Do not be tempted by fine weather to haul out manure—it will be half
wasted by lying in small heaps over the field; to spread it will be
worse yet; manure should lie in a stack, as little exposed to the
weather as possible.
Look to your fences; see that they are in complete order and leave
nothing of this to consume your time in the spring when you will need
all your force for other work. It is well to haul all the rails you
will need for the year. The timber will last longer cut now. Do not
leave rails or sticks of timber lying where you cleave them, on the
damp ground, they will decay more in six months there, than in
eighteen when properly cared for. Put two rails down and lay the rest
across them so as to have a circulation of air beneath. If you have
five or ten acres of _deadening_ which you mean to clear up and put to
corn, you may as well roll the logs now. Every good farmer should
study through the winter to make his spring work as light as possible.
Whatever can be done _now_ do not fail to do it; you will have enough
to do when spring opens; and perhaps the season may be one which will
crowd your work into a week or two. If you have young fruit-trees, or
a little home-nursery, look out for _rabbits_. They usually depredate
just after a light fall of snow.
Overhaul all your plows, carts, shovels, hoes, etc., and put
everything in complete readiness.
While you are moving about and repairing holes in the fence, putting
on a rail here, a stake yonder, a rider in another place, you may
inquire of yourself whether your _character_ is not in some need of
repairs? Perhaps you are very careless and extravagant—the fence needs
rails there; perhaps you are lazy—in that case the fence corners may
be said to be full of brambles and weeds, and must be cleared out;
perhaps you are a violent, passionate man—you need a stake and rider
on that spot. And lastly, perhaps you are not _temperate_, if so, your
fence is all going down and will soon have gaps enough to let in all
the hogs of indolence, vice, and crime: and they make a large drove
and fatten fast. Now is a good time to plan how to get out of debt.
Don’t be ashamed to _save_ in _little things_, nor to earn small
gains: “_Many a mickle makes a muckle._” But set it down, to begin
with, that no saving is made by cheating yourself out of a good
newspaper. No man reads a good paper a year, without _saving_ by it.
Suppose you put in your wheat a little better for something you see
written by a good farmer and get five bushels more to the acre. One
acre pays for a year’s paper. One recipe, a hint which betters any
crop, pays for the paper fourfold. Intelligent boys work better, plan
better, earn and save better; and reading a good paper makes them
intelligent. Besides, suppose you took a good paper a year, and found
nothing new during all that time (an incredible supposition!) yet
every two weeks it comes to _jog your memory_ about things which you
may forget, but ought not to forget. It steps in and asks whether that
little store bill is paid? Whether that loan drawing a fatal _six_,
_seven_ or _ten per cent_ (poison! poison! deadly poison!) is being
melted down? whether the children are going to school? whether the
tools are all right? the fences snug? whether economy, and industry,
and sound morals (the best crop one can put in), are flourishing? It
will look at your orchard—peep over into your garden, pry into the
dairy—nay, into the cupboard and bureau, and even into your pocket.
Now, if you are a man willing to learn, it will give you hints enough
in a year to pay ten times over for your paper.
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH.”
We heard a lad, in anger, use this expression to another. It was not
very bad advice, though given somewhat roughly.
When we hear some of our mincing misses singing, now away up, and now
away down, tossing their heads and rolling their eyes, we think, Well,
miss, if you knew what folks thought of you, you’d _shut your mouth_.
We have seen many men ruined because they did not know how to _shut
their mouth_ when tempted to say “Yes,” to a bad business.
When we see a man standing before the bar just ready to drink, we
think, Ah! you fine fellow, if you will not keep your mouth shut
before _that_ bar, you will, by and by, find yourself before a Bar
where it will be shut tight enough.
When we hear a fine lady scolding till every room rings; or tattling
from house to house—or scandal-mongering, we think, Ah, you lady, with
all your schooling, you never learned to _shut your mouth_.