--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Joseph M. Tanner collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 21 number: 4 published: 1918-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Joseph M. Tanner, “Thoughts of a Farmer: XII—Old Kit,” *Improvement Era* 21, no. 4 (February 1918): 319–320." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2104unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2104unse start_page: 319 end_page: 320 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2104unse publication_year: 1918 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Thoughts of a Farmer: XII—Old Kit XII— Old Kit After ten years of experience on the farm a fairly accurate inventory may be made of the animal life with which one has to do. Horses have their individualities that give relative values as to service and breeding. Work values, and breeding values may differ, but they often coincide when a general summing of their usefulness is considered. Old Kit, now well along in years, furnishes a good example of those qualities which make for success after years of service and, when grouped into a general estimate, furnish an average valuation of life. She is slow, but steady. It has always been a task to find others that would make a matched team, especially when six horses are required for some farm implement. Nobody wants to drive her, and when the boys work her off onto some one else the joke is enjoyed as a feat of mental strategy. She never hurries up. She never gets excited, and she has a slow gait that requires special diligence to accelerate. She goes in her own way which usually provokes some passionate expletives. Her driver is late hitching her up and getting her to the plow. She delays the regulation rounds in the fields, and goes to the water at noon in such a fashion as to belate her driver who is hungry and wants his dinner. Often she is the victim of unjust abuse and is a standing joke on the farm. During the ten years she has never once been lame nor sick ; has never run away, and has been a safety brake when other horses, hitched with her, have undertaken such a damaging prac- tice. She pulls a fair-sized load and never balks. During that time she has witnessed other swifter horses come and go. Death- bed scenes of her mates have neither shocked nor injured her nervous system. Every spring Old Kit has presented her owner with a handsome colt which she has carefully reared to the weaning time. Swifter horses have been prone to balk when the load be- came heavy. They have indulged in runaways which also caused considerable damage. They have been subject to colic. Their high life has carried them into barbed wire fences with most damaging results. They have kicked one another and 320 IMPROVEMENT ERA sometimes their drivers. Their enforced lay-offs have sometimes covered months. Old Kit has never kicked either a horse or driver. "Have I got to drive Old Kit? Why don't you sell her?" Such are the questions the boys put as they stand in fear of what they may be asked to do when the teams are matched for work. Boys rarely know the life long value of things. Sometimes men do not recognize them. As I look over the list of about fifty mares, I am led to believe that not a single one exceeded in value her service to the farm either for work or breeding, and only a few of them have equaled her. They, too, have been slow but careful. It is the old story of "winning out in the long run." Quick-won successes are the mania of the age. The exces- sive speeding-up processes of life are full of runaways, breakages colic, and early deaths. They all belong to the curses of im- patience and passion. They are full of uncertainties, and grave misgivings. They have few real excellencies. They give rise to distorted visions of life, and lack the value of long-sustained efforts. Men run away with themselves. Communities leap be- yond their abilities to recover themselves; and nations jump headlong into dangers that cripple them. Old Kit was never a favorite, and she was always reliably useful. She has earned a well-deserved rest in old age. Through the years of her service she never wandered away, and was always ready for her harness when duty called. Old Kit has served another useful purpose on the farm. She was a reliable mate with which to break young colts. They soon learned to take the steady gait she set for them and felt the safety of her presence. In an age of wild distortions of vision and plunging, we should not view with impatience those who move slowly with the burdens of life. What we really need is more safety and less speed, more sustained effort and fewer spasmodic dashes. Wasted energy through needless bounds, destroy the powers of recovery. Too many are actuated by their wild emotions over the probabilities of achievement rather than by conservative cal- culations about results. The waste of the age is the haste which men are putting into life. Wild frolics with chance are too often the disasters of vouth.