"The young man’s account stood thus Half proceeds of oats $165 00 and straw, first year Half value of sheep 25 00 pasturage, first year Half of first crops of 112 50 clover, first year Half of second crops of 135 00 clover, including seed, second year Half of sheep 15 00 pasturage, second year Half of crops of corn, 690 00 pumpkins and potatoes, third year Received from farmer, 2,000 00 for relinquishment of title ——— Account Dr. $3,142 50 To under-draining, $325 00 labor and tiles To labor and manure, 475 00 three seasons To labor given to 576 00—1,376 00 farmer, $16 per month, 36 months ——— Balance in his favor $1,766 50 Draining makes the farmer, to a great extent, the master of his vocation. With a sloppy, drenched, cold, uncongenial soil, which is saturated with every rain, and takes days, and even weeks, to become sufficiently dry to work upon, his efforts are constantly baffled by unfavorable weather, at those times when it is most important that his work proceed without interruption. Weeks are lost, at a season when they are all too short for the work to be done. The ground must be hurriedly, and imperfectly prepared, and the seed is put in too late, often to rot in the over-soaked soil, requiring the field to be planted again at a time which makes it extremely doubtful whether the crop will ripen before the frost destroys it. The necessary summer cultivation, between the rows, has to be done as the weather permits; and much more of it is required because of the baking of the ground. The whole life of the farmer, in fact, becomes a constant struggle with nature, and he fights always at a disadvantage. What he does by the work of days, is mainly undone by a single night’s storm. Weeds grow apace, and the land is too wet to admit of their being exterminated. By the time that it is dry enough, other pressing work occupies the time; and if, finally, a day comes when they may be attacked, they offer ten times the resistance that they would have done a week earlier. The operations of the farm are carried on more expensively than if the ability to work constantly allowed a smaller force to be employed. The crops which give such doubtful promise, require the same cultivation as though they were certain to be remunerative, and the work can be done only with increased labor, because of the bad condition of the soil. From force of tradition and of habit, the farmer accepts his fate and plods through his hard life, piously ascribing to the especial interference of an inscrutable Providence, the trials which come of his own neglect to use the means of relief which Providence has placed within his reach.