NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



5G5 



THE TRUE COURSE. 



With energy for prompt and vigorous action, 

 and capacity for sober thought and sound reflec- 

 tion, a man may enter upon business with some 

 assurance of success. His home will exhibit the 

 best picture of his true character. What he un- 

 dertakes is well done. His fences are in order — 

 there is an air of neatness and thrift about his 

 dwelling and out-buildings ; his grounds are laid 

 out with reference to beauty as well as conven- 

 ience — ornament and use have been consulted in 

 planting out his fruit and shade trees, and the gar- 

 den evinces that his wife and daughters have joined 

 him in his cultivation. He does not waste the 

 long winter evenings in idleness, nor does his fam- 

 ily neglect this season of improvement. While his 

 children are engaged in the rudiments of learning, 

 he surveys the action of our National and State 

 Legislatures ! and studies thoroughly the policy by 

 which both are guided. His family do not content 

 themselves with the light reading of the day, but 

 history, biography, morals and religion receive a 

 due share of attention. They lay up in winter, 

 from reading, conversation and reflection, a har- 

 vest of more value than the bounties of autumn. 

 The mind thus stored, casts light upon any voca- 

 tion. It cheers the house-wife in her round of du- 

 ties and lightens the labors of the field. — Address 

 of Hon. T. Jenkins before the Oneida County Ag. 

 Society. 



'Tis true, I am not in possession of facts that 

 will clearly prove this to be the case — but such a 

 conclusion looks to me rational. I hope I may re- 

 ceive light on the subject, either pro or con my 

 opinion. A. Todd. . 



Smithfield, R. I., \0th mo., 1852. 



Remarks. — Mr. Jenkins is not only a good far- 

 mer, but a good, safe legislator, conferring honor 

 upon the position he occupies as a member of Con- 

 gress, by his mild but firm counsels, and by the 

 uprightness of his acts and character. We should 

 be glad to receive his whole address. 



For the New England Farmer. 



WORKING COWS. 



Friend Brown : — I noticed in the October No. 

 of the N. E. Farmer, a few editorial remarks in 

 regard to field labors of the cow. Judging from 

 the tone of these remarks, the cow ought not to be 

 exempted from the "surveillance of the yoke." — 

 Now, friend B , thou hast a right to thy opin- 

 ion, and I also have to mine — hence, for the pre- 

 sent, we will agree to differ. So far as right and 

 wrong is concerned in the matter, I will leave. — 

 Of course the ox and the cow were created, and 

 given to and for the use of man. The ox was in- 

 tended for a beast of burden, and the cow for a 

 different use. The former was made strong and 

 muscular, calculated, of course, for the services to 

 which he is subjected ; — the latter, by her con- 

 struction, is unfitted to wear the yoke, but is pur- 

 posely fitted for the use to which she is mostly ap- 

 plied. I know that in some countries cows are 

 made to bear the yoke, and labor in the fields 

 from rising to setting sun, — and consequently are 

 of two-fold profit to their owners. But it does not 

 look reasonable to me to suppose that the milk 

 drawn from cows worked in this manner can be 

 pure and wholesome. As a matter of course, 

 cows that are obliged to haul the plow and cart 

 in the dusty fields in the sunny days of summer, 

 must suffer excessively from the heat. Such be- 

 ing the case, the milk must receive more or less 

 impurities, and consequently rendered unwhole- 

 some. 



Remarks. — Friend Todd takes the extremes. — 

 We would not advocate working the cow "from 

 the rising to the setting sun ;" we would not do 

 that with our oxen or horses. 



There are a large number of farms in New Eng- 

 land where most of the team labor of the year 

 may be performed with a good horse ; a few days' 

 plowing and hauling of manure or stones being all 

 the ox work needed. Now, in such cases, if the 

 farmer would train a couple of strong and active 

 cows to the yoke, so that he could supply this 

 deficiency from his own stall, he would find a sa- 

 ving in cash, a still greater one in convenience, 

 and do no injury to the animals, provided he used 

 them considerately, — a few hours at a time, and 

 always when the animal was in a proper condition 

 to work, with the udder empty and in good flesh 

 and strength. Mares are used as freely as horses, 

 and even during gestation it is thought better to 

 work the animal moderately through the whole 

 time. We should recommend the working cow, 

 however, only as a matter of convenience, in such 

 cases as mentioned above, and not as a general 

 practice. 



SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. 



Look at that wide valley, with its snow-clad 

 summits at a distance on either hand, and its glas- 

 sy river flowing cribbed and confined, in the low- 

 est bottom. Smiling fields and well-trimmed hedge- 

 rows, and sheltering plantations and comfortable 

 dwellings, and a busy population, and abundant 

 cattle, cover its undulating slopes. For miles in- 

 dustrious plenty spreads over a country which the 

 river formerly usurped, and the lake covered, and 

 the rush tufted over, and bog and mossy heath and 

 perennial fogs and drizzling rains rendered inhos- 

 pitable and chill. But mechanics have chained 

 the river, and drained the lakes, and bogs, and 

 clayey bottoms ; and thus giving scope to the ap- 

 plication of all the varied practical rules to which 

 science has led, the natural climate has been sub- 

 dued, disease extirpated, and rich and fertile and 

 happy homes scattered over the ancient waste. 



Turn to another country, and a river flows deep- 

 ly through an arid and desolate plain. Mechanics 

 lift its waters from their depths, and from a thou- 

 sand artificial channels directs them over the 

 parched surface. It is as if an enchanter's wand 

 had been stretched over it — the green herbage and 

 the wavino- corn, accompanied by all the industries 

 of rural life, spring up as they advance.^ Another 

 country, and a green oasis presents itself, busy 

 with life, in the midst of a desert and sandy plain. 

 Do natural springs here gush up, as in the ancient 

 oasis of the Libian wilderness 1 It is another of 

 the triumphs of human industry, guided by human 

 thought. Geology, and her sister sciences, are 

 here the pioneers of rural life and fixed habitations. 

 The seat of hidden waters at vast depths was dis- 



