HENRY WARD BEECHER AS A FARMER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1247, 2 October 1884, Page 3

HENRY WARD BEECHER AS A FARMER.

Mark Twain “ pokes fun ” at Henry Ward Beecher, in this way : —“ Mr Beecher is very regular in his habits. He always goes to bed promptly between nine and three o’clock, and never upon any account allows himself to vary from this rule. He is just as particular about getting up, which he does the nexc day, generally. He considers that to this discipline, and to this alone, he is indebted for the rugged health he has enjoyed ever since he adopted it, When he bought his farm he found one egg in every hen’s nest on the place. Ho said that here was just the reason so many farmers failed—they scattered their forces too much—concentration was the idea. So be gathered those eggs together, and put them all under one experienced old hen. That hen roosted over that contract night and day for eleven weeks, under the anxious personal supervision of Mr Beecher himself, but she could not * phase ' those eggs. Why? Because they were those infamous porcelain things, which are used by ingenious and fraudulent farmers as nest eggs. But perhaps Mr Beecher’s most disastrous experience was the time he tried to raise an immense crop of dried apples. He planted l,500do). worth, but never a one, of them sprouted. Ho never understood what was the matter with those apples.”