In Pastures Green

After all, the driver was right. The evening is the pleasantest time of the day for driving. As we turned out on the road, the sun was going down, big and red, behind a thin cov...

While planting trees and gardening I went at the work with a grim determination to get it done. Only when the task was completed and I had time and energy to reflect did I reali...

The wheat harvest is now on and progressing at the same rate as did the haying. The self-binders are doing the heavy work, but there is no machine for loading or unloading the s...

Driving to school with the children these mornings is a task full of interest. The white page of the snow is scribbled over with all sorts of stories. I never knew rabbits and q...

Passing through a patch of withered weeds we saw a lot of rabbit tracks and that made us pause, for rabbits are not to be despised, especially when you haven't managed to get on...

Among other things I find that farming greatly increases a man's interest in weeds. Almost every day I find a new variety, and, according to the government weed-book, each varie...

_June 25._--Last week I undertook to drive about fifty miles across country to attend a picnic. Of course, I didn't finish the drive, but what of that? If I didn't try to do foo...

After all--to be guilty of a bull--the best part of the day was the night. After the sun went down in hazy mildness the full moon swung up in the east to take his place, and alm...

"We seek efficiency, or, perhaps, it would be truer to say that we seek the immediate product of efficiency, which is joy. Joy is not pleasure, but the satisfaction of creation....

_March 15._--It is a great day, an expansive day, a large day. The first thing that impressed me about it was its size. I know it is not customary to describe a day in terms of...

_July 15._--It is not often that I want to make a speech. As a rule I would rather have a tooth filled than speak a few well-chosen words at a picnic or meeting of the Farmers'...

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO ALL CITY MEN WHO ARE TALKING OF GOING BACK TO THE LAND. IF EACH ONE WHO DOES NOT GO BUYS A COPY I SHALL BE ENTIRELY SATISFIED

Of course it is not likely that we shall ever have any educational developments along the lines suggested, but why not? If education will cure all the troubles of the farmers, w...

That is something like it, but not exactly. I am afraid it is not possible to express with type the discontent, impatience, and disgust with life that the red calf gets into her...

My enjoyment was suddenly disturbed by the appearance in the distance of what I took to be an automobile. These overgrown "road-lice" usually give the driver hysterics, and with...

Speaking of hens in gardens reminds me that about the meanest job the hired man and I tackled this spring was changing the location of the garden and moving the chicken wire tha...

"Tang, tang!" whimpered the saw through the hard wood. Two cuts more were completed and then the ordinary coat was felt to be rather heavy and was accordingly thrown off.

The turkeys, that reverted as far as they could to the wild state during the summer, are now returning to the barns about the time the chickens are being fed, and are selecting...

Then as I started to the house to find out what was wanted of me, those ducks quacked as exultingly and flapped their wings as foolishly as a political party that has managed to...

And there a child's harmonica was lying, Just where the south wind on the reeds could blow; It roused the music with its fitful sighing, Æolian chords, sweet, tremulous, and low...

As civilisation advanced it was found that it was better to protect a number of producers from others and levy tribute from them. In this way a military aristocracy was develope...

But working with hay, thinking hay, and almost eating hay is not conducive to a flow of poetical quotations. By the time the stack was completed and the top weighted down with a...

_June 4._--Everything that has been done in the orchard has been wonderfully interesting, but the third spraying was a revelation. When Mr. Clement began "squirting Death throug...

"Once upon a time there was a king, a mighty ruler, Deep in the lore of human hearts, wise as a serpent, Who placed a stone in the road in the midst of his kingdom, On the way t...

Of course, I quite realise that I am only a beginner at real farming, and that I should remember the text: "Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putt...

The article, "War against War," which I wrote some time ago in the _Toronto Globe_, brought me so many letters that I am impelled to deal with the subject again. Some letters ap...

The season of picnics is once more at hand, and the Sunday school children are on the tiptoe of anticipation. Before the business goes any further I wish to protest in the most...

The country seems more alive at this time of the year than at any other season. The roads are still good, and, owing to the lull in the work, those who have an excuse for going...

This is the season of the pot-herb, the time when the winter-kept vegetables lose their flavour and hothouse products are too dear and too tasteless. Everybody hankers for somet...

_April 9._--Unless something is done to relieve the scarcity of hired men we may hear of the revival of the press gang, and then the country will be no place for a man whose mos...

Another city farmer had been having some trouble and wanted to know if I could tell him what it was. His vegetables have been acting freakishly. They grew too fast at first, put...

We had not travelled far before it was apparent from the tracks that the rabbit was frightened about something. His easy lope had changed to frenzied jumps. In some places he ha...