University of Virginia Library

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of
your letter of the 5th inst., in which you invite me
to deliver an address before your excellent agricultural
society.

I feel flattered, and think I will come.

Perhaps, meanwhile, a brief history of my experience
as an agriculturalist will be acceptable; and
as that history no doubt contains suggestions of
value to the entire agricultural community, I have
concluded to write to you through the Press.

I have been an honest old farmer for some four
years.

My farm is in the interior of Maine. Unfortunately

my lands are eleven miles from the railroad.
Eleven miles is quite a distance to haul immense
quantities of wheat, corn, rye, and oats; but as I
hav'n't any to haul, I do not, after all, suffer much
on that account.

My farm is more especially a grass farm.

My neighbors told me so at first, and as an evidence
that they were sincere in that opinion, they
turned their cows on to it the moment I went off
“lecturing.”

These cows are now quite fat. I take pride in
these cows, in fact, and am glad I own a grass farm.

Two years ago I tried sheep-raising.

I bought fifty lambs, and turned them loose on
my broad and beautiful acres.

It was pleasant on bright mornings to stroll leisurely
out on to the farm in my dressing-gown,
with a cigar in my mouth, and watch those innocent
little lambs as they danced gaily o'er the hillside.
Watching their saucy capers reminded me
of caper sauce, and it occurred to me I should have
some very fine eating when they grew up to be
“muttons.”

My gentle shepherd, Mr. Eli Perkins, said, “We
must have some shepherd dogs.”

I had no very precise idea as to what shepherd
dogs were, but I assumed a rather profound look,
and said!

“We must, Eli. I spoke to you about this some
time ago!”

I wrote to my old friend, Mr. Dexter H. Follett,
of Boston, for two shepherd dogs. Mr. F. is not
an honest old farmer himself, but I thought he knew
about shepherd dogs. He kindly forsook far more
important business to accommodate, and the dogs
came forthwith. They were splendid creatures—
snuff-colored, hazel-eyed, long-tailed, and shapely-jawed.

We led them proudly to the fields.

“Turn them in, Eli,” I said.

Eli turned them in.

They went in at once, and killed twenty of my
best lambs in about four minutes and a half.

My friend had made a trifling mistake in the
breed of these dogs.

These dogs were not partial to sheep.

Eli Perkins was astonished, and observed:

“Waal! did you ever?”

I certainly never had.

There were pools of blood on the greensward,
and fragments of wool and raw lamb chops lay
round in confused heaps.

The dogs would have been sent to Boston that
night, had they not rather suddenly died that afternoon
of a throat-distemper. It wasn't a swelling
of the throat. It wasn't diphtheria. It was a violent
opening of the throat, extending from ear to
ear.

Thus closed their life-stories. Thus ended their
interesting tails.

I failed as a raiser of lambs. As a sheepist, I was
not a success.

Last summer Mr. Perkins said, “I think we'd
better cut some grass this season, sir.”

We cut some grass.

To me the new-mown hay is very sweet and nice.
The brilliant George Arnold sings about it, in beautiful
verse, down in Jersey every summer; so does
the brilliant Aldrich, at Portsmouth, N. H. And

yet I doubt if either of these men knows the price
of a ton of hay to-day. But new-mown hay is a
really fine thing. It is good for man and beast.

We hired four honest farmers to assist us, and I
ed them gaily to the meadows.

I was going to mow, myself.

I saw the sturdy peasants go round once ere I
dipped my flashing scythe into the tall green grass.

“Are you ready?” said E. Perkins.

“I am here!”

“Then follow us!”

I followed them.

Followed them rather too closely, evidently, for a
white-haired old man, who immediately followed
Mr. Perkins, called upon us to halt. Then in a low
firm voice he said to his son, who was just ahead
of me, “John, change places with me. I hain't got
long to live, anyhow. Yonder berryin' ground will
soon have these old bones, and it's no matter whether
I'm carried there with one leg off and ter'ble
gashes in the other or not! But you, John—you
are young.”

The old man changed places with his son. A

smile of calm resignation lit up his wrinkled face,
as he said, “Now, sir, I am ready!”

“What mean you, old man?” I said.

“I mean that if you continner to bran'ish that
blade as you have been bran'ishin' it, you'll slash
h— out of some of us before we're a hour older!”

There was some reason mingled with this white-haired
old peasant's profanity. It was true that I
had twice escaped mowing off his son's legs, and his
father was perhaps naturally alarmed.

I went and sat down under a tree. “I never
know'd a literary man in my life,” I overheard the
old man say, “that know'd anything.”

Mr. Perkins was not as valuable to me this season
as I had fancied he might be. Every afternoon he
disappeared from the field regularly, and remained
about some two hours. He said it was headache.
He inherited it from his mother. His mother was
often taken in that way, and suffered a great deal.

At the end of the two hours Mr. Perkins would
reappear with his head neatly done up in a large
wet rag, and say he “felt better.”

One afternoon it so happened that I soon followed

[ILLUSTRATION]

Artemus finds it pleasant strolling about his farm with dressing-gown and cigar.

[Description: 483EAF. Image of Artemus walking the farmland while dressed in his bathrobe and smoking a cigar.]

the invalid to the house, and as I neared the porch
I heard a female voice energetically observe, “You
stop!” It was the voice of the hired girl, and she
added, “I'll holler for Mr. Brown!”

“Oh no, Nancy,” I heard the invalid E. Perkins
soothingly say, “Mr. Brown knows I love you.
Mr. Brown approves of it!”

This was pleasant for Mr. Brown!

I peered cautiously through the kitchen-blinds,
and, however unnatural it may appear, the lips of
Eli Perkins and my hired girl were very near together.
She said, “You shan't do so,” and he do-soed.
She also said she would get right up and go away,
and as an evidence that she was thoroughly
in earnest about it, she remained where she
was.

They are married now, and Mr. Perkins is troubled
no more with the headache.

This year we are planting corn. Mr. Perkins
writes me that “on accounts of no skare krows bein
put up krows cum and digged fust crop up but soon
got nother in. Old Bisbee who was frade youd cut
his sons leggs of Ses you bet go and stan up in feeld

yrself with dressin gownd on & gesses krows will
keep way. this made Boys in store larf. no More
terday from

My friend Mr. D. T. T. Moore, of the Rural New
Yorker, thinks if I “keep on” I will get in the Poor
House in about two years.

If you think the honest old farmers of Barclay
County want me, I will come.