NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



15 



a path-way of progress in knowledge and happiness, 

 having nothing short of everlasting for a limit. 



It is clear to niy mind that an agricultural paper 

 Tails of discharging its whole duty to the farmer, if 

 it does not, with line upon line, impress him with 

 the importance, the necessity, of education. It 

 should remind him that in the most hurrying sea 

 sons of the year, while his hands are busily engaged 

 in the labors of the farm, his mind may find abun- 

 dant materials for observation and thought, and 

 thus for improvement. It should speak to him of 

 the many hours, or half-hours, at all seasons of the 

 year, which he may devote to reading, of the long 

 winter evenings, of those cold inclement wintry 

 days, those days 



" When Boreas, blustering, piles the snow-drift chill," 

 all of which, if improved by reading, will do won- 

 ders for him. The editor should always be mind- 

 ful of him in this regard, and by friendly counsels, 

 and by judiciously selected articles, gathered in 

 from all sources, may jog his mind as to the sub- 

 jects worthy his investigations, — thus contributing 

 to his pleasure and improvement. 



5. The New England Farmer should occasionally 

 contain articles, illustrated with engravings, calcu- 

 lated to create in the public mind a chaste rural 

 taste. The neat modest cottage with handsome 

 grounds adorned with flowers, shrubs and trees, has 

 a most potent influence for good upon the mind. 

 Our farmers, and the dwellers in country towns 

 generally, would undoubtedly find both pleasure 

 and interest promoted by a more rural style in 

 building and in the arrangement of grounds, than 

 commonly prevails. Many farmers have ample 

 means to adorn their estates, and the number of 

 those who are desirous of doing so is constantly 

 increasing. Even those who are not wholly out of 

 debt, but who by enlightened well-directed industry 

 are enriching their lands and increasing their in- 

 come, may at the same time, in a hundred little 

 inexpensive ways, embellish home, thereby increas- 

 ing its money value much beyond the cost of such 

 adornments, making it an attractive place, which 

 will most likely make it a happy place. What 

 more fitting influence than an attractive rural home, 

 intelligent, industrious thrift there reigning, to make 

 its owner virtuous, a lover and firm defender of 

 country, a man worthy of citizenship under free in- 

 stitutions, and to bring around his family all that 

 simplicity, innocence and happiness which this 

 world can give. Well has the poet pictured such 

 a condition of things : 



"Now sober industry, illustrious power ! 

 Hath raised the peaceful cottage, calm abode 

 Of innocence and joy: now, sweating, guides 

 The shining plowshare; tames the stubborn soil, 

 Leads the long drain along the unfertile marsh; 

 Bids the bleak hill with vernal verdure bloom, 

 The haunt of flocks; and clothes the barren heath 

 With waving harvests and the golden grain. 

 Fair from his hand behold the village rise, 

 In rural pride, 'mong intermingled trees ! 

 Above whose aged tops the joy ful swains, 

 At even-tide descending from the hill, 

 With eye enamoured, mark the many wreaths 

 Of pillared smoke, high curling to the clouds. 

 The streets resound with labor's various voice, 

 Who whistles at his work. Gay on the green, 

 Young blooming boys, and girls with golden hair, 

 Trip nimble-footed, wanton in their play, 

 The village hope. All in a reverend row, 

 Their grey-haired grandsires, sitting in the sun, 

 Before the gate, and leaning on the staff, 

 The well-remembered stories of their youth 

 Recount, and shake their aged locks with joy. 

 How fair a prospect rises to the eye, 

 Where beauty vies in all her vernal forms, 

 For ever pleasant, and forever new ! 



Sw.lls the exulting thought, expands the soul, 

 Drowning each ruder care ; a blooming train 

 Of bright ideas rushes on the mind, 

 Imagination rouses at the scene; 

 And backward, through the gloom of ages past, 

 Beholds Arcadia, like a rural queen, 

 Encircled with her swains and rosy nymphs, 

 The mazy dance conducting on the green. 

 Fat on the plains, and mountain's sunny side, 

 Large droves of oxen, and the fleecy flocks, 

 Feed undisturbed; and All the echoing air 

 With music grateful to the muster's ear. 

 The traveller stops, and gazes round and round 

 O'er all the scenes which animate his heart 

 With mirth and music. Even the mendicant, 

 Bowbent with age, that on the old gray stone, 

 Sole-sitting, suns him in the public way, 

 Feels his heart leap, and to himself he sings." 



BREEDING HORSES. 



The report of the committee on horses, for the 

 Chittenden County, Vt., Agricultural Society, con- 

 tained some good remarks. In addition to the hered- 

 itary transmission of qualities, it observed, "The 

 progeny will inherit the united qualities of the 

 parents. The good as well as the bad qualities 

 will descend from generation to generation. Hence 

 you will see the importance of a knowledge of the 

 parentage, not only as to the sire but also as to the 

 dam. Peculiarity of structure and constitution will 

 also be inherited. This is an important considera- 

 tion, though too much neglected, for however per- 

 fect the sire may be, every good quality may be 

 neutralized, if not overcome, by the defective struc- 

 ture of the dam. Let the essential points be good 

 in both parents ; but if there must be some mi- 

 nor defects in the one, let them be met and over- 

 come by excellencies in those particular points, 

 in the other parent. We would also advise you 

 to let your breeding mares be in the full vigor 

 of life. Do not put them to the horse too young, 

 and especially do not let your mares be incapa- 

 citated for work by reason of old age. If so, you 

 may expect that the foal will have a correspond- 

 ing weakness, and scarcely will a single organ 

 possess its natural strength. Our farmers are 

 usually too negligent in the selection of their 

 mares. They are tempted to part with their best 

 mares, and to breed from those which are infe- 

 rior." 



The committee speak of a young horse of the 

 Morgan stock, bred by Judge Bennett, as having 

 "great compactness of structure and action of 

 the best kind." 



IGNORANCE OF GREAT PHYSICAL 

 TRUTH. 



How few men really believe that they sojourn on 

 a whirling globe, and that each day and year of life 

 is measured by its revolutions, regulating the labor 

 and repose of every race of being. How few be- 

 lieve that the great luminary of the firmament, 

 whose restless activity they daily witness, is an 

 immovable star, controlling, by its solid mass, the 

 primary planets which compose our system, and 

 forming the gnomon of the great dial which meas- 

 ures the thread of life, the tenure of empires, and 

 the great cycles of the world's change. How few 

 believe that each of the millions of stars— those 

 atoms of fight winch the telescope can scarcely 

 descry — are the centre of planetary systems that 

 may equal, if not surpass our own? And how 

 very few believe that the solid pavement of the 

 globe, upon which they nightly slumber, is an elas- 

 tic crust, imprisoning fires and forces which have 



