I often say to myself, as I ride about the country, what a pity it is our farmers do not work it right. When I see a man turn his cattle into the street to run at large and waste their dung, during a winter's day, I say this man does not work it right. Ten loads of good manure, at least, is lost in a season by this slovenly practice—and all for what? For nothing, indeed, but to ruin a farm.
So when I see cattle, late in the fall or early in the spring, rambling in a meadow or mowing field, pouching the soil and breaking the grass roots, I say to myself, this man does not work it right.
So when I see a barn yard with a drain to it, I say the owner does not work it right; for how easy it is to make a yard hollow, or lowest in the middle, to receive all the wash of the sides, which will be thus kept dry for the cattle. The wash of the yard, mixed with any kind of earth, or putrid straw, is the best manure in the world—yet how much do our farmers lose! In fact they do not work it right.
When I pass along the road and see a house with clapboards hanging an end with one nail, and old hats and cloths stuffed into the broken windows, and the fences tumbling down or destroyed, I conclude the owner loves rum—in truth, he does not work it right.
When I see a man frequently attending courts, I suspect he does not work it right.
When I see a countryman often go to the retailer's with a bottle, or the labouring man carrying home a bottle of rum after his work is done on Saturday night, I am certain this man does not work it right.
When a farmer divides a farm of one hundred acres of land among five or six sons, and builds a small house for each, and sets them to work for a living on a little patch of land, I question whether he works it right. And when these sons are afterwards unable to live on these mutilated farms, and are compelled by a host of children to go to work by the day to get bread, I believe they are all convinced that they have not worked it right.
When a man tells me his wife will not consent to go from home into new settlements, where he may have land enough, and live like a nabob, and therefore he is obliged to sit down in a corner of his father's farm, I laugh at him, and some time or other he will own he has not worked it right.
A man in trade, who is not punctual in his payments, certainly does not work it right; nor does the man, who trusts his goods to any body, and every body.
Whether in Congress or a kitchen, the person who talks much is little regarded. Some members of Congress then certainly do not work it right. A hint to the wise is sufficient; but twenty hints have not been sufficient to silence the clamorous tongues of some Congressional spouters.