Shoving the spectacles up just a little closer on his nose he re-examines his patient, and glances from the patient to the book, the quandary all the time deepening in his mind. John is not allowed to suggest that the sheep has caught cold by lying in some exposed place through the last storm, and that he only wants warmth and food. It would never do to give in to John, for “what has John read about sheep?” The proper remedy is at last hit upon. There can possibly be no doubt about it, but to make assurance doubly sure he re-reads the page and looks his patient over again. No doubt this time, and John is sent to the house for a bottle, from which he will administer the proper remedy internally. John returns with the bottle, with a little water in it, and our book farmer adds the proper remedy and shakes it up thoroughly. All being ready, John makes the poor sheep swallow the mixture, much against its will, for it’s the most noxious stuff it ever had in its life, and the book farmer quietly awaits the result, his spectacles gradually continuing to slip away from the bridge of his nose, and to run an imminent risk of falling off the extreme end of that important organ. Some twenty minutes now elapse and John says the sheep is worse. Back upwards again the spectacles are pushed, and the patient critically examined. While the examination is going on the sheep dies under his gaze. “Dear me; how can that be? I must have got the wrong page. Oh, yes, I see, I did get the wrong page. Never mind, John, I will fix the next one up all right in case it becomes ill.” And he closes the book with a snap, and goes back again to his library. Such book farmers invariably have failed in Ontario. I defy any reader to fix on any one such book farmer who has succeeded. When he comes to strike his balances, after his crops have been marketed, and has taken an inventory of stock, he finds that his crops have cost him more than they brought back in cash. Another year will remedy that, however, and he tries it again, only to find the balance on the wrong side once more. Usually two years suffice to teach this book farmer that he is not a farmer, but he may possibly hold on for three seasons. Then he calls a sale, sells or rents his farm, and gets a neat, comfortable little dwelling in some neighboring town, which is quite sufficient for him and his household, even if it be not palatial in its appointments. From his retirement he writes back to England that farming won’t pay in Canada, for he has tried it, and it certainly will not pay. This does a great deal of harm, and our country gets in bad odor among many persons at home, when the book farmer alone is to blame, and not the country. As to failures at farming, I do not think you can call to mind the failure of any farmer in Ontario, on any good farm, who farms his land in right down earnest. Benjamin Franklin said: “He who by the plough would thrive, Must himself both hold and drive.”