in one field, moving in a direction quite opposite, in regard to the ridges, to what they were in the plough in another field. On another day he observes the horses at work with quite a different implement from the plough. The field-workers, he perceives, have laid aside the implement with which they were working, and are performing the labour engaged in with the hand. He cannot comprehend why one sort of work should be prosecuted one day, and quite a different sort of work the next. This difficulty is inexplicable for the same reason why he could not overcome the former one; because he cannot foresee the end for which those varieties of work are performed. No doubt he is aware, that every kind and variety of work which are performed on a farm, are preparatives to the attainment of certain crops; but what portion of any work is intended as a certain part of the preparation for a particular crop, is a knowledge which he cannot acquire by intuition. Every preparatory work is thus perplexing to the young farmer.

Field work being thus chiefly anticipatory, is the circumstance which renders its object so perplexing to the learner. He cannot, possibly, perceive the connection between preparatory labours and their ultimate ends; and, yet, until he learn to appreciate their necessary connection, he will remain incapable of managing a farm. It is in the exercise of this faculty of anticipation or foresight that the experienced and careful farmer is contradistinguished from the ignorant and careless. Indeed, let the experience of farming be ever so extensive, or, in other words, let the knowledge of minutiæ be ever so intimate, unless the farmer use his experience by foresight, he will never be enabled to conduct a farm aright. Both foresight and experience are acquired by observation, though the former is matured by reflection. Observation is open to all farmers, but all do not profit by it. Every farmer may acquire in time sufficient experience to conduct a farm in a passable manner; but many farmers never acquire foresight, because they never reflect, and therefore cannot make their experience tell to the most advantage. Conducting a farm by foresight is thus a higher acquirement than the most intimate knowledge of the minutiae of labour. Foresight cannot be exercised without the assistance of experience; though the latter may exist independently of the former. As the elements of every art must first be acquired by observation, a knowledge of the minutiae of labour should be the first subject for acquirement by the young farmer. By carefully tracing the connection betwixt combined operations and their ultimate ends, he will acquire foresight.

The necessity of possessing foresight in arranging the minutiae of labour, before the young farmer can with confidence undertake the direc

tion of a farm, renders farming more difficult of acquirement, and a longer time of being acquired, than most other arts. This statement may appear incredible to those who have been accustomed to hear of farming being easily and soon learned by the meanest capacity. No doubt it may be acquired in time, to a certain degree, by all who are capable of improvement by observation and experience; but, nevertheless, the ultimate ends for which the various kinds of field-work are prosecuted, are involved in obscurity to every learner. In most other arts no great space usually elapses between the commencement and completion of the piece of work, and the piece is worked at until finished. The beginner can thus soon perceive the connection between the minutest portion of the work in which he is engaged, and the object for which it is intended. There is in this no obscurity to perplex his mind. He is purposely led, by degrees, from the simplest to the most complicated parts of his art, so that his mind is not bewildered at the outset by participating in a multiplicity of works at one time. He thus begins to acquire true experience from the outset.

The young farmer has no such advantages in his apprenticeship. There is no simple easy work, or one object only to engage his attention at first. On the contrary, many minutiæ connected with the various works in progress, claim his attention at one and the same time, and if the requisite attention to any one of them be neglected for the time, no other opportunity for observing it can occur for a twelvemonth. It is a misfortune to the young farmer, in such circumstances, to be thrown back in his progress by a trifling neglect. He cannot make up his leeway until after the revolution of a year. And though ever so attentive he cannot possibly learn to anticipate operations in a shorter time, and therefore cannot possibly understand the drift of a single operation in the first year of his apprenticeship. The first year is generally spent almost unprofitably, and certainly unsatisfactorily to an inquisitive mind. But attentive observation during the first year, will enable him, in the second, to anticipate the successive operations ere they arrive, and arrange every minutia of labour as it is required. Many of the events of the first year, which had left no adequate impression of their importance on his memory, crowd upon his observation in the second, as essential components of recognised operations. A familiar recognition of events, tends, in a rapid degree, to enlarge the sphere of experience, and to inspire confidence in one's own judgment; and this quality greatly facilitates the acquisition of foresight.

Let it not be imagined by those who have never passed through the perplexing ordeals incident to the first year of farming, that I have

described them in strong colours, in order to induce to the belief, that farming is an art more difficult of attainment than it really is. So far is this from being the case, I may safely appeal to the experience of every person who had attained manhood before beginning to learn farming, whether I have not truly depicted his own condition at the outset of his professional career. So that every young man learning farming must expect to meet with those difficulties.

2. OF THE MEANS OF OVERCOMING THOSE DIFFICULTIES.

"We can clear these ambiguities."

ROMEO AND JULIET.

Experience undoubtedly dissipates doubt, and removes perplexity; but experience, though a sure and a safe, is a slow teacher. A whole year must revolve ere the entire labours of a farm can be exhibited in the field, and the young farmer satisfactorily understand what he is about; and a whole year is too much time for most young men to sacrifice. Could the young farmer find a monitor to explain to him, during the first year of his apprenticeship, the purpose for which every operation on a farm is performed,-foretell to him the results which every operation is intended to effect,-and indicate to him the relative progress which all the operations should make, from time to time, towards the attainment of their various ends, he would thereby acquire a far greater quantity of professional information, and have greater confidence in its accuracy, than he could possibly obtain for himself in that anxious period of his novitiate. Such a monitor would best be an experienced and intelligent farmer, were he duly attentive to his pupil. Farmers, however, can scarcely bestow so much attention as would be desired by pupils at all times; because the lapses of time occasioned by necessary engagements, in the fulfilment of which farmers are sometimes obliged to leave home, produce inattention on the part of the farmer; and inattention and absence combined constitute sad interruptions to tuition, and cannot always be avoided by the most pains-taking farmer. But a book might be made an efficient assistant-monitor. If expressly written for the purpose, it might not only corroborate what the farmer inculcated, but serve as a substitute in his temporary absence. In this way tuition might proceed uninterruptedly; and the pupil never want a monitor upon whom he could confidently rely. Were a book pur

posely so arranged put into the hands of young farmers so circumstanced, the usual deprecations against recommending the acquirement of practical farming from books alone, would not here apply. I would give no such counsel to any young farmer. Because books on farming, to be really serviceable to the learner, ought not to constitute the arena on which to study farming-the field being the best place for perceiving the fitness of labour to the purposes it is designed to attain-but as monitors for indicating the best modes of management, and shewing the way of learning those modes most easily. By these, the practice of experienced farmers might be communicated and recommended to beginners. By consulting those which had been purposely written for their guidance, while they themselves were carefully observing the daily operations of the farm, the import of labours, which are often intricate, always protracted over considerable portions of time, and necessarily separated from each other, would be acquired in a much shorter time than if left to be discovered by the sagacity of beginners.

It is requisite to explain, that by the phrase "young farmer," I mean the young man, who, having finished his scholastic and academical education, directs his attention, for the first time, to the acquirement of practical farming; or who, though born on a farm, having spent the greater part of his life at school, determines, at length, on following his father's profession. For the latter class of young men, tuition in farming, and information from books, are as requisite as for the former. Those who have constantly seen farming from infancy, can never be said to have been young farmers, for, by the time they are fit to act for themselves, they are proficients in farming. Having myself, for a time, been placed precisely in the position of the first description of young men, I can bear sincere testimony to the truth of the difficulties I have described as having to be encountered in the first year of apprenticeship. I felt that a guide-book would have been an invaluable monitor to me, but none such existed at the time. No doubt it is quite reasonable to expect of the farmer, ability to instruct the pupils committed to his charge in a competent manner. This is certainly his duty, which, if rightly performed, no guide-book would be required by pupils; but very few farmers who receive pupils, undertake the onerous task of instruction. Practical farming they leave the pupils to acquire for themselves in the fields, by imperfect observation and slow experience, as they themselves had previously done,-theoretical knowledge, very few, if any, are competent to impart. The pupils, being thus very much left to their own application, can scarcely avoid being beset with difficulties, and losing much time. At same time it must be acknowledged, that the practice gained by slow

experience is, in the end, the most valuable and enduring. Still a book on farming, expressly written to suit his circumstances, might be a valuable instructor to the young farmer; it might guard him against the difficulties which learners are apt to encounter; and it would recompense him for loss of time, by imparting sound professional information.

Such a book, to be really a useful instructor and correct guide, should, in my estimation, possess these necessary qualifications. Its principal matter should consist of a clear narrative of all the labours of the farm, as they occur in succession; and it should give the reasons fully for which each piece of work is undertaken. While the principal operations are narrated in this way, the precise method of executing every species of work, whether manual or implemental, should be minutely detailed. The construction of the various implements by which work is performed,—the mode of using them,—the accidents to which each is liable,― should be circumstantially described. A seasonable narrative of the principal operations will shew the young farmer, that farming is really a systematic business, having a definite object in view, and possessing the means of attaining it. The reasons for doing every piece of work in one way, rather than another, will convince him that farming is an art founded on rational and known principles. A description of the implements, and of the method of using them, will give him a closer insight into the nature and fitness of field-work for attaining its end, than by any other means. A perusal of these narratives, all having a common object, will impart a more comprehensive and clearer view of the management of a farm in a given time, than he could acquire by himself from witnessing ever so many isolated operations. The influence of the seasons on all the labours of the field is another consideration which should be attended to in such a book. In preparing the ground, and during the growth of the crops, the labour appropriated to each kind of crop terminates for a time, and is not resumed until a fit season arrive. These periodical cessations from labour form natural epochs in the progress of the crops towards maturity, and afford convenient opportunities for performing the work peculiarly appropriate to each epoch; and, since every operation of the farm is made to conform with its season, these epochs correspond exactly with the natural seasons of the year. say with the natural seasons, in contradistinction to the common yearly seasons, which are entirely conventional. This necessary and opportune agreement between labour and the natural seasons, induces a corresponding division of the labours of the farm into four great portions, or seasons, as they are usually termed. Labour should therefore be described with particular reference to its appropriate season.