With a whole province full of people who are setting me good examples of serious-mindedness and industry and all the virtues, I have become so hardened that I can spend an hour at any time watching the pup and the children at play and never think of reproving them. I know this is very, very wrong, and—and—

I have never heard birds accused of having a sense of humour, but there is a killdeer in the pasture field that seems to have glimmerings. Every evening when Sheppy and I go out to milk the cows this bird flutters down in front of the dog and acts like a flying machine that has broken one of its planes or has run out of gasoline. Of course Sheppy takes after it, and the bird will flutter along just ahead of him for a couple of hundred yards and then, with a joyous screech, will rise over the fence and leave him in the lurch. When he starts to trot back the bird will swoop down ahead of him, and the chase will be resumed until another fence is reached, and then the rising and screeching will be repeated. I suppose the killdeer has a nest somewhere in the field, but it doesn't matter what part of the fifteen acres Sheppy appears in the bird will come to tease him. They usually keep up the game all the time I am milking, until the poor dog is so hot and panting so hard you would think he was trying to "step outside of himself and let the wind whistle through his ribs." When the dog finally gives up the chase and starts home with me the bird circles around above us screeching "Look't here! look't here!" in the offensive way that people have when they have got the better of you in a practical joke. Probably sober-minded, scientific persons would say that the killdeer is simply trying to protect its young and keep the dog from approaching them, but I don't believe it. I think that the bird is simply having fun. Our scientific men are all so serious-minded that I am afraid they miss many things when engaged in their nature studies. Perhaps if they cultivated humour a little they would not make so many solemn blunders.

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' Institute, but yesterday afternoon there were some minutes when I yearned to pour forth my perturbed spirit in an adequate oration. If I could have been transported from the cornfield just at the instant when the monkey-wrench slipped and I barked three knuckles of my right hand, and if at that psychological moment I could have been placed on the platform of a meeting of the Manufacturers' Association, I would have addressed a few words to that stall-fed aggregation of Privileged Pirates that would have made Demosthenes against Philip, Cicero against Catiline, and Burke against the despoiler of the Carnatic sound like the commencement exercises at a girls' school. G-rr-r-r-!! (meaning snarls of rage). Why won't some one let me get at them? Their relations with the press are largely confined to the servile approaches of the advertising department, or to the well-fed compliments of the halter-broke editors who respond to the toast of the press at annual banquets. It might do them good to have a run in with a spontaneous and care-free journalistic outlaw when he was in the humour to kick out the tail board of the dictionary, and let the big bouncing adjectives roll down from the sulphur-blue heights of his eloquence. I do not think it was in vain that the poison of asps was put under my lips, and if I could have got at those fellows while the monkey-wrench was in my hand they would have sent in a fire alarm, called the police, wired Colonel the Honourable Sam Hughes for a regiment, and then to a man they would have hidden their fatness under the seats until the lightning and continuous thunder had passed, and the weather began to clear.

Of course, all this demands some explanation, but in making the explanation I want to make a few restrictions. I want it to be understood that I am talking as man to man to farmers who do their own work. What I have to say is not intended for those purse-proud farmers who have hired men, and who feel that because they sold their beef cattle for a few cents above the market it is to them I am referring when I speak of shady operations in High Finance. Do you know I have been finding that when I pay my respects to Sir Jingo McBore there are a lot of farmers who feel that I am attacking the propertied class, and that they are getting kicks out of the overflow? But that is not what I want to talk about to-day. I simply want to explain to the ordinary farmer, who has to scratch gravel with both feet in order to provide for his brood, that I have stumbled on another way in which we are being looted, and it is the meanest and most exasperating trick that has come to my notice in a blue moon. I was placidly cultivating corn in the new orchard, when I noticed that the frame of the cultivator was working loose. The correct thing to do was to tighten the nuts, and I got a wrench for that purpose. Feeling that I was doing the right thing at the right time, just as a real farmer would do it, I began to turn on one of the nuts with the wrench. But it did no good. There was no tightening of the loose frame. A more careful examination showed that the bolt was turning with the nut, and I could keep on turning till the cows came home, and it would make no difference. The head of the bolt was round and flat, and there was no possible way of catching it with another wrench and holding it while the nut was being tightened. I passed on to several other nuts that were working loose, and found the same state of affairs. Every bolt would turn with the nut, and it was impossible for me to tighten anything. It was just after I had made this discovery that it occurred to me that perhaps if I gave the wrench a quick jerk the nut would loosen and begin to turn without the bolt. I tried and the wrench slipped and my knuckles struck on the iron frame. That was the moment when I should have been introduced to the Manufacturers' Association. As it was I merely sat down on the cultivator frame, and, though there was no one but the old grey horse to hear me, I talked about the manufacturer of that cultivator for some minutes. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, about the time when he would be sipping his coffee after his luncheon, and I shouldn't wonder but he remarked to his wife that his ears were burning and that probably some one was talking about him. If he said that, he was entirely right. Some one was talking about him in a very restrained but exceedingly feverish manner.

As might be supposed there is a reason for having cultivators put together as mine is. The reason is called "Profits." When machinery is properly assembled before being sold, bolts that must be taken out from time to time are fitted with square shoulders under the head, and these fit into square holes. This makes it possible to tighten nuts or remove them as occasion may require. But, under our modern non-competitive system, the sole purpose of the manufacturer is to get his implements put together and sold. If he does not trouble himself to have square-shouldered bolts fit into square holes, he can save the wages of several mechanics who would otherwise put in their time seeing that the implements went together properly and could be taken apart again. By using bolts that are smaller than the holes in the castings they can assemble the implements without bothering to ream out the holes, and then if you want to change the position of, say, a cultivator tooth you may find, even if you are fortunate enough to get out the bolt, the next hole has never been reamed out, and that you must take the cultivator to a blacksmith to get it changed. And all this is due to the fact that thrifty manufacturers want to save the wages of mechanics in assembling their implements. If they can save a few cents it does not matter that they will cause delay and annoyance to the farmers who buy their implements. It is about the meanest, cheapest form of petty graft to which they can stoop, but they are doing it every day. Sir Jingo McBore is on the board of directors, and his one purpose in life is to get more dividends. To meet his insistent clamour, the manufacturer is forced to save at every turn so as to increase profits. Machines are put together in the cheapest way possible, and even though the style and materials may be of the best, they become a source of constant annoyance and loss of time to the man who buys and uses them. When I realised just what was the matter with that cultivator, and that, in order to make a saving of fifteen or twenty cents in the wages of a mechanic who would fit the bolts into their places properly, the manufacturer had sold me an imperfect implement, I just naturally boiled over. For a few vivid moments I lost my grip on the National Policy, and all the great verities of life. While I sat on the cultivator I recalled the appearance of a manufacturer of agricultural implements whom I had the privilege of looking at for fully half an hour one day last spring. He was a mild-looking man with pink whiskers and an air of vested rights, and, judging from his tone of voice when speaking from his place in parliament, he probably contributes regularly to the funds of the Holy Name Society. And yet that man and others like him sell to the farmers implements like my cultivator, that poison the fountains of language at the source. As I recalled the meek looks of this manufacturer and rubbed my barked knuckles, I saw red. It was then that I wanted a chance to address the Manufacturers' Association, and I think I could have said a few things to them that would have been worth while. And I have a sneaking suspicion that in addressing them on this subject I should be voicing the unexpressed and unprintable opinions of thousands of farmers in this fair Canada of ours.

July 18.—Hurrah! The new bug has come. This morning I found a Perillus Bioculatus—or was it Claudus? And yet again it might have been Circumcinctus. Oh, what's the use? What I am really trying to tell is that I found one of the new beetles that are eating the potato bugs. I had heard that such a beetle exists, but had no hope of ever seeing one. There is a little patch of early potatoes in the corner of the garden, and when looking them over and making up my mind to spray them with Paris green, I noticed the little stranger. At first I thought it was a new enemy of the potato, and was trying to work up a feeling of resignation, when I noticed it had its proboscis sticking into a young potato bug. To make sure that it was really killing the creature, I put my finger close to it, and it ran along the leaf, still carrying its prey with it. It was undoubtedly a true Perillus bioculatus, or claudus, or circumcinctus, though it did not wear a tag giving its Latin name. It is a rather handsome creature, of about the same length and breadth as the hard-shelled potato bug, square-shouldered and attractively marked with yellow stripes on a black ground. I am not much of a hand at telling what any one or anything wears, so you may find it hard to recognise this excellent beetle from my description; but if you find one that has a potato bug speared on its beak, you will know that it is the farmer's friend. When you find one, be good to it, and make it welcome. I think we should get together with our scientists, and give it a better name than it has. I suggest that we call it the "Fun Bug," because, when it gets plentiful, the children can go and have fun, instead of picking the potato bugs. If you do not care for that name, and have a better one to suggest, you may write to me, giving your choice, and enclosing postage stamps as a guarantee of good faith. But above all things, be good to our new friend. To find a bug that is a benefit, and not a pest, is enough to make a man declare a birthday and go out to celebrate it.

Homer tells about a man who "dwelt beside a road and was the friend of mankind." A farmer meditating on that passage might be inclined to remark that in the days when Homer wrote there were no automobiles. If there had been, the gentle soul who dwelt beside the road might have found the milk of human kindness curdling in his bosom. And yet this would hardly be true. In those good old days they had chariots with scythes sticking out from the axles that must have been rather ticklish things to get past, especially when driven by some silken Greek or Trojan noble who was trying to handle a team of wild horses. The only point to this is that we must not run away with the idea that people did not have trouble before our time. I quite realise that there is nothing new to say on the question of automobiles, but there are times when I feel like saying a few old things with much bitterness of heart. Automobiles are more plentiful and more hasty than ever this year. I am told that the latest make cannot be run successfully at less than fifteen miles an hour, and that they can be made to go at the rate of forty and fifty miles an hour without trouble to any one except farmers who may be trying to go about their business on the public road. I frequently see them going by more swiftly than the express trains on the railway. I am told that only Americans crossing from Windsor to Niagara Falls offend in this way, but I have my doubts. It is quite true that the people in near-by towns who own automobiles are commendably considerate when approaching a skittish horse, but that is when they are near home. It is hard to say what they would do if they got out beyond the circle of their acquaintanceship. While travelling where they are known, they have to be careful, for we all know where they live, and if they don't treat us right they are likely to have a rough-necked man drop in at their place of business to talk matters over with them. Visitors of this kind can lean up close to the offending automobilist and say things to him, and if he tries to talk back, they can bite him. I am sorry to say that I have no suggestion to make about improving conditions of mixed travel on the public roads, but still I think it is worth while to keep on saying something about it, "Lest we forget, lest we forget." Some day we shall find a solution of the difficulty. In fact, we must find one, if we are not to be crowded off the roads altogether.

A few days ago I had an illuminating talk with a visiting fish peddler. He told me that it had taken him three years to work up his route, so that he can cover it profitably. People had to be educated to the use of fish. Now that they have become accustomed to his visits, he has no difficulty in selling from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred pounds of fish a week; but if he gets off his beaten track and tries a new district, he finds it hard to sell. This reminds me that I saw in a recent newspaper article a statement that Canadians are becoming much greater users of cheese than they were in the past. It is also said that the home demand for fruit and honey is also increasing—all of which is good news. It does not mean that people are becoming more extravagant in their way of living, but that they are learning the value of variety in their food. Fish, cheese, honey, and fruits are no more expensive than the pork, beef, and so-called plain foods which the majority of people use year in and year out, without change. The medical authorities tell us that variety in our foodstuffs makes for public health; so, besides making profit for themselves, those who are educating the people to use new foods are rendering a public service, and introducing the variety which is said to be "the spice of life."

They have raised a monument to the McIntosh Red apple, and there is talk of raising a fitting memorial to the man who introduced Red Fife wheat. This is a step in the right direction, and I think, when we are at it, we should raise a memorial of some kind to all the people who have done work from which they expected no return. We have only to look at the roads, the cleared fields, and the orchards of Canada to realise that the generations that went before us did not all look to collect for themselves the last cent of profit from their work. I am moved to make these remarks by the fact that I have so frequently heard people say to those who are planting out orchards or making other improvements that cannot be perfected for years to come, "Well, you'll never live to get any good out of it." Of all the discouraging, unprogressive points of view, I think that is easily the worst. The world would practically be at a standstill if men did not undertake anything from which they could not hope to reap the entire profit. Moreover, this matter of getting and having does not seem to be very well understood. Many people who have collected all the profits of their work really have nothing at all, because they get no good from what they have gathered. There is much food for thought in the words of the Frenchman who said on his death-bed, "What I spent I enjoyed, what I gave away I still have, but what I saved I lost completely."

July 19.—There are young grasshoppers in the field—merry, inconsequent grasshoppers—but in the present state of public opinion in Canada I doubt if it would be wise to say much in their praise. The grasshopper chews tobacco, and fiddles, and I understand that both practices are forbidden by church discipline. And yet there is much about the grasshopper that appeals to me. To parody Sir John (I mean Falstaff, who must not in any way be confused with any of our own Sir Johns): "If to be merry and inconsequent be a sin, then many an old codger I know is going to get into trouble." In spite of his cheerful disposition the grasshopper has been an object of scorn to the moralists and fabulists. They have been fond of comparing him with the bee and the ant, to his disadvantage, and yet, as usual, there is another side to the story. In all the fairy tales, myths, and records of sorcery that I have read only one man was ever transformed into an insect, and he elected to be a grasshopper. When Tithonus, the accepted lover of Eos, goddess of the dawn, began to get old and shrivelled because he neglected to ask for immortal youth instead of immortal life, she got rid of him by changing him into a grasshopper, and I suspect that the change was made by request. Tithonus was no doubt very wise as well as very old. As the favoured lover of Rhododaktulos Eos he must have seen a great deal of life. To begin with, he must have been one of the industrious sort or he would never have been up early enough to make love to the Dawn. Besides, in order to live up to his position he would have to be around at daybreak every morning. So it is no wonder when it was "time for a change," as the politicians say, that he decided to be changed into a grasshopper. This insect neither works nor stores up treasure. He takes his ease until the sun is high every morning, and when danger threatens he clears out of the way with one jump. His life lasts only while the pasture is good, and when he isn't eating he chews tobacco and fiddles. Personally, I prefer a pipe, and those who ought to know tell me that I am not musical, but, still, I have much admiration for old Tithonus, who decided that if he couldn't be a man he wanted to be a grasshopper.

The more I consider insects the more I am convinced that our moralists must give up drawing lessons from them. Although the ant is industrious she never lays up more food than is needed for a hard winter, and no ant hill that I have ever investigated has revealed anything suggestive of the most approved forms of modern thrift. The ants have nothing to correspond with our industrial system, with its mergers and watered stocks. The bee is nearest to man in these matters, and see what a fool she is. She lays up treasures where the moth can corrupt and thieves break in and steal. A great majority of the bees work themselves to death without ever getting a chance to enjoy the treasures they have stored up. If you provide them with comfortable quarters and plenty of white clover blossoms they will go on producing like farmers without ever noticing who is getting the profits of their work. Although the bees have been much favoured by fabulists I think that they should really be regarded as horrible examples.

July 21.—This is a wonderful year for roses. In the early morning when they are drenched with dew every bush looks like a fairy fountain where the universal life force is bubbling up in beauty of form and colour and perfume. And the roses are not alone. All the other old-fashioned flowers, the marigolds, petunias, larkspurs, poppies, and hyacinths, are sending up their jets of tremulous loveliness. As I look at them with eyes refreshed by sleep I realise the truth of that verse in the Koran which says:

"If I had but one loaf of bread I would sell half of it and buy hyacinths, for beauty is food for the soul."

Not even the fabled

can surpass a Canadian garden, brimming with the old-fashioned flowers beloved in childhood. As I linger among them the years fall from me like an "envious shadow." I press the delicate blooms to my face, inhale their fragrance, and let my whole being vibrate with the joy of life until my heart joins in the morning chorus of the birds. And then the great sun swings up and the day's work begins.

July 22.—For the past few days we have been hauling in hay and hustling like a gang of lightning-rod peddlers following up a destructive thunderstorm. And I have built my first stack. That may not seem a very startling statement to a tired business man, but I beg to assure all such that a stack of blue grass and a stack of blues are two entirely different things. The method of building them is not the same, and a stack of blue grass goes farther in feeding the cattle than a stack of blues in feeding the kitty. But sh-h-h! I should not be introducing these esoteric terms of high finance into innocent pastoral scenes.

To return to the stack—I feel fairly proud of it. It is more symmetrical than I thought I could ever make one, and it is settling down on its foundation like a benediction. Having seen real farmers, who are reputed to be good stack-builders, get down off their stack and run for a rail to prop it up so that it would not fall over, it gives me a glow of satisfaction to see my first attempt sitting as upright as a pyramid. Whenever I have nothing else to do when I am smoking my pipe after dinner, I always wander to some spot where I can see and admire my first stack from a new angle, and I find that it looks fairly well from every side. Of course, it is not perfect, and I would not advise people who are busy or have something important to do to come far out of their way to look at it, but still I am not ashamed to have it examined.

In the past I have always had an expert stack-builder to do the building, but this year the boys and I are doing all the farm work, and I had to build myself. Of course, I have often helped at stack-building, keeping the hay in front of the builder or pitching off the loads, but I never before had the courage to act as chief architect. I have also heard good stack-builders discuss the art, and I know that the chief thing is to "keep the middle full." As nearly as possible I made this stack all middle, kept it well tramped and never went too near the edges. Experts who have looked at it say that it will turn the wet all right, but I shall not feel entirely safe until it has been opened next winter. I have no doubt the cows have a proverb to the effect that "the proof of the stack is in the eating."

A real farmer with whom I was discussing my stack with more modesty than I really felt made the disquieting comment: "Your first two or three stacks will probably be all right, for you will be careful. It is after you think that you know how to build stacks that you will get careless and then you will begin to build poor ones." Possibly that is true, but to be forewarned is to be forearmed. I certainly did give my whole attention to the work while building that stack. My mind was on it all the time, and every forkful was placed with considerate care. It irritated me to have any one distract my attention by speaking to me while I was at the work. I was bound to make a good job of it.

To those who have never built stacks it would be surprising to know the amount of concentrated attention that is required. A stack isn't simply a pile of hay, and when it comes to topping off you need a good eye to make all sides slope up evenly. I didn't intend to build it so high, but the slope at which I started kept me going up and up as far as the two boys could pitch. One was throwing hay up as high as he could from the load, and the other was perched precariously on a little ledge, from which he threw it up to me, and when I reached the top I was also pitching the bundles higher than my head. By that time I had become sufficiently accustomed to my work to have a chance to observe and to note that my stack was like

The boy who was perched on the side of the stack reminded me of the lines:

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 piece of wire and a couple of blocks of unsplittable wood from the woodpile I was tired out in mind and body. As soon as I could I stumbled away to the tent and slept like a log until five a.m. on the following morning, when a fly with a club-foot limped across my nose and wakened me to another day of toil and building.

Many explanations have been offered of the trend of country people to the cities, but it is possible that the true source of the difficulty has been overlooked. Students of the problem have been too practical. They have discussed the difficulty in terms of dollars and cents and of hard labour. An idealistic observer with keener insight might lay the blame on our literature and art. For some generations compulsory education has been scattering the leaven of learning in the rural districts, and what are we offering the new army of readers and seekers for culture? We are offering them history, romance, and poetry in which war, statecraft, social eminence, artistic, poetic, and professional ability yield to heroic souls ample harvests of success, fame, and perhaps content.

Agriculture, the most essential of the world's industries, has not been touched by the true glamour of literature and art. Poets and writers who have dealt with it have given us creations in dialect, and artists who have illustrated this kind of literature have depicted a race of men and women in jeans and gingham. This is not the kind of thing calculated to rouse the ambition of country boys and girls. Their heroes are fair spoken, well dressed, and skilled in courtly manners. They feel that to develop themselves and to make the most of their lives they must away to the cities where the things that literature and art glorify may be found or accomplished.

You cannot expect young men of spirit to take to farming until it has been idealised. In the present condition of public taste they can only hope to figure in literature as stupid and sometimes amusing drudges, and in art as raw-boned monstrosities with whiskers in their ears. They dream of military uniforms, places on boards of directors, and well-dressed triumphs of all kinds that are adequately applauded by beautiful women dressed in the latest fashion. All our literature and art tends to foster these foolish dreams. It is vain for philosophers to preach the advantages of the simple life and for editors to preach the great duty of producing the world's food. Duty, the "stern daughter of the voice of God," is not popular with the young. They want life and action and joyousness, because literature and art have taught them that these are the things most to be desired, and they hurry to the cities to find them.

The art of living has not penetrated to the country, and you need not expect it to make progress until we have that new race of poets and writers and artists which Whitman foresaw, but of which he was not the protagonist. He sang the glories of work—but did not work much. Thoreau with all his cantankerousness came nearer to the new literature. His farming was all done to supply his own needs, and he foresaw the possibilities of leisure and ease in connection with farm life when he said: "No man need earn his bread in the sweat of his brow unless he sweats more easily than I do."

"If the farmers learn to get leisure and use it the old order will change, and instead of a new heaven and a new earth we shall have a new earth and a new heaven. The change will begin on the earth. When farmers learn to work for homes and well-rounded lives, instead of for money, a new race of artists and writers will spring from the soil and give us the much-needed literature and art of democracy. They will give a romantic glamour to country life, and culture, instead of being handed down from the heights, will be handed up, or rather we shall have to go back to the soil to get it. Most of the free and equal citizens of the country are born on the land, and it is probable that in the near future all the people on the land will be well educated."

When that time comes we shall have a new literature, art, and poetry, and the world will be given new ideals. Instead of the age of poetry being past, it is merely beginning to dawn.

July 25.—"Are you going to the raising?"

If not, you will miss the best entertainment the county affords. A properly-conducted barn-raising contains the excitement of a fire, the sociability of a garden party, and the sentimental delights of a summer resort "hop." The young men are given a chance to show their agility and prowess and the girls are enabled to shine as hostesses. Although it is especially a function for young people, there are always enough old folks on hand to give the occasion historical colour and perspective with their reminiscences of past raisings—some of them going back to the days of log barns and houses. In "the heroic period" the best man was the one who was competent to build a corner, and any one who examines one of the primitive buildings cannot but marvel at the skilful dovetailing done by the old-time cornerer. The modern framer, with all his tools, would find it hard to equal their work. In the traditions of those days there are stories of men who could run along a log and jump the opening left for the barn door—about fourteen feet—with a bottle of whiskey in each hand. Nowadays we have other men and other manners.

The preliminary work of a barn-raising is done in the winter months, when the timber for the frame is felled and squared. As the old-time broadaxe men who could hew to the line and turn out a stick of square timber that looked as if it had been planed have practically vanished from the earth, the posts, plates, beams, sills, girths, and girders are now squared at the sawmills. After the timber has been assembled where the barn is to be built the framers cut it to the required lengths and make the necessary joints, mortises, tenons, braces, and rafters. The invitations for the raising are then issued, and the housewife, usually helped by her friends, begins to cook for a multitude. The best that the county affords is prepared lavishly, for a raising is always followed by a great feast.

On the day of the raising a gang of men working under the directions of the framers put together the bents and sills. The latter are usually laid on cement foundations, as most modern barns have a basement stable for horses and cows. The bents, usually four in number, consist of the posts, beams, girths, and braces. They are put together, with all joints strongly pinned and laid overlapping one another on the foundation, with the tenons on the foot of each post ready to be entered into the mortises in the sills. Early in the afternoon the crowd begins to gather. When all who are expected have put in an appearance, captains are selected, who proceed to choose sides. Then is the anxious moment for the county beau who can feel holes burning in the back of his duck shirt because of

To be chosen first or to be among the first half-dozen is an honour you could appreciate more fully if in your youth you had been chosen second man. I admit it was only second, but, like the Emperor William in the patriotic but blasphemous German story, I was young then, and I left the country before I reached my growth. As each man is chosen, he leaves the crowd and joins the growing group about his captain. Not even "Casey" of baseball fame could make that short walk with more "ease and pride" than some of the county boys, and not a few of them prepare their hands for the coming fray, as he did when

When every one has been chosen down to such riffraff as visiting journalists and politicians, who can only be expected to help with the grunting when the lifting is being done, the real work of the raising begins. Although the rivals take opposite sides of the barn, they work together in putting up the main framework. "Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! All together now! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"

Slowly the first bent is lifted and shored up until the pike-poles can be brought into play.

"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"

Men with handspikes hold back the foot of each post so that the tenons may not slip past the mortises as the huge beams are being pushed up into the air.

"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"

At last the tenons slip home and the first bent is stay-lathed in place. The girths that connect with the next bent are put in place, braced, and stayed. Then another bent is heaved up and the extending girths fitted, braced, and pinned. So to the last bent. As it swings up the excitement becomes furious. While the bent is still at a dangerous angle, men clamber up to the collar beams and begin tugging at ropes attached to the heavy plates that are being hoisted against the frame. By the time the last posts have snapped into place the ends of the plates are already on the collar beams.

"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!" The race is on!

The slanting plates are rapidly pushed high above the building. Sometimes they are liberally soaped to make them slip over the beams more easily. Now comes the spectacular act of the exciting performance. While the end of the plate is high in the air venturesome young men, anxious to make a reputation for reckless daring, shin up to the top so that they may "break" it more quickly. No sooner has it been brought down to the collar beams than it is pushed along the full length of the building. Now it must be lifted into place on the tenons at the tops of the posts.

"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"

The cheering suddenly changes to sharp calls and commands.

"Where's that brace?"

"Throw me a commander!"

"Throw me a pin!"

Bang! Bang! Bang! The pins are driven home.

The main plates are pinned into place and the lighter purlines are already lying on the beams with posts fitted in and braced. Now they must be hoisted.

"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"

"Where's that strut?"

Now for the rafters! They are already leaning against the main plates, with one end on the ground. Hand over hand they are pulled up, fitted into their places in the plate and laid across the rising purlines. This is the breathless end of the race. The purline is up! The rafters in place!

"All down!"

The winners spill down from the building as if they would break their necks.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!"

The race is over; the winners rush for the tables that are spread on the lawn, and the laughter of girls and women takes the place of the hoarse yelling and cheering of the men. Under a shower of compliments the winners wash up and range around the tables, where they are waited on by the girls. The losers, who may have been only a few rafters behind, are forced to wait for "the second tables." Under the influence of the feasting the excitement soon dies down and both winners and losers share in the general good humour.

Sometimes the contending sides indulge in a game of baseball if there is still time and they feel like exerting themselves after their full meal. Not infrequently the day ends with a dance—not old-fashioned square dances, but up-to-date waltzes with music provided by a graduate of some ladies' college presiding at one of those grand pianos that appear like mushrooms after a season of good crops. The old fiddler rasping out "The Irish Washerwoman" has gone "glimmering down the dust of days that were," with so many other country institutions.

Then comes the drive home through the moonlight, along the country roads and past the sweet-smelling clover fields. As the young men are always heroic and the girls bewitching on these occasions, there is no telling how many romances take definite form at barn-raisings. What have the cities to offer in comparison with this for excitement, fun, and sentiment? Nothing—absolutely nothing!

July 27.—The fat steers are now occupying the centre of the stage. They are being shipped from this district, not simply in carload lots, but in trainloads. It is sad to think that they will so soon lose their colonial identity and begin to masquerade on imperial tables as the roast beef of Old England. For some months past they have been making a glorious showing in the pasture fields. A drive along the roads in any direction would be sure to bring into evidence herds of from twenty to thirty feeding in dehorned peace or chewing the cud under the shade trees. They gave an air of prosperity to the landscape fully as satisfying as the wheatfields of the hustling junior provinces. If old Ontario is being forced by changed conditions to let her fields run to pasture, she has fat steers to show for it that equal the best. The old scrub stock descended from the pioneer cattle that used to get through the winters by eating buds and licking the moss off the trees has entirely disappeared. In its place we have cattle that are bred for meat production, and the farmer who sells a herd of these gets in exchange a roll of bills that is too big to be hidden in a stump or hollow log. Nothing but a chartered bank will hold it. Like almost everything else the farmers have to sell nowadays, fat steers command a high price that makes one sympathise with the poor city people who must buy. But when the farmers are prosperous, business booms and the city people get their share—especially those who are in any way affected by the piano trade.

Fat hogs are also playing an important part in this year's drama of prosperity—in fact they are getting their feet right into the financial trough. At the present price—eight cents a pound, live weight—they have reached a point that is the despair of men whose memory runs back to the time of the American war and other periods of forced prices. In this connection it is amusing to note how little some people care for the cause, so long as they can get good prices. One old Presbyterian elder, who has long since gone to his reward, made his fortune during the Crimean war, and ever after he used to exclaim with heartfelt emphasis on every possible occasion, "I wish there would be another war with Roosha, so the price of wheat would go up." It didn't matter to him how many people were killed or what suffering was endured, so long as he got a fancy price for his wheat. Another worthy of the same period kept his wheat for three years after the war closed hoping to be able to sell it at war prices. The state of the market weighed so heavily on his mind that when he met an acquaintance his invariable form of greeting was: "Isn't the wheat cheap? How are the wife and children?" But to return to hogs. They, too, have undergone a transformation. The old-fashioned swift-footed, long-nosed variety that could reach the third row of potatoes through a snake fence has disappeared—as has the snake fence. The hog of the present day really resembles his portrait in the advertisements in the agricultural papers. He lives a brief life of full-fed inactivity, has a clean pen, plenty of pure water and wholesome chopped feed. If offered the old-fashioned ration of swill, he would no doubt turn up his nose in disgust and ask the farmer to bring him the bill of fare.

Calves and lambs are also in demand with the buyers—they used to be called drovers—and bring good prices. But sheep-raising is not so important a business in this district as it might be. There are a few sheep—prize-winners at that—in the neighbourhood, but the industry is not flourishing, and the good old joke about taking the annual bath at the time of sheep-washing has fallen into disuse. The sheep they have are excellent to look upon. They even surpass the one described by the schoolboy as having "four legs on the under side, one at each corner." Their feet are set far towards the middle, and are so overhung with fatness that if a sheep gets cast on her side she cannot regain her footing, but will die unless found and rescued. So many sheep are lost in this way that farmers who raise them find it necessary to look over their flocks and count them at least twice a day so as to be sure that none of them is missing. But though the sheep have changed, the buyers are still the same as they were in the days of Solomon. Here is a sample deal reported from life. The buyer has just driven up to the barn from the road.

"Good-morning, Jim."

"Good-morning, Bob."

"Awful dry weather we have been having lately."

"It is; but it looks a little like rain this morning."

"Yes, but it has been looking like rain every day for the past couple of weeks, and I have always noticed that when it looks like rain and doesn't, we usually have a long dry spell."

"That's so."

"I hear you have some fat sheep."

"I have, but I don't think I'll sell them just now. Jack Stout was looking at them the other day, but he didn't offer enough for them."

"What did he offer?"

"Three cents a pound."

"Well, that's all they're bringing now."

"Yes. Well, I think I'll keep mine for a while longer. I have nothing else on the pasture since I sold my steers, and I don't think they'll get any cheaper."

"Funny that sheep aren't higher when pork is so dear. I am paying eight cents a pound for hogs just now."

Here followed a conversation on hogs that need not be reported, as it was not to the point. Finally the buyer volunteered:

"I'm making up a carload to-day and I'm a little short. If your sheep are good and fat I don't mind paying three and a quarter for them."

"That isn't much better than Jack's bid. No, I don't think I'll sell them just now."

"Well, I must be going. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

The farmer stands and watches the buyer as he drives down a lane. When he has gone a few rods he stops and looks back.

"Oh, Jim!"

"Well!"

"I've just been thinking it over, and, though sheep are not worth a cent over three cents a pound, I am in such a fix to-day getting my car filled that I'll pay three and a half."

"When will you want them delivered?"

"At noon to-day."

"All right." The deal is closed and both are satisfied. What an up-to-date comment this makes on Solomon's text: "The buyer saith 'It is naught. It is naught,' but when he goeth his way he boasteth."

Now comes the task of rounding up the sheep, loading them on a waggon, and taking them to a railway station. If the man who first compared voters to a flock of sheep didn't know any more about politics than he did about sheep he should have been waited on by a delegation of farmers and told a few things. Of all the stubborn, contrary, ornery critters to drive, coax, or lead, sheep certainly deserve the mahogany sideboard, or trip to Europe, or whatever it is they offer in popular prize competitions. They follow their leaders, of course, but any fool that starts running in any direction is instantly followed as a leader. And the leaders never seem to have a clear idea of where they want to go. Their one idea seems to be to bolt the convention, and that is a characteristic of reformers rather than of ordinary voters. If the people were at all like sheep the politicians could do nothing with them. The simile is no good. And will some psychologist kindly explain why a man's memory will turn sarcastic on him—when he has almost run his legs off and can feel his lungs red all the way down—and throw up a quotation like this: