90 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



After having tried it several years, I think that 

 the drier the meadows are, the more sure will, be 

 the crop of cranberries. A loam above mine where 

 the owner got formerly only five bushels, now 

 yields over a hundred. I think gravel, sand, loam 

 or muck, spread on meadows, will do the vines 

 great service. Where old vines need renewing, it 

 can be done by top dressing ; it covers up the old 

 dead vines, and new shoots come up and bear plen- 

 tifully. 



If vines are wanted, they can be had at a mod- 

 erate price, delivered in Boston or elsewhere, eith- 

 er from sandy land or bog meadows. 



Yours most truly, l. a. s. 



Spring Grove, Jan. 10, 1852 



Remarks. — Dr. Shurtleff has given considera- 

 ble attention to the subject upon which he writes 

 above, and his opinions upon it are valuable to 

 those who wish to make experiments in the culti- 

 vation of cranberries on upland. It will be ob- 

 served that he controverts the opinion that to raise 

 the cranberry successfully, the meadow must be 

 flowed. The truth of this can only be established 

 by a comparison of results in many different loca- 

 tions ; and to this end we invite communications 

 from our friends on this subject. 



A UNIVERSITY 



FOR THE PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION OF FARMERS AND 

 MECHANICS. 



Why, then, attempt to extinguish forever the 

 light of this invaluable science 1 It has wronged 

 no human being ; it asks only an equal chance 

 with medical science as supported at the public 

 expense, in the cities of New York, Albany, and 

 Buffalo. We have never objected to the profes- 

 sional education of doctors, lawyers, and military 

 officers, at institutions adapted specially to the pur- 

 pose. So far from that we claim that this practice 

 is founded in sound public policy, and that our 

 industrial professions equally deserve the aid of 

 science and special institutions, where the young 

 farmer can dissect all the animals which he is ex- 

 pected to breed and rear, and thereby learn the 

 form and function of every organ, whether it di- 

 gests food, elaborates milk, fat, flesh, bone or wool. 

 The improvement of domestic animals is a great 

 desideratum, and involves much anatomical and 

 physiological research. So long as hundreds of 

 young stock-growers and dairy-men earnestly seek 

 to extend their professional knowledge in this di- 

 rection, to benefit themselves and the community 

 at large, it is both mean and disgraceful in the 

 Legislature to deny them the benefit of one agri- 

 cultural school in a State that contains a half mil- 

 lion of farmers. 



Young friends, send in your petitions early, and 

 write often to your representatives on this sub- 



ect. Let them know that you are in earnest in 



he matter. 



Millard Fillmore once carded wool and fulled 

 cloth as an honest apprentice should. Suppose he 

 had stuck to his trade to this time 1 What chance 

 would he then have had of being now President of 

 the United States? Wo tell you frankly, that any 

 system of education which compels an ambitious 

 youth to leave the shop of the mechanic and the 



fields of the farmer to graduate in a lawyer's office, 

 before he can rise under our republican form of 

 government, is radically defective. Professional 

 men now enjoy an amount of intellectual training 

 and discipline which are invaluable to them, but 

 denied to practical farmers and mechanics. If our 

 reasoning faculties be not fully developed, it is the 

 decree of a good Providence that we shall be for- 

 ever looking up to men who are looking down upon 

 us. — Gen. Farmer. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 SUCCESSFUL INDUSTRY. 



Sir : — I send you a few extracts from a letter 

 addressed to me recently from one of our New 

 Hampshire practical farmers, and who but a few 

 years since was a laborer for me upon the banks 

 of the Connecticut in the character of a "hired 

 man. ' ' He is now the owner and worker of a farm 

 of his own. Yours, &c. n. h. s. 



Washington City, January, 1852. 



Lime, Dec. 15, 1851. 



Dear Sir : * * * * 



I have hired a great variety of laborers, and some 

 that I could recommend as very good, but never 

 more than one or two who could be trusted as you 

 trusted me. 



Our laboring people lack in many instances in- 

 telligence, and an ignorant laborer can never be as 

 useful to his employer as the better informed. 



Others again are destitute of an honest purpose 

 and cannot be trusted. Some are wanting in en- 

 ergy, some in physical powers, and many in a cer- 

 tain tact or slight of hand that men in all occupa- 

 tions must obtain in order to perform the most 

 labor at the least expense. * 



Most of our farmers lack method. They are not 

 taught it either by principle or example. "There 

 is no business pursued in such a blind, belter 

 skelter fashion as farming." Ask a farmer what 

 it costs him to fatten his hogs, to keep his sheep, 

 or cattle, or raise his crops ; and not one in a 

 thousand can tell : — with regard to many of them 

 I could not tell myself. 



And then the best mode of cultivating the earth 

 — of plowing and manuring and the rotation of 

 crops, there is no settled method, but every man 

 does that which is right in his own eyes, as the 

 Jews did when "there was no King in Israel." 

 Some hit it right, but all fail occasionally. Let a 

 man undertake to perform any other business in 

 such a guess-work manner and ten chances to one 

 he would fail — and the farmers woidd most of them 

 fail, if farming were not the safest business per- 

 formed. * * * 



You wish me to write you at what price you 

 could obtain leached ashes. I am not able to say. 

 We have no manufacturers of Potash in this town, 

 and I think there are none in the adjoining town. 

 They have all stopped for two reasons. Our far- 

 mers by repairing their houses and using stoves in- 

 stead of the old fashioned fire-places, consume less 

 wood, and many of them have found out ashes 

 come from the soil and that it is good economy to 

 return them again. But I have no doubt you ran 

 get them in the vicinity of the rail-road not far 

 to the north, for as a townsman sometimes says, 

 "the fools are not all dead yet." 



Yours truly, s. p. j. 



