The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1882-08-16
Repairs and Improvements.

To keep a farm in repair requires
the careful attention of the owner from
the day it is put into use. Trees, etc.,
that are set for ornament or shade inns
prove from the hour they begin to
grow; but pretty much everything else
upon the farm begins to show decay
from the day when it is exposed to the
sun and rain. The best of paint parts
with much of its luster in q month, be-
gins to fade in three, is quite dull in
six months, and requires renewing in a
year. New pine-board fences look
fresh, and enliven the farm scenery for
time, but an farm fixtures are so ex-
posed to the elements that indications
of decay set in at the start, and this
tendency never diminishes.
Hence, with these facts before him it
stands the farmer in hand to build
with view to the natural tendency in
buildings and fixtures to vary from the
perpendicular and to get rusty. Gate
posts that are not at first set strictly up
right, unless changed, ever afterward
remain so. inexpensive buildings re-
ceive more or less injury from the
foundation at any point becoming de-
fective; hence it is better to guard
against corner going down before the
structure is placed upon it. The sag
ging gates or the untidy bars affect the
appearance of all in the immediate vi
cinity. The gate-posti is never too deeply
or too firmly planted; and for heavy
gate, hardly any depth or firmness of soil
about the hinge-post will absolutely in
sure against sagging. But heavy oak
stick, or three-inch plank, placed just
beneath the surface, with an end against
each post, will, as q rule, hold the
hinge-post perpendicular and the gate
level.
The impressions upon the minds of
railway travellers, as they. pass through
q farming district. vary as much as those
of the lover of art as he passes from a
piece by one of the first masters to the
merest daub by the scene-painter.
Farms at best, as they are usually trav-
ersed by railroad tracks-no regard be-
ing had to hnes-are seen at a disad-
vantage. Yet, If fences are erect and
straight, and afford q reasonably sure
barrier against trespassing animals; the
buildings kept in repair, and the imme-
diate premises kept clear of rubbish; il
the strength of the land is not unduly
taken by slipshod tillage, the manure
pile in the meantime being left to rot in
the barn yard, impressions received from
any Nl6W VIII Do IhNOEdDl6.
But perhaps the neglect to drain wet
places upon the farm is as common q
fault as any other, and one that shows
the want Of neatness in fields, and en-
tails lessened profits with unvarying
certainty. When the team can be driv-
en-, with load, over ground hitherto
too wet and soft to bear an empty
wagon, then 1t is evident that drainage
has been made available. No land
should be left about the corners or other
parts of fields in such condition that
water will stand long enough upon 1t to
prevent a good crop of corn being grown
thereon. As 1t has been proved possible
to redeem impossible swamps, there can
be no reasonable excuse for continuing
to tolerate unsightly angular parcels
Of wet ground in inclosed fields, kept
either for tillage or for grass.
1t is said that man may generally be
known by the company he keeps, so
the business character of the owner of
the farm on the right of the road, or
that one on the left, may be pretty cor
rectly estimated at glance, even from
the window of the car moving at high
speed. The burrows being turned by
the moving team, whether these are
straight and deep or crooked and shall
low, are facts that, disconnected from
all others, have a pointed meaning. The
man who reclaims wet lands upon his
farm, stacks his straw in q clean, well
sheltered barn-yard, to be used as feed
and bedding, and to become incorpor-
ated with the winters manure, keeps
his fences erect and his gates from sag.
ging, will give in these things evidences
of thrift, and show premises strongly in
contrast with the farm of the man over
the way, who habitually neglects to at
tend TO either of these very important
details. National LiUe Stock Journal.