Nov. 1.—The gentle rain that Portia commended so highly as dropping from heaven did not blow up with an east wind. B-r-r-r! Ever since, and probably before, it blasted the ears of corn in Pharaoh's dream the east wind has been spreading desolation. At this time of the year it carries the coldest, wettest brand of rain known to suffering humanity, and can make it beat on the inside of an umbrella as readily as on the outside. In fact carrying an umbrella when an east wind is blowing is simply a form of exercise. A bedraggled man with an umbrella that had been turned inside out told me, in a peevish tone of voice, that the east rain we have been having had drenched every part of his anatomy except under his porous plaster, and it had lifted a corner of that. The storm that is now raging—no, I mean whining, for the east wind is altogether too ornery and mean-spirited to rage—has put the world out of joint, and what it has done to the roads "would not be good to hear." Nevertheless I met a cheerful soul who had a good word to say for it. He has a windmill and he assured me that an east wind is the most dependable of all when one wants to grind chop-feed. It blows more steadily than any other wind. Oh, yes, it is steady all right. It usually blows for three days at a stretch, and when it is done a man has become so sour on life that he hates his best friends. Even though I respect my informant, I refuse to give the east wind credit for good intentions in the matter. It can't understand the use of windmills. It must think that when it gets them creaking and clacking it is doing mischief.

The creatures of the barn yard contend with the storm in different ways. When the cattle and horses are driven out to be watered they turn their backs to the pelting wind and rain and drift to the nearest shelter. The turkeys, on the contrary, stand and face the storm with their heads huddled down on their breasts at the point where the carver inserts the fork. The turkey, by the way, is the true weathercock. When roosting in the open he invariably faces the wind. The reason for this is plain. The wind blowing on his breast packs his feathers down closer and so makes their protection complete. If it were allowed to strike in the opposite direction it would ruffle up the feathers and leave the bird practically naked to the elements. As for the chickens—well, if there is anything in nature more disconsolate-looking than a wet hen the tragedy of its existence has never been adequately described. The hogs are the weather prophets of the barn yard, and those that are not penned up began to burrow into the strawstacks even before the newspapers reported the coming storm. When called to the feed-trough they respond reluctantly in spite of their much-maligned appetites, and when the east wind strikes them they let out a concert of squeals that makes one understand just what the good Sir Walter meant when he described the singing at a conventicle as sounding "like a hog in a high wind." But enough of this, lest some patient reader should be tempted to exclaim with Job: "Should a wise man utter vain knowledge and fill his belly with the East Wind!"

Last Sunday afternoon there were a couple of black squirrels on the beech knoll, and I was glad it was Sunday, because the sight roused in me certain predatory feelings that I thought I had outlived. In the old evil days to see a black squirrel was to run for a gun, and there is no knowing of what might have happened if it hadn't been Sunday in a community where there is a proper regard for the Lord's Day Alliance. Still, the squirrels were comparatively safe. My own rifle is twenty miles away and the nearest shotgun that might be borrowed is in a farmhouse at a distance of three miles. But although circumstances made it possible for me to restrain myself, it will probably make little difference to the squirrels. They will almost certainly go into the bag of some city hunter. At the present time these gentry are ranging through the country, shooting up everything from chipmunks to stray hens, and no doubt imagining that, like Nimrod of old, they are "mighty hunters before the Lord." Why can't they stick to clay pigeons and spare the feelings of those who haven't got guns handy? It is really no wonder that the farmers are beginning to disfigure the country with "No shooting" and "No trespassing" signs. The few squirrels and quail that remain are farm pets rather than wild game. A few more seasons of the city hunter, and the boys in this district will know nothing about black squirrels, except what they learn from Sam Wood's vivid article in the new Fourth Reader.

Let no one imagine that, although winter is at hand, the country is without its hours of excitement. The first storm is the signal for tying up the young cattle in the stable for the first time, and any one who officiates at such a function will not lack an overflow of emotions. You can't take a dehorned yearling by the ear and tell him persuasively that a well-bedded stall and a full manger are much to be preferred to the pelting rain and the scorn of the outer dark. Whatever else has changed on the farm, the young cattle are just the same as ever and just as stubborn. The method of handling them, however, is changed somewhat. The old way used to be to take a stake out of the cordwood rack and try to make them see the light. At the present time the buggy-whip seems the handiest thing to use, and the whole family is called out to enjoy a game of "bull-in-the-ring." In spite of the best efforts of every one, including the collie dog, some of them will break away to the far end of the lane. Even after they have been driven one by one into the stable it is hard to make them understand that only one should go into a stall. They seem to prefer to go in bunches, and sometimes the language of the inside workers whose task it is to tie them up is feverish and painful.

Nov. 7.—We were starting to town to have the children's photograph taken for Christmas when some one shouted:

"Look at the turkeys!"

Sure enough the turkeys were coming home. All fall they have been living in a coop at the woods where they could have plenty of territory to range over and live the semi-wild life in which they thrive best. They were so placed that they could forage in the woods or steal from the cornfield, besides getting their regular rations, and life for them was one grand sweet song. Every time the gobblers gobbled they did it so lustily that those who heard involuntarily murmured "Merry Christmas!" They had not visited the home buildings since being put at the woods, but now they were coming all together as fast as they could run. First, they would run a little to the left, then a little to the right, like the merry villagers approaching the front of the stage in a musical comedy. You would almost imagine that they were dodging between invisible trees. When they reached the barn yard the gobblers all gobbled and gave every evidence of being glad to be home again. We might have suspected that there was something going to happen when the turkeys acted in this way, but, being mere human beings depending on reason for guidance instead of instinct, we bundled ourselves into the buggy and went to town.

Having photographs taken, like everything else in this progressive age, has become a commonplace affair. We went about it without any more excitement than if we were buying groceries. After the group was placed, not posed—for it is no longer necessary to take a fixed position and hold it for a time exposure until all the feeling of a human being leaves one—the photographer squeezed a little rubber bulb, the shutter clicked, and the operation was over. Of course, there was the little matter of father getting down on all fours in a far corner of the studio and making believe that he was a bear so as to make the serious-minded baby smile, but we will not go into that. Still, it was a task requiring considerable artistic skill. The acting had to be finely shaded, with just enough realism to make the baby smile without making the older children laugh. While I have never set much store by my histrionic abilities, I venture to think that if the critics had seen my performance they would have given me press notices that would be worth preserving. As it was there were those present who mourned because they could not get a snapshot of me in that character. I think I played the bear just about as well as Bully Bottom would have played the lion. I roared "as gently as a sucking dove." As I have suggested, the act was very brief, and perhaps that was as well. I might not have been able to sustain the character for any length of time. I couldn't help remembering how different it was the first time I "had my picture took." I had a new home-made suit of which I felt duly proud and somehow got the necessary funds to have a tintype taken. I was placed in the most awkward position I have ever been in, and under the orders of the photographer I gazed steadily at a feather duster until the tears came into my eyes while he held his watch and counted like the referee at a prize-fight. Years afterwards it took two strong men to hold me when that tintype was brought out for the edification of a mixed company.

When we came out of the photographer's we realised what had ailed the turkeys. The snowstorm of the season was in progress. A strong wind was blowing from the east and driving the big flakes before it. It would have been an interesting sight if it were not that we were over three miles from home and would have to face it all the way. There was nothing to do, however, but to pile into the buggy and start for home. There were no woods anywhere to break the force of the storm, and soon we were all as white as Santa Claus. The children began to get cold, and father—oh, well, it was a trying situation. There seemed to be twice as many people in the buggy as when we were going down, but now that I think it over in a serene frame of mind I can see that nothing makes cramped quarters seem so over-crowded as a little touch of temper. Of course we got home safely, though cold and storm-beaten, and we finally got thawed out. Hereafter when the turkeys begin to act up in an unusual way I shall stay at home to see what happens. The ancients used to foretell the success of journeys by the flight of birds and I am inclined to think there may have been something in it. Those turkeys certainly seemed to know that our journey would be made uncomfortable by a storm.

Some people are trying hard to believe that we have sleighing, but I have no delusions on that point. An inch or two of light fluffy snow on a lumpy gravel road isn't sleighing. For the past week it has been threatening snow every day, and some has fallen, but it will take a lot more to make good sleighing. The temperature has ranged from zero to twenty-two above during the past week, and we have had real winter weather. From what I have heard about the temperature from others who own thermometers I am beginning to believe that watching the weather is something like fishing. People like to get an unusual record. I have heard four degrees below zero reported, but my thermometer is a prosy, unimaginative instrument that seems inclined to record things as it finds them. I also find that there are people who do not hesitate for a moment to dispute the thermometer. When the mercury is standing at twenty above I have heard them assert vehemently: "I don't care what your old thermometer says; it is colder to-day than it has been since the storm started. I guess I know when I feel cold, don't I?" Of course it is not the function of a thermometer to warm people up when it rises in the tube. If they choose to go out without enough clothes it does not record that fact, but they do. The use of thermometers seems to be having an influence on the climate. Judging by the stories one hears, we don't have such cold winters as they had before thermometers came into use. The effect seems to be the opposite of that reported by the Irishwoman who was asked how far it was to a certain town.

"It used to be only three miles, but one day a surveyor came along and measured the road and it has been five weary miles ever since." In that case science made things harder, but the reading of the thermometer in this section makes the climate seem less severe.

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 quail to be so plentiful as they are this year. Their tracks are everywhere, though where they hide themselves is a mystery. I have seen only one rabbit this year. That one was poked out of a culvert, and I saw it only for the three or four seconds it took to get under a stack, yet the whole neighbourhood is tracked by them as if mobs of them played about at night. There are three flocks of quail on the farm and yet I have never seen them except when I set out to search for them diligently. I hear them whistling in different directions almost every morning and evening, but they manage to keep themselves out of sight. This makes me wonder a little about the sharp-sighted heroes of modern nature stories who can't walk through a page of printed text without seeing game and making observations that would take me hours of hunting and watching. If it were not for the snow, which reveals every movement of the little creatures, we should hardly know that there is life of any kind in the fields. To the children these tracks are a never-ending source of wonder and delight. They are sure that the rabbits or quail are under every bush to which the tracks lead, if I would only stop the buggy long enough to let them go and see. But I looked too often years ago when trudging through the fields and woods with a gun to feel much enthusiasm. These winter tracks seem to lead everywhere and nowhere. One almost imagines that they are purposely confused so as to conceal the hiding-places.

Nov. 9.—The turkeys in Appin district are not wild, but their owners are. This is the season of the annual round-up, and if it were not that Canadians are a peaceable and law-abiding people the results might be disastrous. The confusion is equal to that of a round-up of wild cattle in Texas in the old evil days. Flocks are inextricably mixed. It is true that some of the tough stringy old gobblers and hens are marked with bits of gaudy rags tied on their wings, but the young, plump, edible birds are unbranded. Hence the confusion and heart-burnings.

Turkeys are native here, and they do not seem to understand that the world has become civilised since the time when their ancestors roamed through the woods in mighty flocks. They are the only important survivors of the wild life of other days, and they still retain many of their wild instincts. Although they are hatched out in the barns or poultry houses, they take to the woods as soon as they have the use of their legs, and live the wild life until full grown.

The great trouble is that, like the Indians, they are unable to understand property rights in land. Line fences mean nothing to them, and they will range wherever food is plentiful. Flocks sometimes wander miles from home in quest of grasshoppers in the summer time, and of beechnuts in the fall. While the weather is mild the flocks keep apart, but when a cold snap comes on they rush together, and then the trouble begins.

"My turkeys were hatched early in June," says one farmer's wife.

Sixty gobblers gobble together as at a signal, while an equal number of hens stretch their necks and look worried.

"Mine were July birds, but they are of a big breed, and fast growers." The gobblers comment on this statement with a clamorous, simultaneous gobble.

"Mine were July birds, too, but I fed them on oatmeal for a couple of weeks, and that gave them a good start."

Once more the gobblers in convention assembled gobble furiously.

Here you have all the elements of a neighbourhood row. Each woman is convinced in her own soul that all the really big turkeys belong to her by rights, and that the runts that have pulled through an attack of roup or blackhead belong to some one else.

"When my hens were setting I noticed that all their eggs were sharp-pointed, and I've heard it said that gobblers always hatch out of that kind."

After this remark the gobblers gobble their worst. They seem to have a mania for gobbling after every remark made by people who are viewing them. At the same time the other two women sniffed, for they knew just what the remark about sharp-pointed eggs and gobblers means. It means that the speaker thinks she should come out of the round-up with a flock wholly composed of gobblers. They would like to do the same, but it is manifestly impossible. There are fully fifty hens, and they must belong to somebody.

At last, in desperation, it is suggested that each owner drive out her own marked old hens and turkeys and see if the young ones will follow their parents. Only people who have tried to drive turkeys know what this means. Make a pass at a gobbler with a switch and he sidesteps out of range. Then he stands to await further developments. As no two turkeys by any possibility sidestep in the same direction the progress that can be made in driving them is evident. It is asserted on good authority that the more people know about turkeys the better they like geese.

In order to facilitate the division of the flocks the owners make wild rushes at them, each trying to cut out towards her own nucleus the finest-looking birds. Full of a sense of the wrongs they are enduring, they keep at it until each has the number of birds in her original flock. Then each makes her way home to tell her husband how she was imposed upon and cheated, and each vows she will never speak to either of her greedy and over-reaching neighbours as long as she lives—no, never.

The turkeys are then fed on grain for a few days and rushed to the Christmas market. The only good turkey is a dead one, but it is so very good that much may be forgiven.

Nov. 11.—During the past couple of days I have had a chance to give some close study to the hen. It was decided to shift one of the flocks to another house. This was done at night—the time when so many hens are shifted. They were picked from their roosts, stuffed into canvas bags, and carried squawking to their new home. Chicken-thieves must have a knack that I cannot discover, or they would be caught every time they make a raid. It doesn't matter whether I catch a hen by the legs or by the neck, or by both at once, she is sure to squawk, and after she is put in a bag she keeps right on "searching her soul for sounds to tell how scared she is." Merely as a matter of scientific interest, I should like to know how the chicken-thieves manage their work so quietly. If there happen to be any among the readers of this page, I wish they would write me a line privately, telling how the trick is done. Communications will be treated as strictly confidential, and I promise not to make bad use of the information given. I really want to know, for it is an irritating mystery how a creature so full of assorted noises can be taken away in silence. Those who know will please write, instead of coming and giving a practical demonstration. They need not disclose name and address as a guarantee of good faith. Write soon.

The only thing in the first night of the moving that seems worth recording was the conduct of the sporty Leghorn rooster. He had been plunged head-first into a bag, squawking like the most chicken-hearted pullet, but when he had been dumped on the floor of his new home he began to strut around and talk hen talk just as if everything had turned out as he had expected. He crooned and clucked to his flock, and acted for all the world like the leader of an Opposition that had suffered a humiliating defeat. He seemed to be telling his followers not to be discouraged, for when the right time came he would rip things wide open and crow over the wreck of the Government. On the day after the moving the old chicken-house was taken away, or every hen would have been back in it next night. As the phrenologists used to say, "The hen has a wonderfully developed bump of locality." When she gets settled in one place she becomes very much attached to it. Unless carried beyond her bearings, she will come back as inevitably as a cat. Knowing this, we were not surprised, on going out with the lantern on the second night, to find a lot of the hens huddled where the chicken-house had stood. The snow was pelting down on them, but they seemed to prefer the tender associations of the old place to the warmth and shelter of the new. There was nothing to be done but to grab them by the legs and carry them to their new home again. Wishing to get through with the job as quickly as possible, I put one under each arm, took two in each hand, and carried the lantern with my teeth. I was just about as fully occupied as a man could well be, but it is always at such times that things begin to happen. I hadn't walked two rods before my nose got itchy. Wow! It wasn't a gentle little tickling, but a wild, exasperating, fiery agony that made me wrinkle up my face till my eyes were shut. I couldn't raise my hands without dropping chickens, and I couldn't get comfort from the wire fence because the lantern was in the way. For the next few seconds I was as busy as Rex Beach's "one-armed paper-hanger with the hives." But it was no use. Luckily the hen-house was not far away, and I rushed towards it. As soon as I reached the door I scattered chickens all over the place and clutched my nose. It is all right for you to laugh, but if you were the right kind of person you would rub your nose in sympathy as you read this. I wonder how many of you did.

Among the chickens that had to be carried were four pure-bred Brahma cockerels and a pullet. They interested me, and from now on I am going to cultivate their acquaintance. All fall they have been ranging over the whole farm, and even trespassing on neighbouring farms in search of sunflower seeds and other delicacies. This had caused me some surprise, for my early recollections of Brahmas were that they were exceedingly sedentary fowls, slow movers, and without ambition, save the overmastering ambition of the hens to set. As I remember them they were setting all the time and all over the place. If they were thrown off the nests they would cuddle down contentedly on a door-knob or piece of broken crockery, apparently with the idea of hatching out some egg-cups. When approached they would ruffle up their feathers and snarl, but they wouldn't move unless lifted. It was useless to hold them under the spout and pump on them, for that only seemed to make them mad—which justifies the proverb, "Mad as a wet hen." It was practically impossible to break them of setting. But I am assured that these up-to-date Brahmas are non-setters. They can't be induced to set. I can't help wondering how the strain was developed. As these are July chickens and there is only one pullet, I haven't had a chance to see if the marvellous change has been really accomplished. But I do know that they range around as no old-time Brahma ever did. When they hear a beechnut fall in the woods they stretch out their long necks, unlimber their long legs, and almost seem to shake the earth as they bounce across the fields to get it. As yet they are all feathers and skeleton. They look as big as turkeys, but they have no meat on them, though each one has enough neck and feet to make a boarding-house chicken fricassee. They seem to be like Sir John Macdonald's Holstein cattle: "The more you feed them the more bone they grow." I am assured that it takes them about a year to get their growth and fill out, and I am curious to see what they will be like when ready for the table. They didn't look very dignified the other night when I found them standing where their old home used to be, trying to protect themselves from the snowstorm by sticking their heads under one another while the wind seemed to be whistling through their ribs. But I am going to make a sympathetic study of them if they will only stay at home long enough to let me.

Nov. 14.—We have now reached that part of the harvest which I most thoroughly understand and enjoy. Earlier in the season we changed work with the horses, so as to provide the food needed for them and the cattle during the winter, and the surplus was sold for "rascal counters," with which we can get the things not grown on the farm that we need for ourselves. Now, however, we are putting away that part of the produce which we shall need for home consumption. Apples are being stored, potatoes pitted, celery and cabbage trenched, and other vegetables protected for the winter. I say that I understand this part of the harvest better than the other and I'll tell you why. We are all the time being told to go to the ant for an example of wisdom. Well—one time I went, and I am afraid that the lesson I learned was one that my teachers did not intend. Instead of having money invested in bonds or a good bank account, the ant simply had a plentiful store of provisions. As I put away these vegetables I have a comfortable feeling that I have learned the lesson of the ant as it was intended to be taught. Food is the most important form of wealth and to have a plentiful supply stored away is the highest form of wisdom. In more primitive times the wealth of kings consisted of full granaries and countless herds, and they were considered rich because they had ample food for themselves and all who were dependent on them. I suppose if I sold the celery, which is a somewhat costly luxury in the cities, I could put money in the bank, but I am fond of celery, and the wisdom of the ant is good enough for me. There is no knowing what may happen to the banks when the Bank Act comes up for revision, but I feel moderately secure regarding the vegetables.

Speaking of celery, there is one thing I should like to know, and perhaps some gardener who reads The Farmer's Advocate can tell me. I have no doubt that the trouble is due to some mistake I have made, but I wish to be set right, so that I can do better next year. When trenching the celery I found that part of it had grown very rank, and was so pithy that it is practically useless. The celery was grown in an old barn yard, where the ground was just about as rich as it could possibly be, having been used as a barn yard since the land was first cleared. I am inclined to think that this is about the first crop ever raised on this bit of soil, and that the original fertility is still there, as well as what has been accumulating during the past seventy years. Most of the celery is just about as fine as it could possibly be, large stalks, crisp and tender and as sweet as a nut. Besides, the stalks are about the largest I have ever seen, but some of the very largest are almost useless. What is the trouble? Has the growth been too rank or have I neglected something that should be done? Most of the trouble is with the Giant Golden Heart variety. The White Plume is all firm and sound, and both kinds were cultivated in the same way. Should I have treated the two kinds differently?

Two correspondents have asked me to give in The Farmer's Advocate the receipts for Force Meat and Dried Beef, which I described in an article elsewhere about a year ago. We prepared the dried beef, which proved to be excellent, according to the following receipt:

"Take the best of beef, or that part which will be the most lean and tender. The tender part of the round is a very good piece. For every twenty pounds of beef use one pint of salt, one teaspoonful of saltpetre, and a quarter of a pound of brown sugar. Mix them well together and rub the beef well with one-third of the mixture for three successive days. Let it lie in the liquor it makes for six days, then hang up to dry. A large crock or jar is a good vessel to prepare the meat in before drying it."

This dried beef is good either when cut in thin slices and fried or made up in the various ways in which "chipped beef" is used.

The force meat I had reference to is an old-fashioned country dish, and not the kind that usually goes under that name in the cook books. It strikes me as being more like pemmican than anything else. Take any convenient quantity of lean beef. The better the cut, the better the result will be, but any part may be used from porter-house steak to the neck. Chop this beef as finely as possible with a chopping-knife, but do not put it through a meat-chopper. Take about one-third the amount of suet and chop it in the same way, then mix the two and add salt and pepper to taste. When the beef and suet have been thoroughly mixed and flavoured, press it into small cakes by hand and put it away in a crock. It is ready to use at once, and is fried like steak. If there is any better eating for cold weather I have yet to find it. This is a truly pioneer dish and one of the best. Some day I may gather and put in shape the pioneer receipts that I have come across while gathering information about the first settlers. Quite a number of the dishes they used are no longer in vogue, but most of them that I have sampled have been good, though rather strong food for palates that are trained to sweets and delicacies.

Nov. 17.—This morning I did something so foolish that I hate to tell about it, but duty must be done. How are the young and the city people who are moving back to the land to be properly warned of dangers unless some one tells of things that happen on a farm with shameless truthfulness? It would not be so bad if I didn't know better, but I did, and now most emphatically do.

You have all heard of the foolish man who got a fall by sawing off the limb he was sitting on. The story was one of the favourites of my youth, and I have seen it used scores of times in political cartoons. It illustrates human foolishness better than any joke I know of, and yet I did exactly the same thing as the man in the story. I cut off the limb I was standing on. Looking at it thoughtfully, I have a humble feeling that there is no form of foolishness of which I am not capable. Of course, there were extenuating circumstances. There always are. A man does such a thing as that only when he is feeling that he is wiser and smarter than other men, and I thought I was altogether too skilful and cautious to let that limb get out from under me. I would cut to the right point and then stop. That's what they all say, but, as usual, the scheme didn't work out right.

This is how it happened. I went to the woodlot to forage for stove-wood, and noticing that the heavy sleet last February had broken down a number of big branches, I decided to use them. They were resting on the ground, but still connected with the trees by a few splinters. I had to climb to cut the splinters and bring the branches down. All went well until I came to a big beech, from which a branch about a foot in diameter was hanging by a stout slab. The break was about fifteen feet from the ground, and there were no other branches at that point. When I had climbed the tree, I found that the split-end of the branch made a good platform to stand on, and, after figuring out the situation, I decided that the easiest way to do the trick would be to chop nearly through the connecting slab while standing where I was, and then get close to the trunk and finish the job by swinging the axe with one hand and clinging to the trunk with one arm. But I had forgotten that the sapwood of the beech gets brittle when it has been drying for a year, and I had not given more than half a dozen strokes before there was a sudden snap, and the excitement began. I hadn't time to think, so must have acted on instinct, or from reflex action. I grabbed at the trunk of the tree with both arms and both legs. I just splashed myself against it, while the axe went flying. But before I could get my brakes adjusted, I had slipped about six feet down, and the legs of my trousers and sweater had slipped about two feet up. And the bark of that old beech was rough—very rough. After coming to a stop, I surveyed the scene, and felt thankful that I was not mixed up with the axe and the big limb on the ground. Then I shinned down the rest of the distance with a chastened spirit and a sprained thumb.

While chopping the branch into stove-lengths I meditated much on the foolishness of what I had done, and felt properly ashamed of myself. If one of the boys had done such a thing, I would never have stopped laughing at him. And now I had done it myself. Oh, well, I have a suspicion that most men do things that are just as foolish, when no one is looking, and have the reputation of being wise and careful just because they escape and keep quiet about it. Sometimes I think that there is something in us that makes us try to do things that we know are foolish. It helps to keep us humble, if we are wise enough to learn the lesson. To-night I am feeling very humble. I don't think I should laugh, even if the baby took a spoonful of salt in mistake for granulated sugar. It is a mistake that might be made by any of us.

Whoever worked out the plan of planting young trees that is given by the Department of Forestry certainly knew what he was about. I doubt if it could be improved upon. Lifting a sod and turning it back kills all the grass and weeds around the seedling, and gives it a chance to get a good start. To-day I looked over the trees I planted in the spring, and found that they are all beautifully mulched. The little hollow from which the sod was taken, and in which the tree was planted served as a trap for the drifting leaves. Around each tree there is a mulch of packed leaves three or four inches deep, and the work could not have been done better by hand. I don't think they mentioned that result in the bulletin on Reforestation, so it came to me as a surprise which aroused my admiration. The trees should come through the winter safely with such protection, and the rotting leaves should furnish them with the food they need next spring. Of the thousand and eighty trees I planted, at least eight hundred came through the scorching summer safely, and I expect that they will make quite a showing next year. The pine suffered the most. Though I have always understood that walnuts are very delicate, I find that almost all of mine lived. I was also pleased to find that thousands of young maples got a good start this year because the cattle had been kept out of the woods. Little as they are, these seedlings help to keep the leaves from drifting, and it looks as if the sod that had made such headway before replanting was attempted will soon disappear. Next spring, if the Forestry Department is kind, and I am feeling equal to the task, I shall plant out a couple of thousand more young trees, and try to get at least five acres back to natural woods. Of course, I know there are plenty of wise people who will say that I am foolish to be planting out trees in the garden land of Ontario, instead of clearing away those that remain; but, as I told you in the first paragraph, I am now convinced that I am capable of any kind of foolishness. Still, there is a saving remnant of the people who believe that reforestation is a wise thing. I do not think I am making a mistake in casting in my lot with them.

Nov. 25.—Is there such a thing as an official score-card for marking up the points of a cow? If there is I should like to see one. I want to know just how many marks are given for powers of digestion. This week the red cow did something that almost lifts her out of the cow class and places her with the ostrich and boa-constrictor. The other day after the cows had been turned out to water she was somehow left untied. True to her predatory instincts, as soon as she discovered her freedom she started to nose around for something she could steal and had the luck to find a tub full of corn in the ear, from which the hens were being fed. She promptly began to wrap herself around it and before being interrupted in her feast she had eaten over a bushel. Now, The Farmer's Advocate has never published any "First Aid to the Gluttonous," and I didn't know what to do. When I asked for advice people told me sad stories of the death of cows from over-feeding. Some had been killed by eating tailings after a threshing, others by bloating after eating clover, others by a surfeit of chop feed. It was all very disheartening for a fresh cow that gives eight quarts of milk rich in butter-fat at each milking is a valuable asset in these days when the bank act is being revised so as to allow farmers to raise money on their cattle. I couldn't call up the veterinarian for we have no telephone, and with the roads in their present condition I did not feel like driving three miles to consult one. Still I was not so much worried as I might have been. The look in her eye was reassuring. She looked more like the cat that had eaten the canary than anything else. She wore an air of unmistakable satisfaction and when she began to eat some clover hay that was in her manger as dessert to her banquet I felt that she might pull through. Her previous raids on the swill-barrel, soft-soap, apples, and other things gave me confidence in her powers of digestion, so, after murmuring a few words, "more in sorrow than in anger," I gave her Shakespeare's blessing—"Let Good Digestion Wait on Appetite"—and left her to her fate.

At milking time she was still perfectly normal though kind of lazy about standing over and "histing." Acting on advice, I cut out her evening ration of unthreshed oats, so that her stomach would recover from the surprise she had given it in the afternoon. Her gastric juices had their work cut out for them without having their troubles increased. But she made no protest when the other cows were fed and she was skipped. In fact she reminded me of the bereaved fowl described by "Pet Marjory," the little girl whose rhymes and sayings were recorded by Sir Walter Scott:

And yet, though she was in such good form I couldn't keep from worrying. All evening I listened to tales about cows that had come to untimely ends through over-eating, and look at it in any way I tried, a bushel or more of corn seemed a big dose for any cow. So after the others had gone to bed I lit the lantern and went out to the stable to see how she was doing. As I opened the door she heaved a sigh of repletion, like an alderman after a banquet. Then she stretched out her neck, brought up a cud, and began to chew placidly. Still, I was not entirely easy in my mind. If I could only get to see her tongue, or to feel her pulse, or take her temperature, I would be more satisfied. But how to get her to put out her tongue was the problem. The only way I could think of would be to hold an ear of corn before her nose and let her reach out her tongue for it, just as I had seen her try to lick grain through a knothole in the granary. But I was afraid to try that scheme for I knew by experience that she would probably get the start of me and add that ear of corn to the pile she had already accumulated. When it came to feeling her pulse I was stumped worse than in trying to get her to put out her tongue. How do you feel a cow's pulse anyway? The longer I live on a farm and grapple with its problems the more I find I have to learn. And all the time I was fussing and worrying she kept on contentedly chewing her cud. Restraining an impulse to give her a kick for looking so exasperatingly comfortable, when in the best judgment of the neighbourhood she should be dying, I closed the door and left her to her job of digesting a bushel of corn. And she did it to the king's taste. In the morning I went to see her before I gathered the duck eggs and found her bawling for her morning feed. She never batted an eyelid—never turned a hair. And at milking time she gave a brimming pail of milk, just as if nothing unusual had happened. Later in the day, when she was turned out for water, she bolted for the spot where she had found the corn on the previous day and seemed ready to repeat her exploit. It is not because she is starved either, for she is beef-fat.