1859. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Ill 



words. Prompted by this love of their occupa- 

 tion, individual effort among farmers would soon 

 work wonders, and on individual effort every- 

 thing, almost, depended. In conjunction with 

 Farmers' Clubs no limit could be placed to the 

 good it would accomplish ; and if gentlemen 

 would go home determined to institute them, if 

 in five years hence they failed to pay for them- 

 selves, Mr. Brown said he would, if able, be re- 

 sponsible for the intermediate outlay. Besides 

 the credit of aiding the noblest of all human in- 

 terest up to the mark of its highest improvement, 

 it should be understood that the benefits of such 

 associations, intellectually considered, would be 

 important and useful to individuals in teaching 

 them to condense and express the promptings of 

 their minds. Mr. Brown concluded by advising 

 that no society should be allowed to duplicate its 

 premiums year and year again, in favor of the 

 same article or animal ; that counties spend a por- 

 tion of their bounty money in the encouragement 

 of meetings and discussions among the people, 

 as where this had been done in New Hampshire 

 and elsewhere, the very best results had followed, 

 and the meeting might rely on it that such good 

 would follow as they had never known to proceed 

 from any hitherto tried means. 



Sanford Howard, Esq., of the Cultivator, 

 was the next speaker. He endorsed the senti- 

 ments of the previous speakers ; advocated an ex- 

 tended area of comparison in connection with the 

 products 6f the State, and illustrated its benefits 

 by relating sundry appropriate anecdotes ; re- 

 commended but one society in counties, which 

 should have its exhibitions distributed over the 

 territory ; approved of Farmers' Clubs, and stated 

 his belief that a due attention to their interests 

 would enable farmers to add a very large per cent- 

 tage to their products at a very trifling expense 

 of labor as contrasted with the unscientific man- 

 ner in which many of them operated at present. 



John Brooks, of Princeton, spoke in opposi- 

 tion to the importing of foreign scientific agricul- 

 ture to American farmers, as it had always proved 

 unreliable, and in favor of our constituting a 

 science from what our experience taught us. He 

 approved of State exhibitions if conducted by the 

 Board of Agriculture. 



Mr. Sheldon, of Wilmington, put in a plea 

 for the right of every man to have a portion of 

 the public territory to till — in other words, that 

 it was the burden and duty of Uncle Sam, seeing 

 he had the means, to "give every man a farm." 



Mr. Brown, of Concord, then offered the fol- 

 lowing resolution for the acceptance of the meet- 

 ing: 



liesolved, That the Legislature be requested to pass an act 

 requiring each county society receivinp a portion of its bounty 

 to devote one-third of the whole amount received to the sui)poi't 

 of Agricultural meetings and discussions in various parts of the 

 county. 



After being discussed by Rev. Mr. Babbidge, 

 of Pepperell, W. J. BucKMiNSTER, Esq., and 

 others, the resolution of Mr. Brown was laid on 

 the table, with the view that time should be 

 granted the society to consider and act upon it 

 deliberately. 



The meeting occupied over two hours ; and at 

 its close Mr. Flint announced the subject for 

 discussion Monday evening to be, "What breeds 

 of stock are best adapted to mixed farming f 



For the New England Farmer. 

 CONGRATULATORY— THE FRENCHES- 

 NEW ENGLAND. 



Mr. Editor : — The monthly Farmer for Jan- 

 uary, 1859, has come to hand, and "looks like a 

 picture," as fond mothers and nursery-maids say. 

 As "the apparel oft proclaims the man," so also 

 does it the periodical. Its type and paper are 

 excellent ; worthy the matter it presents and the 

 price charged. Good, substantial, white paper 

 gives good typography, as good land good crops. 



Your associate, Judge French, I perceive, has 

 given you and your rural home a regular "set 

 to !" But it is what you might have expected 

 from a lawyer ; and there is no doubt, from his 

 own admission on the stand, that he smuggled 

 the article in, in utter violation of the lex scripta, 

 the lex noil scripfa, and all the other recognized 

 lexes of the land ! With such a man you prob- 

 ably claim no "kith or kin ;" and undoubtedly, 

 on the first opportunity, you will make him feel 

 the lex taUnnis. 



But, "Know all men by these presents," nev- 

 ertheless, however, notwithstanding — Judge 

 French is a man after my own heart. Probably 

 he is regarded as a "good lawyer," (if the phrase 

 is not a contradiction !) and an unimpeachable 

 judge; and the readers of your journal know he 

 has some critical knowledge of agriculture — neat 

 cattle, swine, and particularly horses — so that he 

 of course, must be 



"Great on the bench, great in the saddle " 



Besides, he possesses a fine vein of wit and 

 humor. It crops out in all his topics, or rushes 

 melting into all their chasms. In other words, 

 he overjloics with mirth ; and no system of un- 

 derdraining has sufficed to abate it ! Whether 

 in charging a grave jm-y or "teaching the young 

 idea how to lioe," I apprehend it must be forever 

 welling up. This agreeable humor, often com- 

 ing in contact — perhaps through the Farmer — 

 with that of a sourer and graver nature, forms a 

 kind of neutral salt, which may be of some ben- 

 efit to agriculturists, if not to agriculture ! A dis- 

 position like Mr. French's, capable of diffusing so 

 much happiness among others, surely need not 

 go abroad for its own. 



But there is another French who writes for 

 your paper. If I read understandingly, he was 

 raised in New Hampshire, but was taken up and 

 transplanted into the polyglot city of Washing- 

 ton, where the sword of the nation officially hangs, 

 and where he has been spreading his branches, 

 perhaps in more than native luxuriance, for there 

 exists a peculiarly rich alluvion, (formed from 



