Pleasant Talk About Fruits, Flowers and Farming

by Henry Ward Beecher

The way to summer your cattle well is to winter them well; and half the secret of good wintering is to keep them warm. Animal heat is generated in proportion to the abundance and excellence of their food. Exposure to the cold air withdraws heat rapidly, and of course makes more food

necessary to re-supply it, just as an open door makes it necessary to have more wood in the stove. If your stock run down in the winter and come out lean and feeble, all the summer will not fully bring them up again.

2. Work for February.—Get out rails, both for present use, and for the fence which you expect to lay in March and April. Cut, haul and stack up near your house a good supply of fire-wood; no matter if the forest is within ten rods of your door, your wife ought to have her wood chopped and dried ready for use. Look at every fence upon the place; see if the corners of your rail fences are rotting down; if some rails have not broken; if pig-holes have not been made; if boys and cattle have not thrown down top-rails; and in short, put your fences into proper repair.

Of course your tools will now be overhauled; those with steel blades should be thoroughly cleansed when laid aside in the fall, and if you rub a little oil over them and hang them up, all the better. Repair all that are out of order. These things and all your ordinary work, may be done; and still leave you leisure for reading. You should have good books and good papers, and read them carefully for your own sake and for your children’s. A man who brings up a family of ignorant children, cheats his children of their rights, and cheats his country of its rights; it is therefore a crime.

Garden Work.—If there be no snow on the ground, the gardens may be cleared of all rubbish, manure hauled and stacked carefully; and if you have a clay soil, and can catch the ground without frost for a few days, it will mellow and ameliorate it to spade it up, leaving it in lumps and heaps, through which the frost may thoroughly penetrate.

It is time to prepare your hot-bed, if you design having early plants in your garden.

3. Work for March.—Begin the year by thorough, deep plowing, where your fields are in good order for it. Depend upon it, that deep plowing is the only good plowing.

Your first crop, generally, will tell you so. But if the subsoil is such that the first crop is rather poor, a year’s exposure of the land will ameliorate it so that your second crop will remunerate all expenses of time and labor laid out in deep plowing. No farmer should be without a subsoil plow who has got his lands clear of stumps and roots.

Take especial care of cows now just coming in with calf. See that those which are heavy are carefully handled, well fed, and warmly sheltered. Mares with foal should be tenderly used, exercised a little, but not put to hard or straining work. The condition of the mother will to a great extent determine the condition of the offspring. Cows, mares, sows, ewes, etc. etc., should be kept in a hearty condition, without being fat.

Orchard.—Do not trouble your trees with premature pruning. Let the axe, and knife, and saw alone. Loosen the dirt or sod around and beneath your trees. The best manure for your trees is fresh mold, or forest soil and lime in the proportion of about one part to ten. Take soft soap, dilute it with urine, scrub your trees with it plentifully, having first scraped off all rough bark. If you would work easily always, never let your work drive you.