1858. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



265 



inches of rain during the last six months, which 

 is about half the quantity of snow that fell (lur- 

 ing the corresponding months of 1856-7, and 

 nearly an equal quantity of rain. There has been 

 little or no good sleighing, although the ground 

 has been partially covered with snow the greater 

 part of the time. The amount of snow at any 

 time would not exceed five or six inches, while 

 its average depth was less than two inches ; con- 

 sequently the ground has been frozen to a great 

 depth. The earth is extremely dry, owing to the 

 small quantity of rain which has fallen during 

 the past two months. 



The birds have made their appearance in the 

 following order: Blue-bird arrived March 17; 

 robin, 19; black-bird, 27 ; Phoebe and meadow- 

 lark, April 1. Vegetation has not made any 

 progress, and the fields look barren and desolate. 

 There was a thunder-storm last night, which pass- 

 ed to the north, at about 6 P. M. Another came 

 over this place at a little before seven, with heavy, 

 rolling thunder and vivid flashes of white light- 

 ning. The color of the lightning denotes a low 

 cloud, which appeared to cover only a limited 

 space. Our first thunder-storm last year was on 

 the evening of the 28th of May, nearly two 

 months later than the present. To-day the Green 

 Mountains are clad in their robes of white, wear- 

 ing the aspect of winter — a natural consequence 

 of an electrical disturbance, which passes away 

 as the equilibrium is restored. 



D. BUCKLAND. 



Brandon, Vt., April 6, 1858. 



SHALL WE EAT POKK ? 



Messrs. Editors : — We shall, of course. — 

 The question is altogether superfluous. Nine- 

 tenths of us have from one to a dozen porkers, 

 within a stone's throw of our dwellings, (the 

 other tenth wish they had,) and what shall we do 

 with them ? Your correspondent might as well 

 inquire, "when we are hungry, shall we eat or 

 starve ?" No one feels that the old Levitical 

 law are binding on us of this generation ; they 

 are the fossil remains of the buried and almost 

 forgotten past, and are not to be classed with 

 the commands of the Decalogue, which are found- 

 ed, as I believe, upon eternal principles of right. 

 Commentators teach, and our reason accepts the 

 teaching, that the law concerning swine's flesh 

 was enacted from causes local and peculiar to 

 that climate and people. The anti-swiners will 

 admit that what is very proper food in one cli- 

 mate, may be improper in another; and a slice 

 of raw blubber may be very palatable and stom- 

 achic in latitude eighty, with the mercury at 

 forty below zero, while at the equator the same 

 article would be disgusting. I have seen many 

 men who professed the same belief as your cor- 

 respondent ; but they will all confess themselves 

 in the daily use of that which their reason and 

 conscience so strongly condemn. The fact is, 

 gentlemen, your scruples are not skin deep, nor 

 need they be. The vision of the Apostle ought 

 to teach us, as it did him, that what God has 

 cleansed, we should not call unclean. That there 

 is a large class of diseases brought on by the use 

 of pork, "I deny, and call for proof." What if 

 I assume that it is the use of beef that brings 

 on the diseases to which you refer ; is not my 



position as tenable as yours? But "every crea- 

 ture of God is good, and nothing to be refused," 

 but they should be used with moderation as well 

 as received with thanksgiving. The human econ- 

 omy requires a certain amount of carbon to keep 

 up its fires and lubricate its bearings, and we find 

 the article in a highly concentrated and conven- 

 ient form on the back of a well fatted porker. 

 What a cunning elaborator of essential oils the 

 comfortable rascal is ! He is a true gentleman 

 of science, and in his little laboratory, he per- 

 forms feats of analysis unapproachable by a John- 

 son. He will filter the slops of the kitchen, re- 

 solve into their constituent elements the refuse 

 of the garden, "from seeming evil still educing 

 good," and separate and assimilate the surplus 

 of the grain-field, and, interstratified with mus- 

 cle, will be found a whole "carboniferous system" 

 on his back and sides, as the result. And how 

 the residuum, when applied to the garden, "with 

 transport touches all the springs of vegetable 

 life !" 



The fact is, gentlemen hog defamers, you must 

 reform your habits, and tell your ladies to mod- 

 erate their cuisine. Don't set down and "stufi" 

 you full as an egg" of fried sausages, and hot 

 buckwheat cakes, saturated with their fat, and 

 then in a fit of indigestion, mentally send all 

 pigdom down a steep place into the sea. Don't 

 lay your gastronomic sins at the door of the sty, 

 when they should be laid at the door of your 

 face. You would not think of building a rousing 

 anthracite fire in your parlor, with the mercury 

 at ninety, nor should you build one equally fierce 

 in your corporeal kitchen with fat pork, under like 

 thermal conditions. When you can raise 150 lbs. 

 of steam with pine wood, what is the use of ros- 

 in ? Regulate your fires then according to the 

 season, and let piggy live and enjoy his brief 

 year ; and with the pork-barrel well filled with 

 his embalmed remains, you may snap your fingers 

 at the wintry blasts that howl drearily around 

 your dwelling. — Country Gentleman. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 INDIAJNT COKN. 



I am happy to learn from "M. A.," in the Far- 

 mer of this date, that he never reported 145 bush- 

 els of corn to the acre. I am glad that such a 

 statement has not the sanction of his authority. 

 I had the impression that he had thus averred 

 — but I may have confounded the remarks of the 

 Ploughman on the subject — and not having the 

 papers at hand, to refer to, must leave it, with 

 the reflection that his professional cloth is more 

 likely to be correct than my own, though in mat- 

 ters agricultural, 1 always endeavor to speak tru- 

 ly, according to my knowledge. I heartily con- 

 cur in the opinion that there is increasing atten- 

 tion given to the culture of Indian corn, and that 

 it is becoming to be looked upon as one of our 

 most valuable crops. I, this morning, sent a 

 parcel by express, to a distinguished agricultur- 

 ist, in the Empire State, telling him that the 

 variety had been cultivated on my native hills for 

 twenty years or more ; that it made good Johnny 

 cakes, and good pork — and these afforded as 

 good living as was enjoyed by our Pilgrim Fath- 

 ers. P. 



April 17, 1858. 



