180 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



year since, without ever having been manured or top-dressed, except last year 

 that a ton of plaster had been divided between it and another lot, wliich had so 

 wadded to the bulk of the crop, that this year he will rut "between two and three 

 .tons to the acre." In this lot he was at work, Avith his two sons, of seventeen 

 a.nd nineteen, and two men hired for this particular occasion. 



The timothy had been left longer in the field than was designed or proper, 

 "waiting for weather that he might be sure, as he said, " to have it after making 

 'it," meaning that no accident should happen between the mowing and the 

 'housing. The process was simply this : as the men went over, making exceed- 

 ingly close and smooth and beautiful work of it, at the rate of a little more 

 than an acre a day each, his younger son scattered after them with a wooden 

 fork, made on a rainy day, and costing next to nothing. Be that noted, as " straws 

 show which way the wind blows." In the afternoon the grass v/as to be thrown 

 into cocks, and the next fair day to be spread to the wind, and thence taken to 

 the barn, or rather, in tliis case, to be stacked ; for his barn, 36 by 60, 19 feet 

 pitch, was tilled to overflowing. 



To me it was a highly interesting operation to see these young men, without 

 ^even stopping to look at us, moving on with their work with so much cheerful- 

 ness, alertness and sleight-of-hand, not stopping, as skulkers are so apt to do, 

 every five minutes, to consume five minutes more in whetting their scythes, or 

 wetting their whistles. 



Seeing that there were two gentlemen, strangers, at his door, 3Ir. C. came at 

 •once to the house, and the strangers introduced each other, when at once, in a 

 way equally removed from boorish awkwardness and unmanly servility, but 

 rather with a natural ease, and even gracefulness of manner, he invited them to 

 saiight, to let their horses be fed, or at least to be put away, and to " walk in and 

 refresh themselves." 



This man, for he was " every inch a man," who came in his shirt sleeves, from 

 iiis work in the field, stood about six feet high in his stockings, and weighed 

 about 220 or 30, with a head on his shoulders that would not have disfigured a 

 bust of Cincinnatus himself. 



But, sir, it may be well that I should give you the whole dramatis person<T. 

 "It leaked out that one was the veteran Editor of The Farmers' Library, who 

 ifounded the old American Farmer, in 1819, and the other an opulent Southern 

 planter, Col. F. W. P., who had a few years since voluntarily retired from Con- 

 ■gress, and more recently declined the offer of the first foreign mission abroad, 

 wisely preferring the pursuits and the quiet of the country, with its wholesome 

 •exercises and intellectual enjoyments — the true otin/7i cum dli^tiitate, most be- 

 ..-■coming and desirable to an independent American agriculturist. 



Well, Mr. Editor, scarcely were they seated in the house, before they entered 



•iipon all the operations of the field — the stores of the barn — the secrets of the 



dairy, and even the contents of the stercorary. You would have been amused to 



witness tlie quiet way in which the cosmopolite Editor began to catechize our 



aaortheni President of an Agricultural Society, the southern planter all the while 



planting a home-thrust here and there, to make the catechism tlie more thorough 



:and complete; until the way they wormed his management out of Col. C. was 



. a caution ! Of the two interrogators, you could not well say which was in the 



'lead. Both followed up the chase with the eagerness of dogs " running to kill," 



"ivhile he, like a wary old boar of the black forest, or a Numidian lion, kept his 



( pursuers at bay, allowing no vantage to be taken of him. If their questions were 



VTapJd and searching, his answers were prompt and full. He gave the gentlemen, 



"With all civility, a " Roland for their Oliver," I tell you ! To make a long story 



short, Mr. Editor, (not very short, the reader Avill say, after all.) the sum of their 



inquiry into his agricultural condition and management amounted to liiis : 



His farm, near Lake Saratoga, consists of 100 acres, of wiiich 20 arc in wood. 

 His force is made up of iiimself, his wife, his daughter of 16, and his two sons 

 of 17 and 19 years of age. 



With these resources he lives abundantly, increases his crops, improves his 

 ^estate, and is pushing the education of liis children, in winter, rather beyond the 

 ' common standard. He indulges in a wagon and pan- of horses, that work through 

 ahe week, and take his family to meeting on the Sabbath, and at the end of the 

 year nets from two to three hundred dollars to be added to his capital. 



J3ut, to go a little more into detail. His slock of domestic animals, well kept 



(372)' 



