PRACTICAL PAPERS—MIXED HUSBANDRY. 
133 
with its no less various characters and qualities of soil, no rules 
can be laid down which will suit the different conditions. Pe¬ 
culiar conditions demand peculiar treatment; each farmer must 
be guided by the requirements of his soil, by the position of 
roads, exposure, currents of water, etc. On this subject we 
can only offer a few general hints. 
In laying off a farm it is desirable, whenever practicable, 
that the lots be so distributed that each may have access to 
running water. The division into lots and the arrangement of 
the buildings must be made with a proper regard to conven¬ 
ience and to the savins: of labor. It is hardly necessary to 
mention that in this age of labor-saving machines, the farmer 
who neglects to free his land from stumps, stones and other 
obstacles to their use, greatly mistakes his interest. Every lot 
should be provided with a light, secure and easily worked gate. 
Bars are poor things, being slow, inconvenient and not very 
safe, although they cost about as much as a gate. Good gates 
can be made and set up at a cost not much exceeding one 
dollar. Who would do without them and have his fences con¬ 
stantly put out of joint, when gates can be had so cheaply ? 
Where the circumstances will admit of it a private road run¬ 
ning through the center of the farm, as far as the two most dis¬ 
tant lots, with a gate opening into it from each field, is found 
to be a very great convenience. This road does not need to 
be more than 20 or 30 feet wide, for the passage of teams, and 
driving cattle to and from pastures. The land required for this 
purpose is well and profitably employed, as it obviates the ne¬ 
cessity of driving }^our cattle upon the public road, and of 
taking your teams or stock through one lot in order to reach 
another, by which a great deal of useless labor and sometimes 
of loss, will be saved in the course of a year. 
Perhaps the system of rotation which we intend to advo¬ 
cate might be entered upon at once on the first breaking of 
the land, commencing with wheat, then corn and oats in suc¬ 
cession, seeding down with the latter; but we do not deem it 
very material or necessary that the rotation should commence 
at this early stage of cultivation; because the land, having all 
