1859. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



541 



they may be seen in single file by scores, at the 

 approach of an intruding footstep, scrambling up 

 the pipe. Dying in this way affects these crea- 

 tures as 'sighing and grief,' did Falstaff, — it 

 'blows them up like a bladder.' " 



As to advantages of Drainage at the West, Dr. 

 Hoyt remarks : 



"It is to be remembered that the agricultural 

 districts of this country are lower and flatter 

 than those of England, and that they receive 

 double the amount of rain-fall per annum. We 

 have no doubt that the value of the prairie lands 

 in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri might be 

 at least trebled by a proper distribution of drain 

 tiles, four feet under ground. Corn, instead of 

 being dropped into sub- aqueous drills from a raft, 

 in June, with poor prospect of a harvest, might 

 be planted on dry ground, early in May, with an 

 assurance of reaping a hundred-fold. Wheat, no 

 longer frozen out of the clayey soil every winter, 

 might yield, not twelve, but, like John Hudson's 

 on his Castle Acre farm, 'forty-eight bushels to 

 the acre.' The farmers themselves, now shaking 

 ■with intermittent chills amidst the noxious mi- 

 asmata that rest like a pall upon coarse sedge 

 and miry pools, might riot in fragrant clover and 

 luxuriant health." 



The following remarks forcibly express the 

 principles which we have constantly advocated 

 in our columns and elsewhere, wherever our 

 voice could be heard. 



"Every profound thought lifts a shadow from 

 the earth. Every good book, whether it treat of 

 "Farm Drainage" or "Celestial Mechanics," helps 

 forward the millennium. 



"The advantages of intellectual culture are as 

 obvious in those pursuits involving manual la- 

 bor, as in the learned professions, so called. A 

 good education is of some consequence to the 

 lawyer and physician ; it is of not less conse- 

 quence to the mechanic and the farmer. We have 

 known professional men who could make a little 

 learning go a great way with the wondering mul- 

 titude ; but such poor tricks cannot be played oil 

 upon the hidden forces of nature. It is the finger 

 of Intelligence alone which can touch the secret 

 springs that set the mountain streams to the mu- 

 sic of machinery, and clothe the naked fields with 

 waving grain. It is a maxim in New England 

 factories, v/here a fluctuating and often hostile 

 tariff has taught a wise economy, that they can- 

 not afford to hire cheap, ignorant labor. Not 

 many years ago a factory in Lowell imported a 

 large number from England. But it turned out 

 that these persons, though paid but half the 

 wages of the better-educated operatives at home, 

 were nevertheless an expensive luxury to their 

 employers. They could not earn their living, 

 and, in a few weeks, they were all, with three or 

 four exceptions, dismissed. A partner in one of 

 the most respectable mercantile houses in Bos- 

 ton, having the principal direction of extensive 

 cotton-mills, stated, a few years ago, in reply to 

 the interrogatories of a Congressional Commit- 

 tee, that, of the twelve hundred operatives annu- 

 ally employed by him, forty-five only were una- 

 ble to write their names ; and that the difference 

 between the average wages of these forty-five and 



of the remaining eleven hundred and fifty-five 

 was just twenty-seven per cent, in favor of the 

 latter. There were also in the same mills one 

 hundred and fifty girls who had been engaged in 

 teaching school. The wages of these school- 

 mistresses was seventeen and three-fourths per 

 cent, above the general average, and more than 

 forty per cent, above the wages of those who 

 were obliged to make their mark. It is safe to 

 affirm, that there is not a cotton-mill in the coun- 

 try, with operatives, whether native or foreign, 

 too ignorant to read and write, which could be 

 made to yield a profit in the best times. The 

 fabrics would be inferior in quality and in quan- 

 tity ; the machinery Vt'ould be misused and pre- 

 maturely worn out ; and the stockholders would 

 be soon brought to a realizing sense of the difl'er- 

 ence between dividends and assessments." 



The following sly hit at our political aspirants, 

 deserves to be i-epeated : "We may in accord- 

 ance with a well-known political principle, select 

 for our premium crop a piece of land, which, like 

 a candidate for some high ofl5ce in the nation, 

 has a southern exposure, and which will, there- 

 fore, receive a greater number of solar rays on a 

 given area than a northern slope or a horizontal 

 level." 



We hardly know where to stop in our extracts 

 from this article. Every page abounds with sen- 

 tences which are worthy to be written in letters 

 of gold and displayed on the door-posts of every 

 farm-house in New England. The dignity of 

 labor, the superiority of force guided by intelli- 

 gence over mere physical power, and the impor- 

 tance of cherishing a taste for the beautiful in 

 the farmers' home, are among its prominent 

 topics. 



Then the writer, by various illustrations, 

 brings out clearly to view the advantages of sci- 

 entific knowledge to the agriculturist, showing 

 the effect upon vegetation of heat, of light, of air 

 and of moisture, and as incidental to those essen- 

 tial conditions of vegetable growth, the impor- 

 tance of thorough drainage and deep culture. 



Then follow some carefully considered re- 

 marks upon protection of crops from insects, 

 showing that the farmer has in the insect world 

 friends as well as foes, and the necessity of his 

 knowing how to discriminate between his friends 

 and foes. 



Then we have a kind word for the beautiful 

 singing-birds, and finally an exhortation to cher- 

 ish our Home, as the centre of all true civiliza- 

 tion, with which we must take leave of an article 

 which we trust will be generally read throughout 

 the country. 



"How shall we render our homes more pleas- 

 ant and attractive ? Some one has said that the 

 three most beautiful words in the English lan- 

 guage are Mother, Home and Heaven. They 

 naturally go together, either of them implying 

 the two. The great error in Plato's Republic is 



