cirarmt'rs Jlloutlrb f isitot. 



CONDUCTED BY ISAAC HILL. 



'Those who labor ipf the earth are the chosen people of God, whose imEAsTs he has made hi 



» PECULIAR DErOaiTE FOR »UBSTaNTIAL AND OENUINE » 1 RTUE."— J^n-»On. 



VOL. 9. NO. 7. 



CONCORD, N. H., JULY 31, 1847. 



WHOLE NO. 103. 



T*IE FARMER'S MOIXTHL.Y VISITOR, 



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JAOKTHIY V gIrf6R:i 



From Downing's JN. Y. Horticulturist. 

 Influence of Horticniture. 



The miilti|)lication of Hoiiicultural Societies 

 is taking place so nipidly of late, in various parts 

 of the country, as to leatl one to reflect someivhat 

 on their influence, and that of ilio art they foster, 

 upon the ciiaracler of our people. 



Mtjst persons, no doubt, look upon tliemas per- 

 forniino; a work of some usefulness and elegance, 

 by proniuting the culture of fruits and flowers, 

 anil iiitroilucinjr to all parts of the country ihi! 

 finer species of the vegetable productions. ]n 

 other words, they are thought to add very consid- 

 erably to the amount of physical gratification 

 which every American citizen endeavors, and has 

 a right to endeavor, to assemble around him. 



Granting all the Ibregoing, we are inclined to 

 claim also, for horticultural pursuits, a political 

 and moral influence vastly more significant and 

 important than the- mere gratification of the sen- 

 ses. We think, then, in a few words, that liorti- 

 culture and its kindred arts, tend strongly to fix 

 the habits, and elevate the character of our whole 

 rural population. 



One does not need to be much of a pliilosopher 

 to remark that one of the inost strikingof our na- 

 tional traits, is the spirit op unrest. It is the 

 grand energetic element which leads us to clear 

 vast forests, and settle new States, with a rapidity 

 unparalleled in the world's history ; the spirit, 

 possessed with which, our yet comparatively 

 scanty people do not find elbow-room enough in 

 a territory ill ready iti their possession, and'^vast 

 enough to hold the greatest of ancient empires ; 

 which drives the emigrant's wagon across vast 

 sandy deserts to California, and over Rocky moun- 

 tains to Oregon and the Pacific ; which builds nj) 

 a great State like Ohio in 30 years, so populous, 

 civilized and productive, that a bare recital of its 

 growth sounds like a genuine miracle to Euro- 

 |iean ears; and which overruns and takes posses- 

 sion of a whole empire, like that of Mexico, while 

 the cabinets of old monarchies are debating whe- 

 ther or not it is necessary to inler.'ere and restore 

 the balance of power in the new world as in the 

 old. 



This is the grand and exciting side of the pic- 

 ttne. Turn it iii another light, and study it, and 

 the efl^ect is by no means so agreeable to the re- 

 flective mind. The spirit of unrest, followed into 

 the bosom of society, makes of man a feverish 

 being, in whose Tantalus' cup repose is the unat- 

 tainable drop. Unable to take root any where, 

 he leads, socially and physically, the uncertain 



life of a tree transplanted from place to place, and 

 shitted to a diflfenuit soil every season. 



It has been shrewdly said that what qualities 

 we do not possess, are always in our mouths.— 

 Our countrymen, it seems to us, are foniler of no 

 one Anglo-Saxon word than the term stttle* It 

 was the great object of our forefalheis to find a 

 proper spot to settle. Every year, laige numbers 

 of our population from the older States, go west 

 to settle; while those already west,pK// tip, with 

 a kind of desperate joy, their yet new-set stakes, 

 and go farther west to settle again. So truly na- 

 tional is the word, that all the business of the 

 country, from Slate debts to the products of a 

 " truck farm," are not satisfactorily adjusted till 

 they are " settled ;" and no sooner is a passenger 

 fairly on board one of our river steamers, thanjie 

 is politely and emphatically invited by a sable 

 representative of its executive power, to " call at 

 the captain's office and settle .'" 



Yet, as a people, we are never settled. It is 

 one of the first points that strikes a citizen of ihc 

 old world, where something of the dignity of re- 

 poce, as well as the value of action, enters into 

 their ideal of life. DeTocqueville says, in speak- 

 ing of our national trait : 



"At first sight, there is sotneihing surprising 

 in this strange unrest of so many happy men, 

 restless in the midst of abundance. The specta- 

 cle itself is, however, as old as the world. The 

 novelty is to see a whole people fiirnish an exem- 

 plification of it. 



" In the United States a man builds a house to 

 spend his latter years in, and sells it before the 

 roof is on ; he brings a field into tillage, and 

 leaves other men to gather the crops ; he embra- 

 ces a profession, and gives it up ; he settles in a 

 place, which he soon after leaves, in order to car- 

 ry bis changeable longings elsewhere. If his 

 private afTairs leave him any leisure, he instantly 

 plunges into the vortex of politics; and if at the 

 end of a year of unremitting labor, he finds he 

 has a few days' vacation, his eager curiosity whirls 

 him over the vast extent of the United Stat(?s,and 

 he will travel fifteen hundred miles in a few flays, 

 to shake off his happiness." 



Much as we admire the energy of our people, 

 we value no less the love of order, the obedience 

 to law, the security and repose of society, the 

 love of home, and the partiality to localities en- 

 deared l)y birth or association, of which it is in 

 some degree the antagonist. And we are there- 

 fore deeply convinced that whatever tends, with- 

 out checking due energy of character, but to de- 

 velope along with it certain virtues that will keep 

 it within due bounds, may be looked upon as a 

 boon to the nation. 



Now thediflierence between the son oflshmael, 

 who lives in tents, and that man who has the 

 strongest attachment to the home of his fathers, 

 is, in the beginning, one mainly of outward cir- 

 cumstances. He whose sole property is a tent 

 and a camel, whose ties to one spot are no strong- 

 er than the cords which confine his habitation to 

 the sandy floor of the desert, who can break up 

 his encampment at an hour's notice, and choose 

 a new and equally agreeable site, fifty miles dis- 

 tant, the next day — such a peisoii is very little 

 likely to become much more strongly attached to 

 any one spot of earth than another. 



The condition of a western emigrant is not 

 greatly dissimilar. That long covered wagon, 

 which is the Noah's ark of his preservation, is 

 also the concrete essence of house and home to 

 him. He emigrates, he " squats," he "locales," 

 but before he can be fairly said to have a fixed 

 home, the spirit of unrest besets him ; he sells 

 his "diggius" to some less adventurous pioneer, 

 and tackling the wagon of the wilderness, mi- 

 grates once more. • 



*AngIo-Saxon satli-Uaii, from the verb aei/aa, to set. to 

 cease Irom motion, to tii a dwelling place, to repose, etc. 



It must not be supposed, large as is the infu- 

 sion of restlessnes.s into our people, that there 

 are not also large exceptions to the general rule. 

 Else there would never be growing villages and 

 piospcrous towns. Nay, it cannot be overlooked 

 by a careful observer, that the tendency " to set- 

 tle" is slowly but gradually on the increase, and 

 that there is, in all the older portions of the coun- 

 try, growing evidence that the Anglo-Saxon love 

 of home is gradually developing itself out of the 

 Anglo-American love of change. 



It is not difficult to see how strongly horticul- 

 ture contributes to the development of local at- 

 tachments. In it lies the most powerful philtre 

 that civilized man has yet found to charm him to 

 one spot of earth. It transforms what is only u 

 tame meadow and a bleak aspect, into an Eden 

 of interest and delights. It makes all the differ- 

 ence between " Araby the blest," and a pine bar- 

 ren. It gives a bit of soil, too insignificant to find 

 a place in the geography of the earth's surface, 

 such an importance in the eyes of its possessor, 

 that he finds it more attractive than countless 

 acres of unknown and unexplored "territory." 

 In other words, it contains the mind anj soul of 

 the man, materialized in many of the fairest and 

 richest forms of nature, so that he looks upon it 

 as tearing himself up, root and branch, to ask 

 him to move a mile to the right or the left. Do 

 we need to say more, to prove that it is the pan- 

 acea that really " settles" mankind ? 



It is not therefore, without much pleasurable 

 emotion, that we have had notice lately of the 

 formation of five new horticultural societies, the 

 last at St. Louis, and most of them west of the 

 Alleghanies. Whoever lives to see the end of the 

 next cycle of our race, will see the great valleys 

 of the west, the garden of the world, and we 

 watch with interest the first development, in the 

 midst of the busy fermentation of its active mass- 

 es, of that beautiful and quiet spirit, of the joint 

 culture of the earth and the heart, that is destin- 

 ed to give a tone to the future character of its un- 

 told millions. 



The increa.sed love of home and the garden, 

 in the older States, is a matter of every day re- 

 mark ; and it is not a little curious, that just in 

 proportion to the intelligence and sefWerf charac- 

 ter of its population, is the amount of interest 

 manifested in horticulture. Thus, the three most 

 settled of the original States, we suppose to be 

 Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania ; and 

 in these States horticulture is more eagerly pur- 

 sued than in any others. The first-named State 

 has now seven horticultural societies ; the second, 

 seven ; the third, three. Following out the com- 

 parison in the cities, we should say that Boston 

 liad the most settled population, Philadelphia the 

 next, and New York the least so of any city in 

 the Union ; and it is well known that the horti- 

 cultural society of Boston is at this moment the 

 most energetic one in the country, and that it is 

 stimulated by the interest excited by societies in 

 all its neighboring towns. The Philadelphia so- 

 ciety is exceedingly prosperous; while in New 

 York, we regret to say, that the numerous eflxjrts 

 that have been made to establish a society of this 

 kind have not, up to this lime, resulted in any 

 success wbatevei'. Its mighty tide of people isas 

 yet too much possessed with the spirit of business 

 and of unrest. 



Curing Hams. — The editor of the Farmers' 

 Cabinet says that his mode — the best he has fall- 

 en upon in a practice of 30 years — is to wrap the 

 hams completely in newspapers, and then enclose 

 each in a muslin bag, drawing the mouth of the 

 bag closely about the string which is attached to 

 the ham and by which it is suspended. A cor- 

 respondent of the Ohio Cultivator never finds 

 any can; necessary in excluding flies, when a tea- 

 spoonful of red pepper has been rubbed upon the 

 flcshyVait of each ham before salting.— C«?<. 



