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 a