Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1878 — Little Things on the Farm. [ARTICLE]

Little Things on the Farm.

“ Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves” is an old adage which correctly illustrates life as a whole. Life and all of its departments are made up of small tilings. Character, for instance, is the aggregate of small things, of our thoughts first, and their harvest, our acts. Men who despise small things are not our successful men, and it matters not in what calling of life we find them. It is often thought, entirely too often, that this regard for little things shows a niggardly spirit, and that it is unbecoming in men of mind and character. If a man stoops to pick up a pin in order that he may save it, there are those who laugh at him for his pains. But a pin is worth something, It represents some labor, and some value in itself. A bushel basket full of them would represent considerable of value, and, while if a man’s time be very valuable, it might not pay to stop even long enough to pick up a pin, if he had nothing else to do, he had better stop and save even that. The actual worth of the pin, however, is not exactly the entire benefit which results from the act of picking it up. The habit of saving thus shown grows stronger every time it is exercised, and it will be shown just as strongly in more important affairs in life. The spirit of derision against those who are said to stoop to such small things would lead to the derision of the Creator himself, for there is nothing too small for His care and protection. The whole universe is a complete system of economy. Nothing is wasted in any part of it. But nowhere does close economy and the attention to small things pay better than on the farm. The little leaks are what run away with the profits in farming, and it does not require much time or trouble, usually, to stop the leak when it first begins. It is tne slightest of work to replace a rail Or aboard when it has been pushed from a fence, but it is more serious to rebuild thfl entire fence, after it has been neglected for years and permitted to tumble all -to pieces. Nor is this all. A tumbledown fence may cost the farmer acres of grain. Many a farmer has found his corn trampled down by the stock, which never could have entered'if he had replaced every rail as it became dislodged. When decay once commences, it proceeds rapidly, unless checked at once. A board falls off a building and is not replaced. Very soon another board follows, and it will not be many years before what might have been a good-looking and comfortable building, is a perfeot ruin.

We have seen somo farms without a hennery. Among the seemingly more important duties, provision for the fowls was thought to be too insignificant to receive attention. The Fesult was that the poultry were roosting in buildings which should be kept clean, and among farm implements winch they were disfiguring, if not ruining. More time was spent in cleaning up after the ohioksns than would haye been required to build a half-dozen hen houses. Herd was a direct loss, but it was not the only one. The hens had no place provided for them to lay, and so they often sought out the way places where the eggs were nevdrfound, and- hero-was more loss. And so in very much that is regarded as of small importance on the farm, neglect .results very expensively. Go on a farm on which every detail is at-

tended to; and the smallest with as great care as the latest, and prosperity will bo found there. Leaving out of the question 1 altogether the increased pleasure whieh comes from having a place for everything and everything in its place—of having order everywhere, there is protit in it. On such a farm the swill barrel never gets what will give a better profit out or it than in it; the batter is not made in such, a way as to bo worth nothing except for grease; the chips about the woodpile are not permitted to rot; the straV stack is not permitted to go to waste; the manure is carefully saved, whether it is made by the cattle, swine or fowls, and in short there is striot economy, order and what always accompanies them, prosperity. —Western Rural.