412 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Sept. 



nominal wages of the latter may be much the lar- 

 gest. The young man on the farm can easily lay 

 aside one thousand dollars by the time he is twen- 

 ty-eight or thirty years of age, and then by locat- 

 ing according to his means, this sum, with the pru- 

 dence and energy by which it was accumulated, 

 will enable him to secure a good New England 

 farm. While the probabilities are that the clerk 

 or mechanic will remain a journeyman all his Ufe. 



Upon the last objection urged against farming 

 by our young friend, although a very important 

 one, we must be brief. He says farming affords 

 but few opportunities for the improvement of the 

 mind. Were we to admit that, in the circumstan- 

 ces of the past, and in some respects, of the pres- 

 ent, there is too much truth in the allegation, do 



vail ; they are the exceptions, not the general rule. 

 So far as I am acquainted, the best farmers, and 

 those that have made the most improvement upon 

 their uplands, are those that cut a fair proportion 

 of salt hay for the size of their farm. 



There is no need of salt haying's interfering 

 with the other necessary business on the farm ; if the 

 manager is a man of good calculations, he may find 

 time to pay proper attention to all his other crops, 

 and some for improving low lands. 



I have made no great improvement to boast of, 

 but salt hay has been the first moving spring to 

 enable me to do what I have done. If you will 

 make me a visit, I think I can show you enough to 

 con\'ince you that it is not worse than useless. Al- 

 so show you two young cows and a bull that I have 

 raise d mostly upon it, which I think are no dis- 

 grace to my farm. 



It is a mistake that cattle must be kept at the 



not the si"ns of the times authorize us to" promise I starvation point to induce them to eat salt hay, if it 

 ,°. , », r, n'-L n ^ ,., IS cut m season, and properly cured. It is no prooi 



better things for the future? Ihe first essential, ^j^^^ ^^^^^j^ ^^.^ ^^p^ ^^^^ J ;^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^p^^^^ 



movement in all great revolutions, has already been j fo^ there are poor cattle where there is no salt hay. 

 accompHshed in respect to a reform of agricultural! You must blame the managers, not the hay. 

 education— <^e need of improvement is felt, deeply 



TnoMAs Haskell. 



felt. Upon this point there is perfect agreement, 

 although as yet there exists a diversity of opinions 

 as to the best means of securing the object. In an 

 excellent article from the Puritan Recorder, lately 

 pubUshed among the miscellaneous matter on the 

 last page of the weekly Farmer, it is said, "that 

 there is no single department of labor on which so 

 much is now written, and so much of science and 

 of experimental philosophy is now employed, as 

 that of agriculture." And, then, the improved im- 

 plements and the labor-saving machinery which are 

 every year introduced to lighten the toil and to 

 save the time of the farmer. If these considera- 

 tions do not satisfy "A Farmer's Son" that his pres- 

 ent business affords a proper field for the develop- 

 ment and exercise of his powers, we can assure him 

 that the longer he mingles in the crowd of a city 

 the stronger will his gratitude grow that he was 

 born upon a farm, and the more reasons will he 

 see for regretting that his children are deprived of 

 the advantages of such a birth and education. 



Gloucester, June 27, 1856. 



Por the New England Farmer. 



SALT HAY. 



Remarks. — Well, that is plainly spoken, un- 

 doubtedly comes from the heart, and we like the 

 spirit. It does not quite controvert our objections, 

 however, to the attention that is given to the use 

 of salt hay. We did not intend to "blame the haj', 

 but the managers," as our correspondent suggests. 

 Thank you for the invitation, friend H., and shall 

 certainly look at the cows and bull when we find 

 ourselves in your neighborhood. 



MIGHTY CEDARS OF CALIFORNIA. 



Rev. Dr. Bushnell, of Hartford, writes from Cal- 

 ifornia to the New York Independent a graphic ac- 

 count of the immense cedars of California, the 

 greatest trees in the Avorld. One of them, which 

 had been felled, he ascertained, by counting the 

 grains of the stump, to be twelve hundred and 

 eighty years old. When Mahomet was at nurse 

 this tree was sprouting. Says the llev. gentleman : 



"It is forest, yet nothing that we mean by forest. 

 There is no under-growth, scarcely anywhere a 

 rock ; the surfiaces are as beautifully turned as if 

 shaped by a landscape gardener, and dotted all 

 over by myriads of flowers, more delicate, if not 

 more various, than any garden ever grew. Moving 

 along these surfaces, rounding over a hill, or gal- 



Mr. Brown : — In an editorial last week you 

 made some remarks upon salt marsh and haj-. As loping through some silent valley, winding here 

 I think you do not give them their true value, I j among the native oaks, casting their round shadovrs, 

 wish to say a few words in their defence, and hope j and here among tall pines and cedars drawing their 

 that some wiser head and nobler ))en than mine; huge conical shapes on the ground, we seem, in 

 will come forward and give them tlieir fair worth, i fact, to be riding through some vast park. Indeed, 



I know nothing of their value in western Massa-; after we had seen the trees and taken their impres- 

 chusetts, but in Essex County I do. Making and sion, we could think of nothing but to call it the 

 applying manures is tli 



grand secret of farming. 

 If Essex County should be deprived of its salt hay, 

 it would sing small in the manure line, for it must 



park of the Lord Almighty. The other trees we 

 observed were increasing in size as we neared the 

 place, till finally, descending gently along a west- 

 be remembered that all the salt hay that is brought ern slope among the files of little giants, v.-e came 

 on to the fiirm is so much gain, for there is no ma- to the gate of the real giants, emerging into the 

 nure needed in return. I think you mistake in; cleared ground of the Big Tree Hotel, between the 

 the two principles which you think universally pre-! two sentinels, which are 500 feet high, and stand 



