178 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



DEC. 9, •R40. 



cupations, men desire to know lioiv others are get- 

 ting on in the same pursuits elsewhere ; they in- 

 form themselves of what is passing in the world, 

 and are on the alert to discover and adopt improve- 

 ments. The farmers have few of these advanta- 



Ail these improvements which may adorn or 



I benefit our farms, arc recommended to us not only 



by our own individual interests, but by the higher 



I sentiment of our duty to the country. This is es- 



I sentially a nation of farmers.' No where else is so 



o-ns ■ they do not meet at e.vchanges to concen- i Urge a portion of the communi'y engaged in farm 



trate all the new^ of commerce ; they have no fac 

 tories, where all that is doing among their compe 

 titers abroad is discussed ; no agent to refiort the 

 slighlesl movements which may aliect their interests. 

 Th°ey live apart, they rarely come together, and 

 have no concert of action. Now this defect can 

 be best supplied by reading works devoted to their 

 interests, because these may fill up ths leisure 

 hours which might otherwise be wasted in idleness 

 or misemployed in dissipation ; and as some sort 

 of newspaper is almost a necessary of life, let us 

 select one whicli, discarding the eternal violence 

 of party politics, shall give us all that is useful or 

 new in" our profession. This society has endeav- 

 ored to promote such a one in the Farmer's Cabi- 

 inet, a monthly paper, e.xclusively occupied with 

 the pursuits of agriculture— where we may learn 

 what is doing in our line over all the world, at so 

 cheap a rate that, for a dozen stalks of corn, or a 

 bushel of wheat or potatoes, we may have a con- 

 stant source of pleasing and useful information. 



1 think, however, that we must prepare ourselves 

 for some startling novelty in farming. We were 

 tauo^ht in our youth to consider fire and water as 

 the deadliest foes. They are at last reconciled, 

 and their union has produced the master-power of 

 the world. Steam has altered the whole routine 

 of human labor; it has given to England alone the 

 equivalent in labor of four hundred jnillicms of men. 

 As yet, commerce and manufactures alone have 

 felt its influence, but it cannot be that this gigan- 

 tic power will long be content to remain shut up 

 in factories and ships. Rely upon it, steam will 

 before long run off the track into the fields, for, of 

 all human employments, farm-work is the most de- 

 pendent on mere manual labor. Be not, therefore, 

 surprised if we yet live to see so ■,*' steam-plough 

 making its hundred furrows in our fields ; or some 

 liuye engine, like the extinct iimmmoth, roving 

 throuoh the western forests, and mowing down the 

 woods, like a cradler in the harvest-field. Wild 

 as this seems, there is nothing in it stranger than 

 what we have all witnessed already. When Ful- 

 ton and Oliver Evans first talked to us about, the 

 sti'ainboat and the railroad, we thought them in- 

 sane, and already we enjoy more than they ever 

 anticipated in their most sanguine moments. One 

 of these applications of steam — the rnising of wa- 

 ter for agriculture — I have already attempted, in 

 my own small way. You know that the greatest 

 enemy of our farming is the drought of mid-sum- 

 Qier, when all vegetation withers, and the decaying 

 crop-i reproach us with suffering the magnificent 

 rivers by their sides to pass away. In the south- 

 ern climates of the old world, men collect, with 

 great toil, the smallest nils, and make them wind 

 over their fields;— the hand-bucket of Egypt, the 

 vfater-wheel of Persia, all the toilsome contrivance 

 of manual labor, are put in requisition to carry 

 freshness and fertility over fields not wanting them 

 more than our own. With far greater advantages, 

 absolutely nothing has yet been done in that branch 

 of cultivation ; may wu not hope that these simple 

 means of irrigation may be luperseded by steam, 

 when a few bushels of coal may disperse over our 

 fields, from our e.xhauatless rivers, abundajit sup- 

 plios of water. 



inp ; no where else are the cultivators of the earth 

 more independent or more powerful. One would 

 think that in Europe the great business of life was 

 to put each other to death ; for so large a propor- 

 tion of men are drawn from the walks of produc- 

 tive industry and trained to no other occupation 

 than to shoot foreigners ahvnys, and their own coun- 

 trymen occasionally ; — while here, the whole ener- 

 gy of the nation is directed with intense force up- 

 on peaceful labor. A strange spectacle this, of 

 one, and only one, nnarmed nation on the face of 

 the earth ! There is abroad a wild struggle be- 

 tween existing authority and popular pretensions, 

 and our own example is the common theme of ap- 

 plause and denunciatwrn. It is the more important 

 then, for the fanners of this country to be true to 

 their own principles. The sod is theirs — the gov- 

 ernment is theirs — and on them depends mainly 

 the continuance of their system. That system is, 

 that enlightened opinion and the domestic tie.s are 

 more stable guarantees of social tranquility than 

 mere force, and that the government of the plough 

 is safer, and, when there is need, stronger than 

 the government of the sword. If the existing dis- 

 sensions of the old world are to he settled by two 

 millions of soldiers, all ours will soon be decided 

 by two millions of voters. The instinct of agricul- 

 ture is for peace — for the empire of reason, not of 

 violence — of votes, not of bayonets. Nor shall we, 

 as freemen and members of a fireside profession, 

 hesitate in our choice of the three great master- 

 influences which now rule the world — kokce, opin- 

 ion, and AFFECTION — the carlridge-box, the ballot- 

 box, and the band-box. 



From the Farmer's Cabinet. 



OLD TIMES IN GARDENING. 



Permit me, Mr Editor, to transcribe, fi'liin the 

 pages of an old work on gardening, a few curious 

 recipes for the propagation and management of 

 fruit trees, which will amuse your readers as much 

 as did the article in the last number of the Cabinet, 

 entitled "Old Times in Medicine." It is indeed 

 surpassing strange that the writers of such superla- 

 tive nonsense should ever have obtained readers, 

 whose faith would be strong enough to permit them 

 to receive it for truth, but our surprise is in a meas- 

 ure abated, when we read at the commencement of 

 this work, "and for writing and reading, it skilleth 

 not whether the farmer be able to do it or no; you 

 shall not put him to make reckonings of long time, 

 neither yet of more things than his memory may 

 well carry away." 



IIow blessed, indeed, are we who live in this 

 age of light and reason ! The reflection ought to 

 inspire us with a reverence for the privilege of read- 

 ing and writing, which we enjoy, and instead of 

 holding book-knowledge in contempt, we cannot be 

 Kiiflicienlly grateful that by it we are brought to 

 see the egregious folly to which those ari* liable 

 who are deprived of the.-<e blessings. S. Dale. 



SPECIAL OBSKRVATIONS. 



1, " If you liollow the branch of a cherry- tree, 

 taking away the pith, and after set it again, it will 

 bring forth fruit without any stone. 



2. To make cherries and peaches of an aromatic 

 taste and smell, at the time of grafting wet the 

 grafts in honey, and put therein a little of the pow- 

 der of cloves, nutmegs and cinnamon, and the fruit 

 will have a taste of them. 



3. To have medlars in their greatness, so that 

 one may be better than twenty others, graft them 

 on a goustbcrry bush ! and at the grafting thereof, 

 ti'et litem. 



4. 'I'o have mulberries early ripe, graft in the 

 increase of the moon, three or four days before the 

 first quarter, for how many days the moon is old 

 when grafted, so many years will it be before the 

 tree brings forth fruit, 



5 To have nuts without shells, take a kernel 

 which is sound, wrap it in wool, or the leaves of 

 the vine, and so plant it, and the nut-tree coming 

 thereof, will bring forth nuts without shells. 



»i. To cause an oak or other tree to continue 

 evergreen, graft it upon a colewort I 



7. Write what you will in the eyelet of the fig- 

 tree which you mean to graft, and the fig growing 

 therefrom will contain the said writing. 



8. The fig-tree will not lose his fruit if you cast 

 about it pits while the seven stars do appear, water- 

 ing the foot with salt brine. 



11. The pear tree will liave a fruit smelling like 

 roses, if you put into the cleft, at the time of graft. 

 ing, the leaf of a sweet-smelling rose : by thJB 

 piece of cunning, roses become to smell of musk 

 and cloves. 



10. To make peaches red, take up the stone af- 

 teryou have planted it seven days, open the shell, 

 put into it some vermilion, and plant it again: or 

 if you graft the peach tree upon the red rose tree 

 the fruit will be red. 



11. Pierce the body of the peach tree and take 

 away the pith, and you will have peaches without 

 stones. 



12. To make the fruit of the bitter almond sweet, 

 water the tree with warm water, opening the ground 

 at the root. 



13. To make apples red, plant red roses near 

 them. 



14. Graft the peach upon the almond tree, and 

 you will have fruit, both peaches and almonds, 

 whose rind and kernel will be good to eat. 



15. Graft an apple with a peach, and the peach 

 upon a pear, and you shall have strange fruit, call- 

 ed peacli apples and peach pears to eat 



16. To have peaches or almonds to grow with 

 letters written on them. After that you have eaten 

 the peaches or almonds, steep the stone two or 

 three days ; afterwards open it softly, take out the 

 kernel, and with a brass pen write upon the rind 

 what you please, but not deep ; replace the kerne), 

 wrapping it about with paper or parchment, and so 

 plant it, and the fruit growing thereupon will be 

 written and engraved !" 



Large yield of corn. — JVew Hampshire out- 

 done. — We see a certificate signed by William P. 

 Hume, George Moore, Joseph H. Clay, and R. P. 

 Rankins, that George W. Williams, of Bourbon 

 Co. Ky., raised the past season on one acre of 

 ground, one hundred andfjiyeight bushels of corn. 

 'I'lius we have evidence to believe, that one acre 

 well cultivated, will produce as much as six acres 



without proper preparation JVashvitle Jigricultu- 



rist. 



Bank up your houses and list your doors : be 

 particularly careful, also, to shut the door. 



