VOt,. XVI. NO. S8. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL 



ectedly cut off, they have found the symptoms 

 old age come on early in life, attended with 

 ns and innumerable disorders, 

 f we value our health, we must ever make it a 

 s not to eat to satiety or fullness, hut desist 

 lie the stomach feels quite easy. Thus we 

 II be refreshed, light and cheerful; not dull, 

 vy or indisposed. Should we be tempted to 

 too much at one time, we should eat the less 

 nother. Thus, if our dinner had been larger 

 1 usual, let our snjiper be less, or rattier cpiite 

 tied ; for there is no man, however careful of 

 health, who does not occasionally transgress 

 his way. 



219 



HE UIFFERFNCE BETWEEN USING BrICES I.f 



RY OR Wet State, for Masonry. Proprie- 

 who are about to have brick buildings erected, 

 do well to attend to the following statement 

 he purport of v.hich is almost universally 

 ected, even by the few persons who are aware 

 Is importance. 



Few people, except builders, are aware of tlje 

 mtages of welting bricks before laying llieni. 

 all twelve inches thick, built up of good mor- 

 with bricks well soaked, is stronger in every 

 ect, than one sixteen inches thick, built up 

 The reason of this is, that if the bricks are 

 rated with water, they will not abstract from 

 mortar the moisture which is necessary to its 

 atallization ; and, on the contrary, they will 

 1 chemically with the mortar, and become nl- 

 ; as solid as a rock. On the other hand, if 

 iricks are put u|> dry, they i/nmediately take 

 le moisture from the mortar, and leave it too 



harden, and the consequence is, that when 

 ilding of this description is taken down, or 

 lies down of its own accord, the mortar falls 



it like so much sand." 



!>sons or bricklayers are sufficiently well in- 

 ed on this subject ; but is would seem that 

 care very little about the durability of their 



— and there is at least one reason why thev 

 ery unwilling to use bricks in a proper state, 

 ts to be saturated, will absorb so great a quan- 

 if water, that their v/eight becomes greatly 

 ased, and consequently the labor of hand- 

 and laying them. And unless [)roprietors 



willing to make a considerable addition Im 

 irice paid for laying dry bricks, the workmen 

 y be greatly the losers by the change. 

 e proof of the above position may be seen 

 nost every instance of the pulling down of 

 ;k house, of modern and ordinary construc- 

 The liricks which form the walls above 

 id are easily iletached from each other, and 

 !il of the very weak and crumbling cement 

 len ; while in the walls of the cellar, or of 

 undation courses, which were always in con- 

 with moist earth, and therefore the bricks 

 kept moist, they are so closely cemented to- 

 p, that they can scarcely be separated and 

 d of the old mortar. 



e necessity of keeping up moisture until the 

 It has had time to "set," is seldom more re- 

 d in the plastering of houses. This opera- 



1 often executed in the hottest and driest 

 er, so that all the moisture of each coat is 

 rated in a day or two. Theory would in- 

 is, that if laid on in damp and cool weather, 

 ier the close of summer, that plastering 



be far more solid and durable.— Furmer*' 

 Ier. 



(From theGt-nesee Farmer.) 



SHEEP. 



Mr Editor : A year or two ago, that farmer felt 

 himself most fortunate, and treading most rapidly 

 and securely the road to wealth, whose farm was 

 most heavily stocked, in projjortion to what it 

 would bear, with sheep. I speak, of course, of 

 the wool-growing region. The prices which wool 

 then bore, placed the business of producing it, 

 (irst in the scale of profit, and therefore, perhaps 

 it is matter of little surprise, that all whose means 

 enabled it, rushed into it with indiscriminate ea- 

 gerness. Another turn of the wheel has sudden- 

 ly, for the time being at least, prostrated this lu- 

 crative branch of industry in the dust. In the 

 grazing region, the dairy is now the all-absorbing 

 object. Flocks collected with great care, and at 

 uncommon prices, are in m.'iny ijistances, actually 

 crowded off, by their former purchasers, at a moi- 

 ty of their original price. 



This is committing a double folly. It is a re- 

 fusal to profit by the lessons of experience. In 

 the first place, it was sheer folly for those to cm- 

 bark exclusively in wool-growing, who did it at 

 the sacrifice of any other good business, in which 

 they were then engaged, or who entered into it un- 

 prepared, — perhaps unacquainted with it. The 

 man who, for example, had a well regulated dai- 

 ry establishment, and wliose farm vvas stocked 

 with valuable cows, — or he whose barns and oth- 

 er fixtures were constructed in reference to graz- 

 ing and stall feeding, — or, the man whose prepa- 

 rations had been made for the mixed husbandry 

 of the country ; — and who suddenly abandoned it 

 all — left pursuits with which he was acquainted, 

 tore down and built anew — and upset the calcu- 

 lations of years, to embark in a new business, be- 

 cause that business incidentally held out a greater 

 prospect of temporary profit, certainly acted with 

 a want of discretion which deserves no milder 

 epithet than 'folly.' And in the second place, 

 baring once engaged in wool-growing, having col- 

 lected flocks, made the requisite arrangements for 

 taking care of them, and required a degree of 

 skill in their management, it is now equally ab- 

 surd and injudicious, because something else holds 

 out gr(;ater present inducements, to desert it, at 

 the sacrifice which under such circumstances is 

 always inevitable. In the language of the trite 

 old adage, '-A rolling stone gathers no moss." 



Every department of industry has its iips and 

 downs. When any one branch, from being over- 

 done, or from other causes, ceases to be profitable, 

 the very abandonment of it, which the discovery 

 of this fact produces, brings it in due course of 

 time (when the general desertion causes a scarci- 

 ty of the article) again to the suirunit. It is an 

 inevitable consequence.- The question simply is, 

 then " is it better by remaining stationary, to take 

 our turn in being at the toj), or to be, like the 

 squirrel in his wheel, ever pursuing, and ever be- 

 low, in these continual gyrations?" But wool- 

 growing lias not got, unless my observation has 

 led me to form strangely erroneous conclusions, 

 to go through the slow process of resuscication 

 from the depression consequent on over action. — 

 The business has not been overdone. I will ad- 

 vert to this more jmrticularly hereafter. 



What is there, now let me ask, (and I should 

 be happy to see my opinions controverted, if they 

 are wrong,) to discourage the steady and syste- 

 matic wcol-grower ? True, there is no present de- 

 mand for his product, but there must be a demand 



for it, or we must learn to dispense with woolens 

 —-a thing not likely to occur soon, I think, in our 

 climate. Experience has shown that we can man- 

 ufacture in this country, in ordinary limea, with 

 profit. If this were not the case, we should hardly 

 find the capital of a people so justly celebrated for 

 thrift and economy, as our N. England neighbors 

 invested in those noble mannfaciuring establish- 

 ments, which give life and animation lo so ipany 

 of their cities. Experience has also shown that 

 in supplying the.se establishuients with the raw 

 material, our wool-growers ran compete with 



those of Germany, and still receive vast profits. 



How can the fact be otherwise, when our sheep- 

 master can grow as much (and as good) wool to 



one acre of land, as his German competitor and 



when that land can be purchased by the Ameri- 

 can,at a tithe of what it costs the German ? The dif- 

 ference in ihe price of labor is hardly to be taken 

 into account, so little, comparatively speaking, is 

 required in the management of sheep. Yet the 

 German ships wool across the Atlantic — pays a 

 heavy American duty — and after all those deduc- 

 tions, sells his wool at a profit, which leads him 

 to set a five hundred per cent, higher value on 

 his sheep than the American. At the Royal 

 flocks of Stolpen, Reunersdorf, Lohue, etc., and 

 in [M-ivale flocks of equal celebrity, the first grade 

 of sheep are valued at from fifty to seventy-five 

 dollars a head ! The i)rofils of the American 

 grower must be treble that of the German, yet the 

 German is satisfied, or he would not send his 

 wool here. 



If the positions I have assumed are correct, it 

 follows, I think, conclusively, that the business 

 must be a good one, the moment that our pecuni- 

 ary embarrasments pass by, and our manufactories 

 are enafded to resume operations. He who thinks 

 that day is very remote, knows little of the ener- 

 gies and resources of the American people. Tlie 

 business, moreover, must always continue good, 

 until overdone by ourselves. That this has not 

 yet occurred, I have already stated. It is shown 

 by the fact that on the years in which the greatest 

 clips have been taken, (1835, '36, and '37,) they 

 did not meet our home demand, and large quan- 

 tities were imported. And the very folly I com- 

 plained of in the beginning of this paper — the 

 abandonment of the business by tlie multitudes 

 who have not steadiness and energy to withstand 

 one hour of adversity, will put still farther off the 

 time wiicn it can be overdone. The full rise in 

 prices of wool may not immediately follow the 

 revival of trade, as the amount which accumu- 

 lates in the interim, may overstock the market, 

 and of consequence, play the game into the hands 

 of the buyer. But this will be only temporary. 

 Wants are also accumulating. The wardrobe has 

 not escaped, in those curtailments of personal ex- 

 penses, which the times have i-endered conven- 

 ient, if not necessary, at the hands of almost every 

 one. 



I will close my somewhat extended remarks, 

 by saying to my brother wool-growers, " be of 

 good cheer." The time is soon coming, when 

 thote who are so eager to desert a ship which 

 they fancy to be sinking, will be back to beg a 

 re-admission. Of course they will expect to pay 

 for the privilege. South Hill. 



Bricklayers are getting $3,50 per day, in Grand 

 Gulf, Mississippi, 



