1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



573 



motionless, not coiled up, nor vermicular, but out- 

 stretched, prostrate and limp — subject, abject to 

 the great gluttony of his instinct. 



"Old Injin-Rubber" pauses, as if for instructions 

 he receives them on his organ of philoprogenitive 

 ness from the boat-hook. Half a dozen more rolls 

 and lurches, and he plants his mountainous fore- 

 foot on the head of the drunken horror — eyes, 

 brains, blood burst out together. Like an eartb 

 worm on the pin-hook of an angling urchin, he 

 wriggles and squirms — now twisting his great girth 

 into seemingly everlasting knots — now erecting all 

 his length, without a kink, in air — now, in a tem- 

 pest of dust, thrashing the ground with resoundin, 

 stripes ; till, at last, his crushing strength all spent, 

 even his tail subdued, he lies and only shivers. 

 Then, again and again, Behemoth tosses him aloft, 

 again and again dashes him to earth ; till, torn and 

 spoiled, his gold and black all tarnished with slime, 

 and blood, and dust, the enemy is brought to 

 shame, and the heel of a babe might bruise the 

 head of the serpent. — Tlie Golden JDagon. 



For the New England Farmer. 



RELATION OF AGRICULTURE TO 

 HEALTH. 



Mr. Editor : — It is unquestionably admitted 

 that life in man cannot be sustained without air, 

 and also, that by breathing, most of the diseases of 

 mankind are acquired ; proving that through the 

 medium of air, man is, or is not healthy, according 

 as that air is or is not in a state conducive to health. 

 New countries are not healthy, nor are unimproved 

 lands ; and that place that produces the greatest re- 

 turn for labor expended cannot be healthy. 



The first relation of agriculture to health will be 

 obvious on exposition, that life cannot be prolonged 

 without oxygen, while that oxygen is produced by 

 the exhalation of plants ; plants, at the same time, 

 inspire and derive their nourishment from carbonic 

 acids, which, in a soil that vegetates vigorously, and 

 in the air that surrounds that soil, is found abun- 

 dantly ; and when it superabounds it causes mala- 

 dies; then imperatively demanding for continuance 

 of life more thorough and extensive cultivation, and 

 better disposal of that, which decomposing, causes 

 renewed quantities to circulate in the air. If the 

 impure air of our cities, and of all places where our 

 olfactory nerves would declare that there was car- 

 bonic acid, could be removed and placed upon 

 plants deprived of their supply, Doctors of Medi- 

 cine would flee from a country made healthy, not 

 by them, but by the farmer. How few estimate 

 the value of Boston Common to Boston. 



Thus it will be seen that an unhealthy country 

 contains in the air the fertilizing elements for ex- 

 tensive vegetation, the removal of which, by plants, 

 and the renewal of oxj'gen, will give to the air the 

 principles of health. But as this vegetable culture 

 improves the air, it becomes in consequence less 

 able to assist the growth of plants, and a previous- 

 ly productive country now positively needs manure 

 to generate the acid that heretofore was supplied 

 simply by the atmosphere. 



These observations indicate the relation of the 

 farmer to his country. He is a benefactor, he 

 holds the blessings of life in his sinewy hands ; 

 taking that which would destroy vs, he, in return, 

 offers us pure air, free, and wholesome food at con- 

 venient prices. E. J. w. 



SUPERIORITY OF OUR AGE. 



Our age is boastful of its advances beyond all 

 which have preceded it. It claims a vast superior- 

 ity, at least in the conveniences and arts of social 

 life, and has small respect for the rude implements 

 and barbarian manners of our great grandfathers. 

 The Saturday Evening Post is skej)tical as to the 

 face of progress, and from a long article in which it 

 sets forth the grounds of its unbelief, we select the 

 following paragraph, which may startle some of our 

 readers : 



Let us say a word about Mechanics. Everybody 

 knows, or ought to know, that the ancients had 

 telescopes, astrolabes, quadrants, burning and mag- 

 nifying glas.ses, the lever, the screw, and the imple- 

 ments of Science, Art, War, Agriculture, Manufac- 

 tures, etc., in great number and perfection. Without 

 them they could not have accomplished their known 

 results ; and one-tenth part of what they had or 

 accomplished is not known to us. Time makes sad 

 havoc of the monuments of man's skill. But now ; 

 there is the little city of Karnac in Egypt — there 

 are two Karnacs — the great and the little ; — in lit- 

 tle Karnac you could put Philadelphia and New 

 York and have room to spare ! The walls and 

 structures are colossal, and we argue safely that their 

 builders had both mechanical skill and sufficient 

 enginery to build them. There is Pompey's pillar, 

 fallen in the desert. The French and English en- 

 gineers, with all their best appliances, labored seven 

 days to move the enormous shaft ; they moved it 

 about an inch ! Yet that shaft had been quarried 

 from the rock at a distance of seven hundred miles, 

 conveyed from thence, and erectedm the desert ! sit 

 was hewn from the quarry of porphyry ; it is sculp- 

 tured all over with deep hieroglyphics ; and yet, as 

 we have said, our best instruments can hardly make 

 a scratch on porphyry, and having made it, are 

 blunted and useless ! Our best hydraulic works are 

 said by competent judges to be inferior to the 

 Chinese canals ; our best fortifications are pigmy to 

 the Chinese walls. We have no Artesian wells so 

 deep as the Chinese. In China the traveller meets 

 with borings three thousand feet deep, made to get 

 coal gas from the interior of the earth. Printing, 

 of a certain clumsy fashion, the Chinese have had 

 for centuries : it is highly probable other nations 

 had it too in greater perfection, though as the phil- 

 osophy of those ages was hostile to the diffusion of 

 knowledge, it was probably the secretof the aristo- 

 cracy or the priests. The relics of railroads are still 

 seen in India, but of gigantic size, capable of bearing 

 an entire temple. How do we know they had not 

 steam, or some propulsive force equal thereto ? It 

 is hardly safe to assume of such people that they 

 had not everything they needed, if within the scope 

 of human wit. Herodotus mentions having seen at 

 Demi, an enormous globe of vivid light surmounting 

 a tall column, which lit the entire city. That beats 

 our gas-lamps all to nothing ! We have lately seen 

 statements purporting to come from (we think,) 

 Col. Maitland, of the East India Company, narrat- 

 ing as a fact that the natives in that country have 

 some mysterious method of communication by 

 which they are enabled to transmit news from one 

 part of the country to another, faster than a courier 

 can convey it at his utmost speed. If this is true, 

 (and really one is prepared to believe anything of 

 the Hindus !) there is an odor about it very like the 

 magnetic telegraph. 



