Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont. Abbott Jacob

hay, can not be kept in one country, while the grass which they feed upon grows in another. The animals must live, in general, on the very farm which the grass grows upon. Thus, while the cotton cultivator has nothing to do but to raise his cotton and send it to market, the grass cultivator must not only raise his grass, but he must provide for and take care of all the animals which are to eat it. This makes the agriculture of the northern states a far more complicated business, because the care of animals runs into great detail, and requires great skill, and sound judgment, and the exercise of constant discretion.

      "You observe," continued Forester, "that it is by the intervention of animals that the farmer gets the product of his land into such a shape that it will bear transportation. For instance, he feeds out his hay to his sheep, attending them with care and skill all the winter. In the spring he shears off their fleeces; and now he has got something which he can send to market. He has turned his grass into wool, and thus got its value into a much more compact form. The wool will bear transportation. Perhaps he gave a whole load of hay to his sheep, to produce a single bag of wool. So the bag of wool is worth as much as the load of hay, and is very much more easily carried to market. He can put it upon his lumber-box, and drive off fifty miles with it, to market, without any difficulty."

      "His lumber-box?" asked Marco. "What is that?"

      "Didn't you ever see a lumber-box?" asked Forester. "It is a square box, on runners, like those of a sleigh. The farmers have them to haul their produce to market."

      "Why do they call it a lumber-box?" asked Marco.

      The Lumber-Box.

      "Why, when the country was first settled, they used to carry lumber to market principally; that is, bundles of shingles and clapboards, which they made from timber cut in the woods. It requires some time for a new farm, made in the forests, to get into a condition to produce much grass for cattle. I suppose that it was in this way that these vehicles got the name of lumber-boxes. You will see a great many of them, in the winter season, coming down from every part of the country, toward the large towns on the rivers, filled with produce."

      "What else do the farmers turn their grass into, besides wool?" asked Marco.

      "Into beef," said Forester. "They raise cows and oxen. They let them eat the grass as it grows, all summer, and in the winter they feed them with what they have cut and dried and stored in the barn for them. The farmers are all ambitious to cut as much hay as they can, and to keep a large stock of cattle. Thus they turn the grass into beef, and the beef can be easily transported. In fact, it almost transports itself."

      "How do you mean?" asked Marco.

      "Why, the oxen and cows, when they are fat and ready for market, walk off in droves to Boston, to be killed. They don't kill them where they are raised, for then they would have to haul away the beef in wagons or sleighs, but make the animals walk to market themselves, and kill them there. But the farmers don't generally take their own cattle to market. Men go about the country, and call upon the farmers, and buy their cattle, and thus collect great droves. These men are called drovers. In traveling in this part of the country, late in the fall, you would see great droves of cattle and sheep, passing along the road, all going to Boston, or rather Brighton."

      "Where is Brighton?" asked Marco.

      "It is a town very near Boston, where the great cattle market is held. The Boston dealers come out to Brighton, and buy the cattle, and have them slaughtered, and the beef packed and sent away all over the world. Thus the farmers turn the grass into beef, and in that shape it can be transported and sold."

      "And what else?" asked Marco.

      "Why, they raise a great many horses in Vermont," replied Forester. "These horses live upon grass, eating it as it grows in the pastures and on the mountains, in the summer, and being fed upon hay in the barn in the winter. These horses, when they are four or five years old, are sent away to market to be sold. They can be transported very easily. A man will ride one, and lead four or five by his side. They will be worth perhaps seventy-five dollars apiece; so that one man will easily take along with him, three or four hundred dollars' worth of the produce of the farm, in the shape of horses; whereas the hay which had been consumed on the farm to make these horses, it would have taken forty yoke of oxen to move."

      "Forty yoke!" repeated Marco.

      "I don't mean to be exact," said Forester. "I mean it would take a great many. So that, by feeding his hay out to horses, the farmer gets his produce into a better state to be transported to market. The Vermont horses go all over the land. Thus you see that the farmers in the grass country have to turn the vegetable products which they raise, into animal products, before they can get them to market; and as the rearing of animals is a work which requires a great deal of attention, care, patience, and skill, the cultivators must be men of a higher class than those which are employed in raising cotton, or even than those who raise grain. The animals must be watched and guarded while they are young. There are a great many different diseases, and accidents, and injuries which they are exposed to, and it requires constant watchfulness, and considerable, intelligence, to guard against them. This makes a great difference in the character which is required in the laborers, in the different cases. A cotton plantation in the south can be cultivated by slaves. A grain farm in the middle states can be worked by hired laborers; but a northern grass farm, with all its oxen, cows, sheep, poultry, and horses, can only be successfully managed by the work of the owner."

      "Is that the reason why they have slaves at the south?" asked Marco.

      "It is a reason why slaves can be profitable at the south. In cultivating cotton or sugar, a vast proportion of all the work done in the year is the same. Almost the whole consists of a few simple processes, such as planting, hoeing, picking cotton, &c., and this is to be performed on smooth, even land, where set tasks can be easily assigned. But the work on a grass farm is endlessly varied. It would not be possible to divide it into set tasks. And then it is of such a nature, that it could not possibly be performed successfully by the mere labor of the hands. The mind