NE.W ENGLAND FARMER. 



181 



mill or to market at will, — attends the county fair 

 in autumn with his fat oxen, lusty steers, or mam- 

 moth vegetables ; takes a premium on orchards, 

 bog meadows, or corn and cabbages, while his wife 

 bears off the palm for making the best butter, and 

 his unmarried daughter, under eighteen, receives 

 the silver goblet for the best loaf of wheaten bread. 

 He finds a day to look in upon the General Court, 

 or perchance is a constituent part of that honora- 

 ble body himself. He is the best man to conduct 

 the town business, for a referee, for a juror, or for 

 any other honorable calling. 



If this be drudgery, what shall we call the con- 

 finement of the law office and court-room, or the 

 judge's bench? what the dull routine of the mer- 

 chant's duties behind the counter, with his daily 

 liability to protested notes and bankruptcy? What 

 the daily task of the mechanic, happy if released 

 after a ten-hour's toil, or operators in the cotton 

 mill, summoned by bell and encased in codes of 

 regulations ! No — it is not the employment of the 

 fields that is drudgery — it is the man's mind that is 

 enslaved. It does not spring from the sod, buoyant 

 with life and intelligence, searching and inquiring 

 into the wonderful operations above, beneath, and 

 around him. Let him turn his thoughts to chem- 

 istry in its relations to his employment, and he 

 will soon become convinced that no man has yet 

 lived long enough to understand the strange yet 

 beautiful operations constantly carried on in his 

 trees, plants, flowers and animals. 



While cultivating his fields, he is in the school-room 

 of nature, and it is his own fault if he do not study 

 her ways and make her subserve his purposes. She 

 calls to him from her mountains and valleys and 

 streams, from the air that cools his heated brow 

 and the dust beneath his feet. She pleads elo- 

 quently for his attention through the birds of the 

 air and the beasts of the field, in the change of the 

 seasons, in showers, sunshine, frost and vapor. Is 

 there no voice in these, to him who cuts the grain 

 or fells the forest 1 Are these all a sealed book to 

 thee because thou art a tiller of the soil? If so, 

 awaken to their perpetual call, be led to a consid- 

 eration of the delights which are hourly offered to 

 thy mind, and rejoice in gratitude that thou art 

 permitted to be free upon the acres which thou 

 art gladdening by thy care. 



There must be labor and care on the farm ; and 

 there is toil, confinement and anxiety in every other 

 pursuit. "Hardly do we guess aright at things that 

 are upon earth ; and with labor do we find the 

 things that are before us." 



of seed. If you scrimp her, you cheat yourself 

 and cheat your earth, and are guilty of double 

 dishonesty. If you undertake to save five dollars 

 in seed, you will lose twenty dollars in hay and 

 pasture. Be wise, then, and sow bountifully, and 

 you shall gather bountifully, and make a good 

 bargain. — Vermont State Journal. 



Sowing Seed. — Farmers, as well as other peo- 

 ple, like to make good bargains, and we like to 

 have them, especially when they buy a year's pa- 

 per of us, and pay for it in advance. But that 

 is not the bargain we are going to write about. It 

 is the sowing of grass seed. If you would make a 

 good bargain with mother earth, give her a plenty 



For the New England Farmer. 

 POTATO ROT, 



Mr. Editor : — Much has been said and written 

 on the subject of the potato rot, and the subject 

 seems to have been exhausted long before this, but 

 like the evils of intemperance, something new al- 

 most daily occurs. I do not expect to write a very 

 learned article on the subject, as I have never written 

 much for the press, but all farmers have had some 

 experience in the cultivation of that indispensa- 

 ble article of food, the potato. Some writers have 

 attempted to point out the cause of the rot while 

 others have prescribed a cure. No one as yet, I 

 think, has ascertained the whole cause, or has 

 recommended a sure remedy. We have often seen 

 it stated that charcoal would prevent the decay, 

 but recently other writers say that charcoal is one 

 cause of the rot. This I believe is true. Last 

 season I planted potatoes on a piece of land which 

 I burnt over and cleared in the spring, and those 

 places where there was the greatest amount of 

 charcoal and ashes, the potatoes decayed the most. 



One writer recommends to keep the potato plant 

 from the warm south wind. I think he is correct 

 in his views on the subject, and while we wovdd 

 protect them from the warm south wind, I would 

 have them freely exposed to the cool breezes of 

 the north. In 1850 I had a potato patch so situa- 

 ted that a small grove almost entirely prevented 

 the north and northeast wind from -reaching it, 

 that decayed badly, while a few .rods from it, on 

 my neighbor's land, on the same kind of soil, but 

 a little higher up, the potatoes did not rot at all. 

 We find it necessary in Vermont to have our wheat 

 sowed on high land, where it will be much exposed 

 to the wind, in order to secure a good crop, and 

 in cool dry seasons the potato rot has not prevailed 

 to any great extent. J. Dow. 



East Corinth, Vt., Jan., 1852. 



Remarks. — We think our correspondent must be 

 mistaken when he says that "recently other wri- 

 ters say that charcoal is one cause of the rot." It 

 is not the charcoal, but the carbonic acid given out 

 while burning the wood upon the ground. Char- 

 coal spread upon the soil in small quantities, has 

 never been supposed to encourage the potato rot. 



Norfolk Transactions. — We are indebted to the 

 President of the Society, Hon. M. P. Wilder, for 

 a copy of the Transactions of the Norfolk County 

 Agricultural Society, for 1851. It contains the 

 address of Mr. Russell, most of which we have 

 already transferred to our columns, and of which 

 we have already spoken as highly as we know how 

 to speak. The reports, statements, &c. , are full and 

 well-drawn, and the whole printed in the best 

 style of the art. 



