AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



much accelerated and increased. Upon newly laid doion lands however, the eifect is not 

 so great; it is especially on old pastures, (from which the extraction of phosphates in the 

 milk has been going on for ages sometimes, uninterruptedly,) that the improvement is 

 most magical. The productive value of such lands is very frequently known to have been 

 doubled by the first dressing of bones. 



" Both boiled and raw bones are used, and though there is a general belief that the latter 

 are more valuable, I do not hear of any experience that has shown it; on the contrary, 

 I am told of one field which was dressed on different sides equally with each sort, and 

 now, several years after, no difference has been observed in their effect. A comparison 

 must, of course, be made by measure, as boiled bones are generally bought wet, and over- 

 weigh equal bulks of raw about 25 per cent. Dry bone-dust weighs from 45 to 50 lbs. to 

 a bushel." 



We believe every American goes abroad with the idea, that nowhere are the people at 

 large so intelligent and well educated as his countrymen at home; and, take the popula- 

 tion of the country at large, he is right. But at the same time, no educated and unpre- 

 judiced American can fail to be struck with the superior manners of the middle classes in 

 Europe, to the corresponding class here, and the greater value placed upon the mere manner 

 of doing a thing. This is, to be sure, the result of an old civilization in part — but also in 

 part to the little pains taken among oiir people, generally, to cultivate the finer feelings. Only 

 the intellect is cared for in the schools — and home education is almost unrecognized by the 

 people at large. Mr. Olmsted's remarks on the conversation of the women of the middle 

 classes that he met, and which we fully corroborate, are as follows: 



" There are peculiarities in the speech of these women that would distinguish them any- 

 where from native Americans. Perhaps the novelty of them is pleasing, but it has seem- 

 ed to us that the speech of most of the people above the lowest class of laborers that we 

 have met, is more agreeable and better than we often hear at home. Perhaps the climate 

 may have effect in making the people more habitually animated — the utterance more dis- 

 tinct and varied. Sentences are more generally finished with a rising inflection, syllables 

 are more forcibly accented, and quite often, as with our landlady, there is a rich musical 

 tone in the conversational voice, to which we are not yet so much accustomed, but that it 

 compels us to listen defferentially. I wonder that beauty of speech is not more thought 

 of as an accomplishment. It is surely capable of great cultivation, and should not be for- 

 gotten in education. 



" Except in the lower class, the choice of words seems often elegant, and we hear very 

 few idiomatic phrases or provincialisms. Where we do notice them, in the class I am now 

 speaking of, it would not seem an affectation of singular language in an educated person 

 with us, but rather a fortunate command of vigorous Saxon words. We have never any 

 difficulty in understanding them, while we do sometimes have to reconstruct our senten- 

 ces, and find substitutes for some of our words, before we are plainly understood. The 

 "II." difficulty is an exception to all this, with nearly all the people, except the most po- 

 lished, that we have met." 



The cleanliness and neatness of English people, is another point of civilization which 

 strikes an American as essentially diiferent from what he sees in the same persons, or even 

 those of far greater means, at home. 



Nothing is so disgusting in this country, or so great a reproach to the social refinement 

 of the people, as the want of cleanliness in servants of our hotels and steamboats. Fine 

 s and carpets, silver forks, and immense salons — but servants in attendance 



Ihout a single clean article of clothing that would be tolerated in a stable in 



