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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Now the art cannot be taught to any advantage, 

 except by practice. He who undertakes to teach 

 it, ought to have acquired his qualifications by ab- 

 solute practice : whether such an one would be 

 selected to fill the Executive Chair is very doubtful. 

 He ought to have a familiar acquaintance with 

 most kinds of tools and implements, appertaining 

 to the business, and also of the various kinds of 

 farm work, which I fear, on a personal acquaint- 

 ance, would have no very fascinating attractions 

 to some of the young gentlemen who are now so 

 eager to acquire their knowledge. My opinion in 

 the inadequacy of the means proposed, rests upon 

 their aversion to labor. Their previous lives un- 

 fit them for the severe tasks of the farmer. I 

 judge partly from experience, but more from ob- 

 servation. The writer of these lines, has been en- 

 gaged a part of his life in a pursuit much more 

 favorable to his ease than that of his present oc- 

 cupation, with this consolation to comfort him, 

 that it was a little more profitable. He also has 

 been acquainted with many instances of young 

 men from the country, who left their homes in 

 early life to seek a fortune sufficient to enable them 

 to return and purchase a farm. But after , being 

 engaged a few years in persuits less toilsome, and 

 more profitable, they lost all inclination to return 

 to their original occupation. The above are some 

 of my reasons for believing that it would not be a 

 wise policy for the State to try the experiment of 

 an agricultural college. 



Yours respectfully, *w. a. 



Newton Centre, 1852. 



Remarks. — We will just say to our friend, that 

 to be "exalted in life," is to be useful and virtu- 

 ous. No wealth, connections, or position, can ex- 

 alt a man ; he must exalt himself. It seems to 

 be a foregone conclusion with him that an agricul- 

 tural College (he calls it) under the fostering care 

 of the State will prove disastrous every way. We 

 think something useful may be done, and have 

 considerable confidence in the wisdom of old Mas- 

 sachusetts that she will do it right ; but approve 

 of moderate counsels and expenditures. Cambridge 

 has distinguished herself, and her teachings are 

 of no more consequence than those which agricul- 

 ture require. Let us do something. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 

 Gentlemen : — In one of your late papers I 

 noticed a request for information respecting the 

 nature of Northern Lights — Aurora Borealis. 

 The credit due for the discovery of this belong 

 to the Baron Von Reichenbachs, — a nobleman of 

 Vienna. Some years since, he was engaged in 

 making a series of experiments in Animal Magnet- 

 ism, and found that strong magnets would pro- 

 duce deeper, quicker and more powerful effects, 

 upon susceptible individuals, than any other com- 

 binations of matter. He found also that these 

 magnets, when the rooms in which his observers 

 were, were darkened, exhibited flames, and of 

 course light. The light could be collected into a 

 focus by means of a burning glass, and the flames 

 being intercepted by any solid object, curled around 

 it, like any other flame. This established in his 



mind, ^hat light and flame are two different sub- 

 stances. But not satisfactorily to others, other- 

 wise than this. That flame, being the visible, 

 and more often invisible combustion, or change of 

 matter from a more condensed to a less condensed 

 state — light is the result, which is literally a ma- 

 terial, more expansive, by chemical action. And 

 that as the same thing can produce only its 

 consequence, light in all instances is produced by 

 combustion, or flame, and nothing else. Over one of 

 these magnets, sufficiently powerful to raise ninety 

 pounds,- the observer saw a light auroral cloud, 

 which emitted tufts or streaks of light, the same 

 as we see the auroral arc in the north, previous, 

 and during a display of this meteor. _ The argu- 

 ment is therefor, that magnetic light is the same, 

 whether exhibited by a small or large magnet ; 

 whether it is at the north and south poles of the 

 earth, or the same positive and negative poles of 

 small bodies. I will add that there is a strong 

 probability that present researches will establish 

 the fact, that there exists an immense ocean of 

 fluid, imponderable by any instrument yet invent- 

 ed, and yet of sufficient capacity to float the most 

 ponderable bodies. This I know on the outside of 

 it appears to be sufficiently absurd. 

 Very truly, your ob't servant, 



j. c. G. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 HEMLOCK. 

 (abies canadensis.) 

 Mr. Editor : — I wish to call the attention of 

 your readers to the beauty and importance of the 

 hemlock. It is perfectly hardy, being found far to 

 the north, even in the coldest portion of North 

 America. It rises in the forest to the height, of- 

 ten, of sixty or seventy feet, and even more. It is 

 often seen growing on rocky, exposed side hills, 

 when few other things will flourish, as well as in 

 better locations where it grows to greater perfec- 

 tion. When standing alone it forms a broader 

 head, with less height. It will grow in dry or wet 

 ground, though it does best where it is tolerably 

 moist. In my opinion it is the most beautiful of 

 all evergreens ; and while collectors are zealously 

 searching the remotest parts of the earth, and 

 sending home the products of their labor — which 

 often prove of little value — we strangely neglect to 

 cultivate and prize the handsomest evergreen that 

 can be found the world over ; so far as my knowl- 

 edge extends. Mr. Emerson, in his report on the 

 trees and shrubs of Massachusetts, says ; the young 

 trees, by their numerous irregular branches clothed 

 with foliage of a delicate green, form a rich mass 

 of verdure ; and when in the beginning of summer, 

 each twig is terminated with a tuft of yellowish- 

 green recent leaves, surmounting the darker green 

 of the former year, the effect, as an object of beau- 

 ty, is equalled by very few flowering shrubs, and 

 far surpasses that produced by any other tree. It 

 possesses a lightness and gracefulness — especially 

 when the dark green mass is moved by the gentle 

 breeze — that cannot fail to attract the attention of 

 the most careless observer of the beautiful in na- 

 ture ; it is entirely free from that stiffness, grena- 

 dier-like appearance which some other trees of the 

 same family exhibit. It is a happy, joyous tree ; 

 like the polite and vivacious Frenchman, it con- 

 tinually bows and smiles, alike in sunshine or 

 storm, winter or summer ; in the morning it wel- 



