DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCEiS. 



VOL. XL 



BOSTON, SEPTEMBER, 1859. 



NO. 9. 



NOmSE, E \TON & TOLMAN, Proprietors. cTT\/rm\T tj-powtvt -pnTTriTj FRED'K HOI.BROOK, ) Associate 



Office.. .34 Mercuaxts Row. SIMON BR0W3M, ±,DITOR. HEXKY F. FRE.NX'n, ( Editors. 



SEPTEMBER. 



To him who, in the love of nature, holds 



Communion with the visible forms, she speaks 



A various language. For his gayerhoura 



She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 



And eloquence of beauty; and she glides 



Into his darlser musings with a mild 



And gentle j.vmpatby, but steals away 



Their sharpness, ere he is aware. Bryant. 



^-^^feO. 



its name from Sep- 

 '\ tum, a Latin word 

 meaning seven, be- 

 cause formerly the 

 Aij year began with 

 ^ March instead of 

 January — making 

 September the sev- 

 enth month of the 

 year. 



September is 

 ■^^^^ called a fall month, but it 

 Jlj'"^^ seems more properly to 

 _, be a connecting link be- 

 ^^ tween summer and fall. — 



Its first days are as warm and 

 calm as those of June — not to 

 speak of the month of June, eigh- 

 teen hundred and fifty-nine, when 

 it rained, and rained, till man- 

 kind almost feared a second deluge — but of June 

 such as it should be — such as it was in our mem- 

 ories, and on the page of the poet. It is true, we 

 miss the long, sweet twilights of early summer — 

 and a few yellow leaves gleam from among the 

 abundant foliage, like the first gray hairs that tell 

 of departing youth. We can see, too, that the sun 

 sets a little further to the south, but his beams 

 areas ardent as ever, and as yet we have no need 

 to put by our light garments, or to close our win- 

 dows and doors against the outer world. 



But presently comes the "equinoctial storm" 

 — and the bright, brief vision of a northern sum- 



mer is over ! How the wind wrestles with the 

 trees, and strips off the leaves, still green, in 

 showers ! Now we are glad to gather about the 

 fire again, and to beguile our evenings with books 

 and work in winter fashion. When the storm 

 has spent its fury, it will pass by, but not again 

 shall we look out upon a landscape having the 

 semblance of summer. Decay is everywhere vis- 

 ible. Even the birds have heard a mysterious 

 voice telling them that winter is coming, and 

 warning them to seek a warmer climate. Man 

 however, is not nomadic. It seems strange that, 

 when "the world is all before them," human be- 

 ings should voluntarily subject themselves to the 

 inconveniences of extreme heat and cold. But 

 such is man's attachment to home, that he will 

 endure almost anything rather than cut loose 

 from old associations, and wander over the world 

 seeking a place of rest. If necessity compel 

 him to this, he presently takes root in his new 

 abode — and gathers his household goods about 

 him. As one by one his friends pass away, here 

 he buries his dead, and more than one harsh 

 wind will blow over him, before he will volunta- 

 rily surrender the comforts and delights of a per- 

 manent home. One would think, too, that the 

 dwellers in the most beautiful lands would have 

 the strongest attachment to home and country, 

 — but such is not the case. The Frenchman 

 loves his "vine-clad" France, and the Italian his 

 sunny Italy, but the Switzer on duty in a foreign 

 country, must not even hear his familiar Banz 

 des Vaches, or he can no longer be restrained 

 from returning to the hills and glaciers of his 

 own native land. Even the Esquimaux and Ice- 

 lander, were they transported to the orange-groves 

 of the South, would sigh for the huts where they 

 had burrowed with wife and children, and per- 

 haps said wife and children are just as beautiful 

 in their eyes, clad in robes of bear-skin, as those 

 of their more luxurious neighbors in their silks 

 and muslins. Well, "every man to his taste." 



