Year: 1877

| bS


l have word to say to those boys
who have fully made up their minds
that they would not be farmers. You
feel that you are not fitted for it many
long to become mechanics. You 90 to
your daily labor as the slave to his
task, feeling that you are compelled to
do that which you have no taste for,
and which you are not suited to per-
form or in other words, that your life
is hedged on every side. If you will
stop to analyze those feelings you will
find that oftentimes they come up be-
cause you feel jest little lazy. Hay
ing and harvesting is hard work at the
best. The mower and reaper have
done much for you, but the crops of
grass and grain cannot be harvested
without much sweaty, hard work.
You work hard, often too hard, and
one day, but don't feel like doing any
thing the next, and as the work must
be pushed if it is good weather, it is at
such times that you will find yourself
saying 81 hate farming"


have used the term "lazy," vet |
do not mean it. do not mean that
you lack energy, or ambition, for you
are first and foremost in every picnic
or any doings that is going ON in your
neighborhood that calls out the ener-
gies of the young people. One rea-
son why you feel so, is because you
are growing fast, and your muscles
have not yet become hardened so that
you can endure long season of hard
work. If you take good care of your
self you will get past this after time.
No doubt you eat too much, you give
your stomach more than it can do and
do web. You know how it is, if you
are loading hay or grain and the man
on the ground passes it to you faster
than you can well take Of it, your load
don't look very well, and is liable to
turn over. You often use yourself
just in that way.


What | have said about eating may
be applied to your drink you drink
too much cold water. The kidneys
can't do the work well that they have
to do, so it happens that when the
previous day was very warm and you
drank much water, you feel soreness
in the back just above the hips, your
head feels bad, and you say you
don't feel @ Ike bo w9rk S and n md don't onattvE!k like
field is a very bad thing. / say
"habit," for it is nothing else; you
will notice the older people don't drink
near as much as the boys they have
learned better, and when you go to
your dinner you drink two or three
glasses of water at the table. And
all this cold water has been taken
when you were very warm. Now,
you would not give your horses all
they want when they are very warm;
so, you see that you don't take as
good care Of yourself as you do Of your
team.


You all we'll know that it is a good
plan after your team has worked hard
all day, and sweat much, to clean
them after supper, give them good
bedding. and in the morning they
will come out bright and nice. Now,
| if you would do so with your own
body you would feel much better.
You only want one pail of water; the
horse-barn is good place; if you
will but put a pail Of water in the sun
at noon it will be just right when you
use it. A sponge OR cloth is all you
want, and you will find you can clean
your body in half the time you can a
horse. If you wish to feel we'll don't
try to sleep in the shirt you have
worked in, but after you have sponged
your body put on night-shirt. And
above all things, don't sleep where the
wind will blow on you. | have said
this much to remind you of a few
things that many of you know already.


Now let us turn our attention to
those who are fully determined to
leave the farm and are anxious to be-
come mechanics. AS business is now.


you will find it very difficult to obtain


situation in any good shop as an ap'


prentice, where it would be to YOU
advantage, to say nothing Of very low
wages. But, while you are waiting
| for better times, there is considerable
mechanical skill that you can acquire
lust as well on the farm as, anywhere
If you have laid by little money yol
can buy square, handsaw half-inch
inch and inch-and-a-half chisels,
: brace and set of bits, try-square
f and for planes you will want jack
, plane, short jointer, and short smooth
: ing plane. Now, with these tools yo
can do many things; but | woul


counsel you to buy good ones. 70


will have to pay more, but they ar
!, worth more. And then you mus
n learn to take care of them, You ca
learn that on the farm as well as any


where, and you may rest assured


will be about the first thing the for'
man of any good Shop will teach yo'
!. to take good care Of the tools an
If keep them in their proper place.


To keep your saw in order will r.


quire much practice; no direction
= can be given that Will be of much bel
d eft to you; but if you are determine


to learn, and can find some good o


man VINO can do such things well, th'


will kindly show you how to hold Il
y file and how to shape each tooth,
I, will be of great service to 20


Whether you will ever learn to u