The fact that our farmers are too generally short-handed throughout the season of the Summer harvest, while it seems to explain the error I combat, renders it none the less disastrous and deplorable. I estimate the depreciation in the value of our hay-crop, by reason of late cutting, as not less than one-fifth; and, when we consider that a full half of our farmers turn out their cattle to ravage and poach up their fields in quest of fodder a full month earlier than they should, because their hay is nearly or quite exhausted, the consequences of this error are seen to diffuse themselves over the whole economy of the farm. * * * * * From the hour in which grass falls under the Mower, it ought to be kept in motion until laid at rest in the stack or the barn; keep stirring it with the tedder until it is ready to be raked into light winrows, and turn these over and over until they will answer to go upon the cart. In any bright, hot day, the grass mowed in the morning should be stacked before the dew falls at night; while, if any is mowed after noon, it should be cocked and capped by sunset, even though it be necessary to open it out the next fair morning. I have a dream of hay-making, especially with regard to clover, without allowing it to be scalded by fierce sunshine. In my dream, the grass is raked and loaded nearly as fast as cut, drawn to the barn-yard, and there pitched upon an endless apron, on which it is carried slowly through a drying-house, heated to some 200 deg. Fahrenheit by steam or by charcoal in a furnace below, somewhat after the manner of a hop-kiln. While passing slowly through this heated atmosphere, the grass is continually forked up and shaken so as to expose every lock of it to the drying heat, until it passes off thereby deprived of its moisture and is precipitated into a mow or upon a stack-bottom at the opposite side; load after load being pitched upon the apron continuously, and the drying process going steadily forward by night as well as by day, and without regard to the weather outside. I do not assert that this vision will ever be realized; but I have known dreams as wild as this transformed by time and thought into beneficent realities. I ask no one to share my dreams or sympathise with their drift and purpose. I only insist that Hay-making, as it is managed all around me, is ruder in its processes and more uncertain in its results than it should or need be. We cut our grass rapidly and well; we gather and house it with tolerable efficiency; but we cure much of it imperfectly and wastefully. The fact that most of it is over-ripe when cut aggravates the pernicious effects of its subsequent exposure to dew and rain; and the net result is damaged fodder which is at once unpalatable and innutritious. XXVII. PEACHES--PEARS--CHERRIES--GRAPES.