THE FARMER AT HOME. 



401 



dinner, meat, gristle, all sorts of vegetables and fragments of bread, 

 which, on being well cooked together, will make a palatable and 

 nourishing breakfast. No farmer should any more be without a good 

 cutting machine for hay, straw, and corn staTks, than he would be 

 without a plough or wagon. They may be had of any size ; and 

 there is a variety of patterns ; all probably answering a tolerable pur- 

 pose, although some are much better than others. That of Ruggles, 

 Nourse, Mason & Co., is the best for ordinary use known to us. 

 Besides other testimonials in its favor, in 1848, the State Agricultural 

 Society of New York, and the American Institute, at their respective 

 Fairs, awarded to it their first premiums. 



STRAW-CUTTER. 



SUBSISTENCE. The food of all organized beings; in vegeta- 

 bles, the air, water, and unctuous matter of the soil ; in animals the 

 substance of matter prepared by vegetation ; and in carnivorous crea- 

 tures the substance further prepared by animalization. The staff of 

 human life is the starch, gluten, or albumen, of vegetables, as corn, 

 rice, potatoes. These must always be at a price proportioned to the 

 abundance of money and circulation, and to the remuneration for 

 labor, or the population must perish ; and to decree that corn should 

 be higher priced when money is scarce, and labor ill paid, is to pass 

 sentence of death on the population. Of all trade, therefore, that in 

 the necessaries of life should be allowed to find its level in exact 

 accordance with the means of consumers. 



SUBSOIL PLOUGH. The subsoil plough takes its name from 

 the office it is to perform ; to break up and loosen the subsoil that 

 is, the soil lying under the surface soil. Subsoil is merely the under 

 soil. The utility of breaking up and loosening the subsoil is becoming 

 one of the prominent features in modern agriculture. Although in 



