Audacious men! we utterly defy you! We shall pass by the whole crowing brood of Polands, Dorkings and what-not; and raise a breed of genuine owls, to be our champions in this dire necessity. We say, peremptorily, that we will not bet on any match between hooting birds and hooting editors. But our serious opinion is, that, in grave solemnity of looks, and in professional hooting, a half dozen well-trained owls will beat the whole of you. However, we are open to conviction.
It is of the highest importance that farmers should possess _reading habits_; and that they should bring up their children to a love of books. Every farmer should have a library; it may, at first, be small; but it should be select. As soon as a farmer is beforehand enough to own an acre, he is prosperous enough to begin a library. It is said by many, _books won’t make money_. Yes they will. To-be-sure, their best effect is the production of intelligence in the reader; but a man well informed in his own business is just the man to make money. Who ever thought of making money by buying grindstones and whetstones? But they sharpen the scythe, and sickle, and the axe, and _they_ produce money. Books are grindstones and whetstones for a man’s mind.
Many are unwilling to buy a treatise upon the disease of the horse, although there are several which will _prevent_ most of the evils which affect this noble animal. In the West, the horse is used, in town and country, by almost every man. But very few profess to know how he should be treated! And, of those who think they are wise, how many have any knowledge except of a few nostrums for sickness? The horse, in man’s service, is living in an entirely artificial state. He takes care of himself if left wild. But living in stables, laboring every month of the year in harness, and under the saddle, not selecting his own food, but fed at the will of his master, his own instincts become of little use, and he is dependent entirely on the mercy and knowledge of those whose slave he is. It ought not to be thought unreasonable to say that every man who is willing to _own_ a horse, ought to be willing to know how to _manage_ him, in the stable and out of it. There is no work in the English language containing more, or better instructions than[2] Stewart’s Stable Economy. It should be read by the farmer; and just as much by every man, of whatever calling, who uses a horse, or owns one. It is of standard authority in England. Mr. Stewart has long been a professor in veterinary institutes. Every man ought to know how to treat a sick horse. Suppose a horse to be taken sick on a journey; most frequently the driver is the only one at hand to prescribe. If you are at a tavern, of what use, generally speaking, are the bragging pretensions of those that crowd around you? Stopping for a night at a wretched hole of a tavern, one of my horses, at night fell sick. I knew no more than a child what to do; the landlord (ah me! I shall never forget him!) was equally ignorant and much more indifferent. A big, bragging, English booby was the only one pretending to know what to do; and to him I yielded the animal. After sundry manipulations—punching him in the loins; pulling at his ears, etc.—he rolled up a wad of _hair from his tail_, and crammed it down the horse’s throat! presuming, I suppose, that the hair would find its way back to the place it came from, and so pilot the disease out! I inwardly resolved never to go another journey until in possession of the best remedies for the attacks common to horses on the road.