This winter is proving to be rather long and stormy, but with plenty of fuel, good books and papers, time has not hung heavily on my hands. Indeed, I consider these long Northern winters a decided advantage to those who regard the cultivation of the mind as important as the cultivation of the fields. I am afraid the majority of farmers do not lay enough stress upon mental culture. In this age of cheap books there can be no excuse for being without them. Systematic reading leads to the best results in mental culture just as systematic farming leads to the best results in agriculture. At the beginning of the winter I select some standard work as my principal reading matter and stick to it until I have it completed, reading for an interlude, good weekly newspapers, and one or two of the standard magazines, with which I always like to be supplied. This breaks up all monotony, and makes reading thoroughly enjoyable and instructive. This winter I am reading the works of Goethe, the great German author. March, the last winter month, has come, and although the wind is still howling and snow flying, before the first of April we expect to see the railroads thronged with emigrant cars bringing new settlers, more thrift and more capital. Thousands of new homes will be established on the fertile prairies next summer. Will you please regard this as a kind of an introduction into your "association?" If we find that we are mutually agreeable perhaps we shall find occasion to meet again. KASPER VON ESCHENBACH, PRAIRIE PARK FARM, BATH, D. T. Prairie Roads. The article on prairie roads in THE PRAIRIE FARMER of March 1st, 1884, by A. G. H., of Champaign county, was good, and I would like to see more on the same subject. If we get any better roads, we must keep the ball rolling. The great objection to the Ross plan, or any plan of road-tiling here, is this. When tile is laid in the roadway the teams will travel right over it, and the black soil gets packed and puddled until it is as impervious to water as clay, and the water can't get into the tile. And on the clay hillsides, if the tile is covered with clay, the water can't get into it. This has been well tested here, for we have been road-tiling for six years. The question seems to be to get the water into the tile. The answer is simple enough. We must provide sink holes for it. We must fill the ditch over the tile with sand, gravel, or anything that will let the water in, a yard in length, say, once every rod. Then I think the Ross plan would be perfect. As to the cost, well, $750 per mile seems large, but to take an average of the roads in our county one-half that sum would answer, for it is only the worst places would need the full Ross plan. In a good many places, one string of tile with gravel sinks would do, and others with the laterals to drain all to one side, thus saving the cost of one string of tile, or more than one-third of the whole cost.