The St. Johns herald., 1897-09-04
TOPICS FOR FARMERS
A DEPARTMENT PREPARED FOR
 OUR RURAL FRIENDS.
The Farmer Should Use Good Imp ments and Buy Only What Is Needed Qualities Needed to Make a Good Farmer-GeneraI Notes.
Tools for the Farmer

That the farmer or gardener may be successful, the next thing to having good, rich soil lying we'll and well drained naturally or properly under drained is to have the best of tools. Some tools are necessary. and, annual ly, more or less tools must be bought; but be careful as to what and how you buy. Flows, harrows, cultivators and most farming implements are now made on wheels that they may be the more easily used and the more easily transferred from field to field. had often wondered years ago why these tools were not made on wheels-har- rows especially, as they are so difficult and dangerous to load on a wagon, or even on sled. I suppose this is the main reason this tool has had more fence-cOrner protection and exposure in the field than any other.
 In buy ing tools my rules are these: I get only those need. Tools not needed are useless, and to get them at any price is to throw money away. l get those most needed first, and then the way seems to open somehow to get others as necessity demands. I want my own tools-do not depend on bor- rowing. NeighbOrs that have good tools do not like to lend them, and any how l cannot afford to spend time to run after them and return them after waiting, perhaps, some time for their owners first to do their own work.
 l try to get the very best of the kinds buy. It pays best in the long run. Secondhand tools are generally dear at any price. The other day I bought a secondhand buggy to hack about with dirt cheap, as I thought, but be- fore l could use it had to get a new pair of shafts, new this and new that, and repair here and fix there, until it has become very dear buggy, and is an old one still. Then a lot of old things lying around are an eye-sore, and no recommendation to farmers taste, tact or thrift.
 There are several makes of good blows, good harrows and good cultiva- tors, but 1 think it wise to prove the different makes and then choose the best. A blow that will not SCOUT in all soils, that will not run deep and steady and cut and turn nicely and smoothly a good furrOw, is poor tool-shOuld be let alone
 l would not now purchase a harrow or cultivator that was not on good high wheels A few years ago I purchased a horse hoe-an excellent tool, by the way, but the wheel was so small that to me 1t was a nuisance. l made pattern, and got one cast fully three times as large as the one furnish ed by the company, and it is success. Going to and from the field, running along the rows, at the ends, in turn ing-in short, in all kinds of work, tue large wheel is vastly superior to the small one.
 So. when I came to buy hand wheel hoe, l tried to get one that suit ed me in other respects with wheels from twenty to thirty inches high, but failing to find one at the time to suit me, l concluded against my better Judgment to take one with small Wheels-about ten inches highland how annoying they were! Every little clod, or stone, or depression was in the way. It was difficult to run across its own markings. So at considerable expense made and attached a wheel broader in the rim and about twenty four inches high, and thus converted the troublesome, provoking tool into one of pleasure.-Practical Farmer.