Good and Bad Farming Contrasted. 
1&7 
FijT, 14 — Premises of the Bad Farmer. 
breezes of summer, or give octave lo the harsher notes of winter; 
while there the absence of outer screen permits the storms, in play- 
ful fancy, to search into the firmness of the winter walls. The 
windows, too, show marks of strange fantasies of taste, by exhi- 
biting, at paneless intervals, patchwork of many-colored shreds, 
shingle-panes, openwork of cooling dimensions. Around the pre- 
mises, the wreck of what should have been the last fence to have 
fallen, shows the broad port-holes through which destruction sends 
its powerful missiles. That was never a neat and tidy fence. In 
its creation it was but the counterpait of fell decay. The barn, 
which, next to a man's house, should be his castle and his tower 
of strong defence, as you see, like the owner, has lost the centre 
of gravity, and is going down to share the fate of all things. The 
roof, now, serves no other purpose than to riddle the storm, and 
give strange pastime to the winds. The siding, too, as you must 
notice, is composed of boards confined only here and there with a 
nail, which leaves them hanging, like malefactors, to the mercy 
of the elements. The doors, unhinged, play antic capers in the 
blast and fall. That load of hay, just at the threshold of the barn 
is left because, through the failure of a single strap in the harness, 
it could be taken no further; and the poor farmer has gone three 
miles on a pleasant day to get a new one in its place. 
