CROPS AND PROFITS. 20* 



and under the hair of his temple, you may see a 

 remaining bit of bleached skin, which shows that he 

 was fifty odd years ago a fair complexioned boy. 



He has grown gray upon his straggling farm of 

 one or two hundred acres ; yet it is doubtful if the 

 farm will produce more now, than on the day he 

 entered into possession. Some walls have been 

 renewed, and the old ones are tottering. Broken 

 bar-ways have been replaced by new ones ; the wood 

 pile has its stock year after year ; and every tenth 

 year, when oil is down, the house has its coat of 

 paint himself being mixer and painter save under 

 the eaves, for which ladder work, he employs a 

 country journeyman, who takes half pay in pork or 

 grain. When ' help ' is low, he clears some out- 

 standing rye field, and commences a new bit of wall 

 a disunited link, which possibly his heirs may 

 complete. Every year, six, -ten, or twelve hogs grow 

 into plethoric proportions ; every year they are 

 butchered, under a great excitement of hot water, 

 lard-tryings, unctuous fatty smells sausage stuffing, 

 and sales to the ' packer ' of the town. Every year 

 he tells their weight to his neighbors, between ser- 

 vices, at meeting with his thumb and forefinger in 

 the pocket of his black waistcoat, and the same sly 

 twinkle in his eye. 



Every spring he has his ' veals ' four, six, ten, 



