the state of
the weather permit. Weeds grow without regard to our convenience, and
they must be kept down from the first; and well on into the intervals of
the hay-harvest the corn-field needs all of the cultivation that there
is time for. Regularly as clock-work, in the late hours of the night and
the early hours of the afternoon, the milking must be attended to; and
the daily trip to town knows no exception because of heat, rain, or
snow. At rigidly fixed hours this part of the work _must_ be done; and
all other hours of the growing and of the harvest seasons are almost
more than filled with work of imperative need. These alone seem to make
a sufficient demand on the patience and endurance of the most
industrious farmer; but, aside from these, he is loaded with the endless
details of an intricate business, and with the responsibility of the
successful management of a capital of from fifteen to twenty thousand
dollars, upon the safety and the economical management of which his
success entirely depends; he must avoid leakage and waste, and make
every dollar paid for labor, or seed, or manure, or live stock, bring
its adequate return.

Probably no occupation in the world can compare with farming in the
opportunity that it offers for the _losing_ of money. Nothing is so
enticing as slate-and-pencil farming. Ten acres of land can be ploughed,
manured, and planted with corn, and the crop can be well cultivated and
harvested for so many dollars. Such land with such manuring and
cultivation may be trusted to yield so many bushels of corn to the
acre; and, after making due allowance for chance, the balance of the
calculation shows a snug profit. In like manner we may figure out a
corresponding return from the hay-fields, from the root-crops, from two
or three acres of potatoes, and from a patch of garden-truck for which
the neighboring village will furnish a good market. Then the poultry
will return a profitable income in eggs and in "broilers;" and
altogether it is easy for an enthusiastic person to show how interest on
invested capital and good compensation for labor are to be secured in
agriculture.

But when the test of practice is applied to our well-studied and proven
scheme; when we see how far our allowance for "chances" has fallen below
what is needed to cover the contingencies of late springs, dry summers,
early frosts, grasshoppers, wire-worms, Colorado beetles, midge, weevil,
pip, murrain, garget, milk-fever, pot