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and till large farms, with scanty means. Instances of the kind can be 
found on all sides, presenting large fields half fenced and half tilled,, 
overgrown with weeds and bushes, with the scanty crop when harvested, 
poorly stacked out of doors, liable to be damaged by the storms, and 
assailed by every unruly animal about the farm, until such times as the 
vagrant threshers can be obtained to thresh it. These are often a greater 
evil, although perhaps a necessary one, than a tribe of wandering Arabs; 
the amount that they scatter, waste and feed to their broken-down teams, 
leaving out of the account the uproar and confusion they cause about the 
premises, often of itself amounts to more than it would cost to thresh 
the grain, with a good machine and convenient barn. 
The Stock department of the farm is no better managed, and perhaps 
even worse. The barn conveniences consist of one or more low, mean 
hovels, shingled with straw, with a few straggling rails, indicating the 
outline of a barn yard; the whole situated, perhaps, upon a bleak prairie 
or hill top, without even a tree to break the terrible force of a western 
wintry blast; and the whole, perhaps, surrounded and imbedded in all 
the manure that has ever fallen upon the premises, it being thought 
easier in the end to move the barn than the manure. Stock thus reared 
amid the bleak winds of winter, eating their food, which is probably 
miserable marsh hay, out of the manure, mud, and snow, without rack 
or manger, ought at least to possess the quality of hardiness, and can 
hardly be expected to possess any other. The difference between cattle 
bred in this way, or on the well adapted premises of a thorough Eastern 
farmer, is as great as the difference between a wild savage and a high-bred 
civilian. This style of farming may be in some degree excusable with 
beginners, who perchance may be too poor, or too ignorant, to know 
better. But it is hard to divine what good excuse can be found for those 
who have been on good farms for years, have possessed sufficient means 
to make ample and productive improvements, and yet continue in such 
courses. One reason often assigned is, that they intend to sell, and im¬ 
provement will not pay cost. Another is, that times have been hard, 
crops poor, and prices low. No wonder that poor shallow unseasonable 
plowing and sowing with inferior dirty seed, is very apt, even on the best 
lands, to produce a scanty crop of poor grain ; and even this it may be, 
is allowed to get wet, and grow, before it gets to market. No wonder* 
