568 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dec. 



on a good farm in Vermont, and about the same 

 time in Wisconsin, and, hence, speaks from his own 

 actual experience." Our observation satisfied us 

 long ago that the actual difference between a "farm" 

 and a "government lot of land" was seldom fully 

 appreciated. We are here told plainly, that at 

 least one-half of the first five years, and one-fourth 

 of the next ten years, are employed by the whole 

 population in all new countries in doing that, which 

 in old countries is already done ! Hence, the rea- 

 son why the Wisconsin farmer cannot produce as 

 much as the Vermont farmer, is because he is 

 obliged to be gone three days out of every week 

 from his fields, to attend to the "making up of the 

 country !" 



The following is the paragraph alluded to, and 

 we would again urge it upon the attention of all 

 who have any symptoms of the "Western fever." 



"After enumerating every item of income in the 

 old States, he (Gov. Boutwell,) simply takes up the 

 same class of items in the new states, without say- 

 ing ever a word about another class of labor, and 

 product, which in every new country must and does 

 engross a large share of the labor and productive 

 industry of the population — to wit : the erection of 

 houses and buildings of all sorts, from the palace 

 to the log-cabin, the pig-pen and hen-coop ; the 

 clearing and breaking of lands, and ditching 

 and fencing the same ; the planting of orchards, 

 the making of roads and public conveniences of 

 every kind. These all urge themselves, first and fore- 

 most, upon the attention of the settler in the new 

 country ; and it is not too much to assume, that at 

 least one-half of the time of the whole population, 

 is employed in thus making up the country, as one 

 may say, for the first five years ; and at least one- 

 fourth for the next ten years ; while in the old 

 States it is notorious that little or nothing of the 

 kind is to be done." 



fashion of sawing wood makes fewer chips than the 

 old process of chopping ; but there will, under all 

 systems, be splinters and fragments of wood that 

 may be usefully employed. Every farm, especially 

 if it has a wood lot, can furnish a great quantity of 

 these. 



It will never do to throw them down under the 

 wood-shed.. They become damp and mouldy in 

 such positions, and soon get covered with litter and 

 are lost sight of. 



No plan of a house is complete without a regu- 

 lar Chip Room, accessible, and capacious enough for 

 all purposes connected with chips. 



The writer has a 'Chip Room,' a little distance 

 from the house, but we grossly abuse it by filling 

 it full of all imaginable and unimaginable things, 

 besides chips. For want of a better place, a room 

 may be constructed in the upper part of the wood 

 shed. At any rate, it should have a floor above the 

 ground, so as to leave the chips dry. 



In the spring of the year, or on a dry day, gath- 

 er up the pieces, and make your 'deposit.' You 

 can then 'draw' against it in any time of need. 



Farmers usually have, in the spring, a large ac- 

 cumulaiion of chips, which, for want of a place and 

 a proper system, are spoiled, or in the general 

 clearing up, if such a thing should occur, they are 

 burned up with the rubbish or carted oft' with the 

 'chip-machine.' 



Besides the great convenience of chips, in kind- 

 ling fires, they are particularly useful in the sum- 

 mer when a blaze is wanted to boil a tea-kettle, and 

 a hot, continuous fire is not desired. 



At any rate, the saving of fuel by any and by all 

 means, becomes a necessity, in view of our increas- 

 ing population, and our diminishing forests. 



H. T. B." 



ABOUT CHIPS. 



We copy the following article from the Attica 

 Atlas. It is prefaced with the remark that an indi- 

 vidual chip is diminutive and does not weigh much 

 in the great world's affairs ; but chips in the aggre- 

 gate are numerous, valuable, and every way respec- 

 table. Certain it is, that a dry room to which all 

 chips, splinters and fragments of wood can be con- 

 signed, might prevent the accumulation of unsight- 

 ly rubbish about the wood-house and yards, and 

 greatly facilitate the building of fires, and withal 

 save a great deal of valuable material : 



"Chips, — Yes, I mean veritable chips. 'Chip, a 

 piece of wood,' — Webster. And a very good thing 

 it is, too, if it is dry and on hand when you want 

 it ! Chips make a quick fire in the morning ; they 

 are better than a 'three minute horse,' in a Februa- 

 ry freeze, when you are striding about the room at 

 day-break, your hair pointing to all parts of the 

 habitable and uninhabitable universe, your bowels 

 collapsed by playing the part of a bellows, and your 

 heart sick from 'hope deferred,' 



There is a world of comfort and of value in chips, 

 if you ^\ill only save and use them. The modern 



For the New England Farmer. 



A SHORT PHILIPIC. 



Mr. Editor : — I take it to be as plain as the 

 nose on a man's face — hardly less glaring than the 

 proboscis of one who has swallowed adulterated li- 

 quors till his snuffing apparatus has become the larg- 

 est part of him, and the highest colored — that a 

 horse all thigh and no haunch,more wind than meat, 

 snuffing applause instanter, and scampering unbid, 

 is not the horse to look well and do us good and 

 safe service every day in the year. He may win 

 his owner a thousand dollar purse, when a foci can 

 be found to give it, but is worth little for other and 

 more rational purposes. The idea, that a horse's 

 power to scamper like a spirit through applausing 

 crowds, is a test of his real serviceableness, is a hum- 

 bug, mere fol-de-rol, no truth in it. We want hors- 

 es to do us service, safe, able, always sure, hand- 

 some always, three hundred sixty-five days in a 

 year, not to win a gambler's purse, on a holiday. 

 These fast horses are anything but what we need. 

 We can break our necks on the railroad, if that be- 

 comes desirable, or with a halter, if the public good 

 requires it. We need such savagely fast horses for 

 no good purpose whatever. Why under heaven 

 will sober-minded, right-thinking, honest farmers 

 tolerate the rickety, fidgety, harum-scarum things, 

 at shows got up with their approbation, for their 

 benefit, and partly with their money ? Once the 

 fairs were useful. May they become so again. 



Old Times. 



