1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



567 



For the New England Farmer. 



AUTUMNAL ELEGIAC. 



BY THE "PEASANT BARD." 



The vane points south. Damp blows the gala 



From off towards ocean's misty wa^te ; 

 Aloft the rainy signals sail, 



And on their stormy mission haste. 

 I stand and hear the roaring blast, 

 And see the wild rack drifting fast. 

 And watch on Unadilla's* braes, 



Where late the summer sun did smile 

 The marching mist, and scudding haze 



Like spectral rank and file ! 



There go the hopeful hours of spring ; 



There summer's more exalted pride, 

 In autumn glooms evanishing 



By mournful Unadilla's side. 

 And other phantoms, too, I see, 

 Of perished objects, dear to me. 

 Once real as the flowers of spring, — 



Now all on memory devolves ; 

 While in the blast all hollow sing 



The ghosts of good resolves, 



O, buried time ! 0, vain regrets ! 



Yon vision'd, gloom'd, autumnal strife 

 Minds me how fast towards Autumn sets 



My own bright summer bark of life ! 

 Yea, voyager to the unknown shore. 

 No anchor holds, that you throw o'er ; 

 Affection's lower, e'en Love's strong sheet. 



Cannot the forward tide withstand. 

 Blest Hope ! keep watch ; thy cry is sweet: 



Land ho ! the '"better land." 



the health of those who linger by the bedside of a 

 diseased friend. It is said by medical men that 

 there is no kind of malaria more pernicious and 

 fatal in its effects, than the poisonous atmosphere of 

 an unventilated chamber where a person is suffering 

 from a violent attack of an acute disease. Here 

 lies the mystery of the contagiousness of epidem- 

 ics. 



A celebrated English physician, (Dr. Smith oa 

 Fever,) says that "the room of a fever patient, in 

 a small and heated apartment, in a populous city, 

 with no circuktion of fresh air, is perfectly anala- 

 gous to a stagnant pool in Ethiopia, full of the 

 bodies of dead locusts. Nature, with her burning 

 sun, her stilled and pent up wind, her stagnant and 

 teeming marsh, manufactures plague on a large 

 and fearful scale ; poverty in her hut, covered with 

 rags, surrounded with filth, striving with all her 

 might to keep out the pure air, and to increase the 

 heat, imitates nature but too successfully ! the pro- 

 cess and the product are the same — the only differ- 

 ence is the magnitude of the result. Penury and 

 ignorance can thus at any time, and in any place, 

 create a moral plague." 



* The name of the stream flowing through the farm of the 

 writer ; sacred to mournful memories. 

 Gill, Mass., Oct. 4, 1856. 



CLEANLINESS. 



There is a proverb in the Levant that "no Prince 

 ever died of the plague," which means that the 

 many resources which opulence affords are preven- 

 tives against contagion. Accordingly, we find that 

 in those Mahometan countries, where the plague 

 rages with the greatest violence, but few of those 

 who enjoy the first offices of the State are ever 

 attacked with the distemper, although according to 

 the precepts of Mahomet, they are obliged to ap- 

 pear in public at all times, and must comply with 

 the general custom in giving their hands to be 

 kissed indiscriminately by every Moor who comes 

 to beg justice, or throw himself under their pro- 

 tection. 



At a time when the plague at Algiers destroyed 

 many thousands of the populace, who easily caught 

 the infection from their negligence respecting their 

 persons, but two out of three hundred officers 

 belonging to the Dey's household, were attacked 

 with this mortal sickness. 



Nor is cleanliness beneficial only in contagious 

 disorders. Filth engenders corruption, taints the 

 atmosphere, and predisposes the system to disease. 

 And when an epidemic prevails, those persons who 

 are particularly cleanly in their habits, are less 

 likely to become victims to indisposition, than those 

 who pursue an op])Osite course. 



The importance of well ventilated rooms cannot 

 be too strongly urged upon the attendants of the 

 sick. A free circulation of air is not only beneficial 

 to persons laboring under severe attacks of illness, 

 but is absolutely necessary for the preservation of 



THE EAST AND THE WEST. 



We have read with much interest an article writ- 

 ten by the editor of the Wisconsin Farmer, in re- 

 ply to Gov. Boutwell's address before the Franklin 

 County Society, of this State, in 1855. The object 

 of this address is stated to be to indicate that the 

 West, although a region of great fertility and 

 abundant harvests, is not in every respect superior 

 to the East, and that we have some compensations 

 for the hardness of New England soil, and the rig- 

 or of our noi-thern climate. After speaking of the 

 well known fact that the mountain and the seashore 

 have ever been more favorable to an active, vigor- 

 ous, and free race of men, than the fertile plain, 

 Gov. Boutwell shows from the census statistics of 

 1850, that the agricultural and manufacturing pro- 

 ducts of Massachusetts and Vermont were larger, 

 on an average to each person, than were those pro- 

 ducts of Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin. 



On this point, the remarks of the editor of the 

 Wisconsin Farmer are spirited and able. His facts 

 and his arguments are creditable to himself, and 

 honorable to his State. 



Our object, however, in this notice, is not to in- 

 volve ourselves in this controversy between the 

 East and the West. While we rejoice in the re- 

 wards which honest industry finds in Wisconsin, 

 we are content with those which Massachusetts af- 

 fords. We wish simply to call the attention of our 

 friends who are "falling in love with the West" in 

 particular, and new countries in general, to the 

 following extract from the apology which the ed- 

 itor of the Wisconsin Farmer offers for the fact 

 that the people of Massachusetts and Vermont pro- 

 duce more than the people of the West. We re- 

 gard it as a very important concession, coming as 

 it does from one who has "spent over twenty years 



