass the succeeding six. 



Hay, the leading crop, was produced at the rate of some fifty 

 to sixty tons a year. A part of this was of good quality, but most 

 of it classed under the uncertain term of " stock hay," and 

 varied all the way from fair, fairish, and middling fair, down 

 to mean, meaner, and meanest. 



A farm never stands still. It either improves or deteriorates. 

 Conscious that, for aught he knew, its three former owners, — 

 a minister of the Gospel, a judge of the Common Pleas court, 

 and a captain of Cavalry, might, from some locality beyond his 

 ken, be watching his movements, the present proprietor felt 

 that, if he neglected its improvement, there might be such a 



