Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1879-11-03
A0rirMlinral department.
GUMPTIoN IN EARNING.

Speaking Of old farms and the best
way of farming. there is one thing in
which the thrifty New Highlander is
apt to excel his bretheren of newer
communities and that is in the ap-
planes for doing his work. He has
everything "handy." The proverbial
."gumption" of his race characterizes
all his operations. lie has inherited
the habit of saving" from an ances-
try that found it stern necessity, and
he adds to it an enterprise in adopting
all new helps in doing his work which
his shrewd calculation tells him will
"pay."
The Western farmer, with his hundred
or his thousand acres of wheat, would
laugh at the stout little One-horse mower
and reaper with which his New Hamp-
shire brother cuts his gardening patch"
fields; but the latter, if thrifty and pur-
posely Independent, raises his own wheat
and oats, and he knows that it pays to
be able to harvest them quickly, with
the ordinary help on the farm, even if
he have but small fields.
The corn which grows so vigorously
on the strong soil of his knobs with the
southern slope. is cultivated with the
help of boy and his steady-going horse.
His barn is built with basement. to
handling it two or three times over
and when he draws it onl to his fields it
is in a broad. tired, two-wheeled cart,
from which he can dump it without
pitching. His wood, too, is drawn in a
cart, and unloaded in the same swift
and handy fashion.
AS We haves SEEM the many ways in
which these carts' are made useful, we
have wondered that they are not more
common in the Middle States, in place
of the four-wheeled wagons with their
narrow tires cutting up the meadow turf
and sinking in the soft places over which
the broad wheels would pass in safety.
The convenient and economical arrange
ments for foddering the cattle and sheep
In modern New England barn, would
probably astonish the more prodigal
not to say shiftless, farmers of more
prolific sections. mo waste" is thu
motto which has enabled the hard-work
ing farmers of the older States to hole
their own against the competition of tn,
fertile and easily-tilled fields of tn,
West.
Around the house, too, the same habi
prevails. On every well-conducted farm
there is workshop. we'll supplied wit
necessary tools, and with bits of choic
"bone-dry" timber, from which every
thing from rake tooth to a whiffletre
can be quickly fashioned. Buy an,
hire as little as possible, but make an
do for yourself, is the rule. 30
Too many farmers act on the assumpt
ion that no labor-saving contrivanc
amounts to much unless it is protecte
by a patent, and costs money. Til
mau who has ''gumption' knows better
He manages, also, to improve his plac
by permanent betterments,-to hay
water run into his barn-yard, and t
prevent the best part of the manur
from running out; to keep bunch q
shingles ready to stop any leak in hi
roofs, and tin to make his granary vel
min-proof; to build fences that won
need yearly repairs to put in new fru
to take the place of old trees, and [
keep the latter neatly trimmed; to di
drains and fight the weeds,-in wore
to "keep up his place in manner tina
will advertise him even to the passel
by as a man who respects his calm
and knows how to make it pay.
Deliver us. if you please, from tn
gumptionless farmer, who never look
beyond the end Of his nose, and neve
uses his hindsight to help his foresight
Golden Rule.