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DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. IV. 



BOSTON, DECEMBER, 1852. 



NO. 12. 



RAYNOLD3 & NOURSE, TnopniETons. 

 Office.... Quincy Hall. 



FRED'K HOLBROOK, > Associate 



SIMON BROWN, Editor. HENRy p french ; } X™* 



THE FARM IN DECEMBER. 



" Have mercy, winter : — For we own thy power." 

 This is the season of dreary and gloomy weath- 

 er. The sun rises late and sets early ; noon treads 

 upon the shades of night; the sun drops suddenly 

 low far sou tli of west, and before we are ready for 

 it, sinks out of sight, when the chill air and gath- 

 ering darkness soon drive us from the field. 



It is now winter. The reptiles and other crea- 

 tures that sleep or hide during cold weather, have 

 retired to their winter quarters ; the field labor of 

 the farmer is considerably arrested. The trees 

 look but like skeletons of what they were, and as 

 Shakspeare said, are but 



" Hare ruined choirs in which the sweet birds sang." 



The evergreens now have a new beauty and 

 value, and are particularly observed, while the 

 winter flowers are looked upon as real friends. 

 We turn to the conservatory, or even the small 

 collection of parlor plants, with new interest and 

 pleasure, and cultivate them with tender care. 



But gloomy as is the approach of this season, 

 " winter is not the death of nature, neither is it 

 merely the season of nature's sleep, after the labors 

 of the vegetable world are finished. It is much 

 more. It is the season of gestation, when nature 

 is preparing in her womb the embryo of the coming 

 year. A thousand secret operations are in pro- 

 gress, by which the seeds, buds, and roots of fu- 

 ture plants and flowers are not only preserved, 

 but elaborated, that when the prolific months of 

 spring arrive, they may burst into life in all the 

 freshness and vigor of a new birth." The winter 

 weather has also a most important agency in other 

 respects. During spring, summer and autumn, 

 fertile soils by capillary attraction absorb and re- 

 tain water for the support of their produce ; dur- 

 ing winter a portion of this water at the surface of 

 the soil freezes, and by its expansive force thrusts 

 the individual particles apart, and so hold them, 

 apparently, as solid clods of earth : but as the 

 warmth of spring returns, the icy cement dissolves 



from its interstices, the clods crumble down so 

 minutely divided as materially to lessen the labor 

 of the husbandman in preparing the soil for seed. 

 So all seasons are important to the production and 

 perfection of the farmer's crops; the severe winter for 

 rest from one class, and activity in another, of opera- 

 tions ; the spring with its high winds to sweep off a 

 redundant moisture in the drenched fields, to start 

 the bud and blossom, and waiting grass; the summer 

 with its fervid heat and dewy nights to give breadth 

 and form and substance to the plants, and au- 

 tumn with its tempered suns and lengthened 

 nights to perfect the whole. 



Although the hand of the wonder-working 

 Croat :• may be distintly traced in unnumbered 

 objects in the winter, yet it is a period when, in 

 comparison with other seasons, there are few ob- 

 jects of interest to arrest the attention. Many of 

 the important and pressing labors of the far- 

 mer being ended for the year, it leaves him oppor- 

 tunity for reading, for study, an 1 reflection, and if 

 so disposed, for the investigation of many things 

 which puzzled him during his summer operations, 

 and which he had not the leisure then to examine. 

 But he. has given them occasional thought, and 

 now can gather about him such helps as he maj- 

 command, and in his comfortable home, while 

 fierce winds sweep the deserted hills and vales on 

 their useful mission, seek out the causes and op- 

 erations of things so that he will find a new inter- 

 est in his labors when he again enters the fields 

 for their cultivation. Indeed, that interest will 

 be felt when his investigations commence, and will 

 ever bj present with him afterwards, whether fol- 

 lowing the plow, prostrating the grain or grass, or 

 mingling in the social relations of life. 



Then we have this to say : — Let each hour of 

 this comparatively leisure season be as faithfully 

 devoted to the cultivation of the mind and heart, 

 as the hours of spring, summer, and autumn, have 

 been to the cultivation of the several crops, and 

 contentment and happiness will as surely flow 



