stroll to the corner store or to a neighbor's house, for a little wholesome idleness and gossip,--the latter not invariably wholesome. At about the hour when the average reader of "The Atlantic" has finished his after-dinner cigar, all lights are extinguished, and the farm household is wrapped in heavy slumber; for such early rising as the milk-farmer is condemned to must needs trench upon the valuable evening hours for requisite rest and sleep. In summer the conditions of life are immeasurably hardened. The farmer himself is necessarily absent several hours every morning with his milk-wagon; but, although he cannot lend a hand at the early field work, this work must go on with promptness, and he must arrange in advance for its proper performance. From the moment when he has finished his late breakfast until the last glimmer of twilight, he is doomed to harrowing and often anxious toil. There is no wide margin of profit that will admit of a slackening of the pace. Land must be prepared for planting; planting must be done when the condition of the ground and the state of the weather permit. Weeds grow without regard to our convenience, and they must be kept down from the first; and well on into the intervals of the hay-harvest the corn-field needs all of the cultivation that there is time for. Regularly as clock-work, in the late hours of the night and the early hours of the afternoon, the milking must be attended to; and the daily trip to town knows no exception because of heat, rain, or snow. At rigidly fixed hours this part of the work _must_ be done; and all other hours of the growing and of the harvest seasons are almost more than filled with work of imperative need. These alone seem to make a sufficient demand on the patience and endurance of the most industrious farmer; but, aside from these, he is loaded with the endless details of an intricate business, and with the responsibility of the successful management of a capital of from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, upon the safety and the economical management of which his success entirely depends; he must avoid leakage and waste, and make every dollar paid for labor, or seed, or manure, or live stock, bring its adequate return.