154 Annual Report of the 
have responded very well to the effort of his friends to raise him in 
life. Perhaps it is shame and regret at this fact, that now find utter¬ 
ance in his bray, for, truly, no burden of sorrow was ever poured at * 
once in such volume on the air, as by the voice of the ass. 
As to the lower economy of immediate money-making, it cannot 
be doubted, that it requires constant and universal attention to the 
quality of stock. If there is any way in wdiich mere thought can 
be coined, it is by substituting good for poor stock. Poor stock has 
nothing to commend it, unless it be that it gives cheaper expres¬ 
sion to indolence and indifference, will suffer less by abuse. A 
keen, intelligent, admiring eye with selection in it, seeing the goo 1, 
and marking the poor for extinction, should belong to every farmer, 
as it now does to a few farmers. The universality of attention to 
breeding would at once reduce speculative prices, and sober and 
guide public opinion. It is the ignorance of the many, which 
makes the extravagant notions of a few pass over into a general 
fever. Let me give at this point of economy one contrast between 
the average farmer and the average drayman. The latter expects, 
as a matter of business, to have a vehicle that can carry a full load, 
and a team that can manage it; many a farmer gets along,—a 
thing that so many of us are doing, getting along—with a wagon 
that will not bear, and a team that can not draw, a load. So he 
draws a jag of straw, a jag of hay, a jag of wood, and contentedly 
pockets the price of a jag in place of that of a load. 
When I turn to speak of the management of land by farmers as 
a point of economy, I suffer disadvantage in the West. Nature 
here takes the laboring oar, nay, both oars, in her hand, and through 
the quality of the soil she provides, and its ease of tillage, sets the 
wise man and the fool more nearly on a level than she does at the 
East. Yet there is a chance even here to point a moral. In the 
East, it would be a first consideration to lighten and warm the 
heavy, cold soil by drainage. Here, it is a consideration to be 
ready for the rains when they come, and to carry our crops through 
the long, dry days by a soil deeply and thoroughly pulverized, in 
good heart, and well-clothed with vegetation. It should be our 
purpose to husband all the moisture we have, both because the 
original supply is scant, and the distribution in time is very une¬ 
qual. If our lands are not in danger of being drowned out with 
water, our stock is in danger of being left unwatered. If it be 
