284 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



to be thawed by fire before they could be cut 

 down, and there is no doubt that the roots are as 

 well frozen as the stem since vegetation prospers in 

 Siberia, where the following observations have 

 been made : — A well was dug 400 feet deep, and 

 the temperature at 50 feet was 18° Fahr., at 77 

 feet 19°, at 119 feet 22°, at 300 feet 28°, at 382 

 feet 31°. At this place the soil is frozen to the 

 depth of 400 feet ; the cold reaches 58° below ze- 

 ro, and the mean temperature of the two winter 

 months is 40° below zero. During the 128 days 

 during which there is no frost, the strata of eter- 

 nal ice are never thawed to a greater depth than 

 3 feet.— JV. Y. Tribune. 



BOOK NOTICES. 



Rural Architecture. By Lewis F. Allen. — 

 This is another of Saxton's admirable books for 

 the farmer. The other professions have long had 

 their publishers, and the press has been enlisted to 

 disseminate the doctrines which their books have 

 taught. The farmer now has his publisher of 

 works directly pertaining to his profession, and 

 they are issued in a style becoming the beauty 

 and importance of the subject of which they 

 treat. 



The volume before us contains a description of 

 farm houses, cottages, and out-buildings, compris- 

 ing wood houses, workshops, tool houses, carriage 

 and wagon houses, stable, smoke and ash houses, 

 ice houses, bee and poultry houses, barns and 

 sheds for cattle, together with the flower, fruit 

 and vegetable garden, and the best method of 

 conducting water into cattle-yards and houses. 

 These matters are all illustrated with handsome 

 engravings, and the book is printed on large clear 

 type and good paper. Now in one or another of 

 the subjects discussed in this book there is proba- 

 bly not a farmer in the land but will find some aid. 

 He has water to introduce into his house or barn, 

 something to build or something to alter. In this 

 *ook he may find such hints as will suit his case, 

 for it was made on purpose for him. "We in- 

 sist," with the author, Mr. Allen, "that agricul- 

 ture, in its true and extended sense, is as much a 

 profession as any other pursuit whatever." 



We give a few extracts from the admirable pre- 

 face, believing that in no other way can we better 

 fill half a column. So we take, first, the follow- 

 ing just remarks upon agriculture as an employ- 

 ment : — 



"It is an opinion far too prevalent among those 

 engaged in the more active occupations of our 

 people, — fortified indeed, in such opinion, by the 

 too frequent example of the farmer himself — that 

 everything connected with agriculture and agricul- 

 tural life is of a rustic and uncouth character ; 

 that it is a profession in which ignorance, as they 

 understand the term, is entirely consistent, and 

 one with which no aspirations of a high or an ele- 

 vated character should, or at least need be connect- 

 ed. It is a reflection upon the integrity of the 

 great a.^rn: ltural interest of the country, that 



any such opinion should prevail ; and discredita- 

 ble to that interest, that its condition or example 

 should for a moment justify, or even tolerate it. 



* * * * # 

 "Why should a farmer, because he is a farmer, 



only occupy an uncouth, outlandish house, any 

 more than a professional man, a merchant, or a 

 mechanic? Is it because he himself is so uncouth 

 and outlandish in his thoughts and manners, that 

 he deserves no better ? Is it because his occupa- 

 tion is degrading, his intellect ignorant, his posi- 

 tion in life low, and his associations debasing? 

 Surely not. Yet in many of the plans and designs 

 got up for his accommodation in the books and 

 publications of the day, all due convenience, to 

 say nothing of the respectability or the elegance 

 of domestic life, is as entirely disregarded as if 

 such qualities had no connection with the farmer 

 or his occupation. We hold that although many 

 of the practical operations of the farm may be 

 rough, laborious and untidy, yet they are not, 

 and need not bo inconsistent with the knowledge 

 and practice of neatness and order, and even ele- 

 gance and refinement, within doors ; and, that the 

 due accommodation of the various things apper- 

 taining to farm stock, farm labor, and farm life, 

 should have a tendency to elevate the social posi- 

 tion, the associations, thoughts, and entire condi- 

 tion of the farmer. As the man himself — no mat- 

 ter what his occupation — be lodged and fed, so in- 

 fluenced, in a degree, will be his practice in the 

 daily duties of his life. A squalid, miserable ten- 

 ement, with which they who inhabit it are con- 

 tent, can lead to no elevation of character, no 

 improvement in condition, either social or moral, 

 of its occupants. But the family comfortably and 

 tidily, although humbly provided in their habitation 

 and domestic arrangements, have usually a cor- 

 responding character in their personal relations. 

 A log-cabin, either, — and I speak of this primi- 

 tive American structure with profound affection 

 and regard, as the shelter from which we have 

 acheived the most of our prodigious and rapid ag- 

 ricultural conquests, — may be so constructed as to 

 speak an air of neatness, intelligence and even re- 

 finement in those who inhabit it. 



* # # # # 



"A farmer has quite as much business in the 

 field, or about his ordinary occupation, with rag- 

 ged garments, out at elbows, and a crownless hat, 

 as he has to occupy a leaky, wind-broken and di- 

 lapidated house. Neither is he any nearer the 

 mark, with a ruffled shirt, 'a fancy dress, or gloved 

 hands, when following his plow behind a pair of 

 fancy horses, than in living in a finical, pretending 

 house, such as we see stuck up in conspicuous 

 places in many parts of the country. All these 

 are out of place in each extreme, and the one is 

 as absurd, so far as true propriety is concerned, 

 as the other. A fitness of things, or a correspond- 

 ence of one thing with another, should always be 

 preserved upon the farm, as elsewhere ; and there 

 is not a single reason why propriety and good 

 keeping should not as well distinguish it. Nor is 

 there any good qjuiso why the farmer himself 

 should not be a man of taste, in the arrangement 

 and architecture of every building on his place, 

 as well as other men." 



ESf The book may be found for sale at Tap- 

 pan djf Whitlcmore's, Boston. 



