LITMIR.BIZ

      One of the farmer's young men carried the trunks into a little bed-room, which opened from the great room; and then the farmer sat down and began to enter into conversation with Forester and Marco about their accident. Forester told him also about the sailor, who had tumbled off the coach a mile or two back, and been left behind. Forester said that he should like to know whether he was hurt much. Then the farmer said that he would let him take a horse and wagon the next morning and ride back and inquire. This plan was therefore agreed upon. Marco and Forester ate a good supper with the farmer's family, and then spent the evening in talking, and telling stories about horses, and sagacious dogs, and about catching wild animals in the woods with traps. About nine o'clock the family all assembled for evening prayers. After prayers Marco and Forester went to bed in their little bed-room, where they slept soundly till morning.

      In the morning they were both awakened by the crowing of the cocks, at an early hour. They also heard movements in the house and in the yard before sunrise; so they arose and dressed themselves, and after attending to their morning devotions together in their room, a duty which Forester never omitted, they went out. Marco was very much interested in the morning occupations of the farm. There was the milking of the cows, and the feeding of the various animals, and the pitching off a load of corn, which had been got in the evening before and allowed to stand on the cart, on the barn-floor, over night. The cows were then to be driven to pasture, and the boy who went with them, took a bridle to catch a horse for Forester and Marco to have for their ride. Forester and Marco went with him. It was only a short walk to the pasture bars, but they had to ramble about a little while, before they found the horses. At last they found them feeding together at the edge of a grove of trees. There were two or three horses, and several long-tailed colts. The boy caught one of the horses, which he called Nero. Nero was a white horse. Marco mounted him and rode down, with the other horses and the colts following him. They put the horse in the stable until after breakfast, and then harnessed him into the wagon. When all was ready, the farmer told them to bring the sailor along with them to his house, if they found that he was hurt so that he could not travel.

      When they were seated in the wagon, and had fairly commenced their ride, Marco asked Forester, what he meant last evening by a grass farm. "You told me," said he, "that you wanted me to see a great grass farm."

      "Yes," replied Forester. "The farms in this part of the United States may be called grass farms. This is the grass country."

      "Isn't it all grass country?" asked Marco. "Grass grows everywhere."

      "Grass is not cultivated everywhere so much as it is among the mountains, in the northern states," replied Forester. "The great articles of cultivation in the United States are grass, grain, and cotton. The grass is cultivated in the northern states, the grain in the middle states, and the cotton in the southern states. The grass is food for beasts, the grain is food for man, and the cotton is for clothing. These different kinds of cultivation are not indeed exclusive in the different districts. Some grass is raised in the middle and southern states, and some grain is raised in the northern states; but, in general, the great agricultural production of the northern states is grass, and these farms among the mountains in Vermont are grass farms.

      "There is one striking difference," continued Forester, "between the grass farms of the north, and the grain farms of the middle states, or the cotton plantations of the south. The grass cultivation brings with it a vast variety of occupations and processes on the farm, making the farm a little world by itself; whereas the grain and the cotton cultivation are far more simple, and require much less judgment and skill. This is rather remarkable; for one would think that raising food for beasts would require less skill than raising food or clothes for man."

      "I should have thought so," said Marco.

      "The reason for the difference is," replied Forester, "that in raising food for animals, it is necessary to keep the animals to eat it, on the spot, for it will not bear transportation."

      "Why not?" said Marco.

      "Because it is so cheap," replied Forester.

      "I don't think that is any reason," replied Marco.

      "A load of grass"–said Forester.

      "A load of grass!" repeated Marco, laughing.

      "Yes, dried grass, that is, hay. Hay, you know, is grass dried to preserve it."

      "Very well," said Marco; "go on."

      "A load of grass, then, is so cheap, that the cost of hauling it fifty miles would be more than it is worth. But cotton is worth a great deal more, in proportion to its bulk. It can therefore be transported to distant places to be sold and manufactured. Thus the enormous quantity of cotton which grows every summer in the southern states, is packed in bags, very tight, and is hauled to the rivers and creeks, and there it is put into steamboats and sent to the great seaports, and at the seaports it is put into ships, which carry it to England or to the northern states, to be manufactured; and it is so valuable, that it will bring a price sufficient to pay all the persons that have been employed in raising it, or in transporting it. But the grass that grows

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