1858. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



277 



SEEDTIME AND HARVEST 



BY J. O. TVHITTISR. 



As o'er his furrowed fields which lie 

 Beneath a coldly-dropping sky, 

 Yet chill with winter's melted snow^ 

 The husbandman goes forth to sow ; 



Thus, Freedom, on the bitter blast 

 The ventures of thy seed we cast, 

 And trust to warmer sun and rain, 

 To swell the germ, and fill the grain. 



Who calls thy glorious service hard ? 

 Who deems it not its own reward ? 

 Who, for its trials, counts it less 

 A cause of praise and thankfulness? 



It may not be our lot to wield 

 The sickle in the rijK'ned field ; 

 Nor ours to hear, on summer eves, 

 The reaper's song among the sheaves ; 



Yet where our duty's task is wrought 

 In unison with God's great thought. 

 The near and future blend in one. 

 And whatsoe'er is willed is done ! 



And ours the grateful service whence 

 Comes, day by day, the recompense : 

 The hope, the trust, the purpose stayed, 

 The fountain and the noonday shade. 



And were this life the utmost span, 

 The only end and aim of man, 

 Better the toil of fields like these 

 Than waking dream and slothful ease. 



But life, though falling like our grain, 

 Like that revives and springs again ; 

 And, early called, how blent are they 

 Who wait in heaven their harvest day ! 



SUGGESTIONS ABOUT HAYMAKING. 



Some things I know, and others I should like 

 to know. I know that this life is too short to 

 learn everything that a farmer should know by 

 actual experiment ; therefore it is necessary to 

 profit by the experience of others by reading. I 

 would therefore recommend that every farmer 

 who can should take and read the Coimtry Gentle- 

 man or Cultivator, and as many other agricultu- 

 ral papers as he pleases. 1 think it pays well. 

 Knowledge and Industry are what elevate the 

 farmer, or one man above another. I know that 

 horses and cattle like early cut hay better than 

 that M'hich is cut late. They will fatten on it by 

 giving them what they will eat, while they will 

 barely subsist on that which gets dead ripe be- 

 fore it is cut. Cows which go to pasture early in 

 the spring will make yellow butter, and so they 

 will in winter if fed on early cut hay, if it be Avell 

 cured. It is more work to make hay of early cut 

 grass, than that which stands and dries up before 

 being cut. It is an old adage, "to make hay 

 while the sun shines." I think hay dried in the 

 shade, is more fragrant and better than if dried 

 in the sun. But in haying time we are in haste 

 to dry it as soon as possible, and get it into the 

 barn out of the way of the rain. I have noticed 

 that women who have occasion to gather herbs 

 for winter use, usually gather them when in blos- 

 som, and dry them in the shade. I believe it i? 

 correct. If it be so with herbs, is it not so with 

 grass? I don't know which will pay best — to 

 cut meadows once or twice the same season. I 

 think it will be better to cut twice ; and I think 



the quantity will be as much or more on the right 

 kind of land, if cut twice the same season. I do 

 not know but grass would be more likely to kill 

 or die out, if cut twice a year ; think it would ; 

 but would it not pay to reseed it every two or 

 three years ? 



I wish J ou would persuade John Doe or Rich- 

 ard Roe, or some of those big farmers who own 

 a hay-scale, to take, say two acres of meadow 

 ground, cut one acre early so as to cut it twice the 

 same season, and the other acre to cut but once, 

 and weigh it in and weigh it out again on feed- 

 ing, and feed it to two steers or cattle of nearly 

 equal size, and weigh them every few days, so as 

 to determine which is the most economical plan, 

 or which will pay the best. I should like to see 

 the result of such an experiment in the Country 

 Gentleman. — Country Gentleman. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 LETTER from: MR. FRENCH. 

 THE ALPS AND GLACIERS. 



My Dear Brown :— On the 12th day of Au- 

 gust, at about six o'clock in the morning, my 

 three Canadian friends and I, on our mules, and 

 with a liberal supply of guides and mule-drivers, 

 left Martigny to cross the Alps by the Tete Noir 

 pass to Chamouni, in Sardinia. It is called a 

 ten hours' ride, for nobody in these countries has 

 any other idea of distance than by the time occu- 

 pied in travelling. The morning Avas clear and 

 warm, and as we wound along in single file up 

 the narrow path, we often turned to gaze with 

 admiration at the picturesque valley of the Rhone 

 which stretched many leagues away behind us, 

 and at the snowy mountain peaks which lifted 

 their heads in the far distance. 



Soon, how"ever, the winding pathway led us 

 among the high hills, and amidst forest trees 

 which shut out all prospect in the rear, and over- 

 taking a party consisting of an English gentle- 

 man and his wife and sister, and an American 

 clergyman, we were soon mingled in one party, 

 sometimes walking down the hills too steep for 

 comfort or safety, sometimes conversing at the 

 top of our voices, as we filed along on our mules, 

 and so making the most of our new acquaintances, 

 till we reached the Barberine house, a little more 

 than half way, where we left our mules and pro- 

 ceeded on foot. 



We soon caught our first glimpse of Mont 

 Blanc, towering up clear and white in the sun- 

 light, magnificent in the distance. Then we came 

 close down upon the Argentine glacier, sloping 

 quite into the valley, in the gorge of the moun- 

 tains, a strangely grand sight, of a field of snow 

 and ice, extending for miles from the regions of 

 perpetual snow, like a frozen river of a mile or 

 two in width, down to where the wheat and oats 

 were ripening in the August sultry sun. 



After dinner at Chamouni, at the London Ho- 



