DEVOTED TO AGiUCULTUKE AND ITS KINDHED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. X. 



BOSTON, SEPTEMBER, 1858. 



NO. 9, 



JOEL NOURSE, Proprietor. 

 Office.. .13 Commerci.vl St. 



SIMON BROWN, EDITOR. 



FRED'K HOLBROOK, ) Associate 

 HENRY F. FRENCH, j Editors. 



C.i.IiBNDAB FOR SEPTEMBER. 



'•Crowned with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf, 

 While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain, 

 Comes jovial on." 



LPTEltftER is the 

 season in which the 

 husbandman gath- 

 ers the harvest, 

 and rejoices over 

 the fruit of his la- 

 bor. The grass, 

 tlie small grains 

 and the early fruits 



^f ^ i have been secured, 

 and the barns are 

 filled almost to 

 bursting. 



This month the 

 later crops, the golden corn, 

 the potatoes, the roots, the 

 squashes and pumpkins, and 

 i>^i the fruits, are to be harvested. The 

 corn crop is rather late, owing to the 

 wet and cool weather of the latter 

 part of July and the early part of 

 August. But it is well grown, and a few weeks 

 of dry, warm weather, will change its rich, 

 milky juice into starch, gluten and oil, and 

 give its hardened grains the color of living 

 gold. What a wonderful chemist is nature ! She 

 finds everywhere the elements she needs. In 

 every leaf, and seed and fruit, she is at work se- 

 lecting, combining and compounding, that she 

 may provide food for her vegetable and animal 

 offspring. A faithful, kind and assiduous nurse, 

 she spares no pains, and refuses no labor, — that 

 she may supply all their wants. And she is not 

 satisfied with barely supplying their Avants, but 

 like an indulgent mother, she caters for their va- 

 rious appetites, and furnishes an infinite variety 

 to suit the tastes of all ; and while she gratifies 

 ♦he taste, she delights to please the sight and the 



smell, and to awaken the love of the beautiful, 

 by clothing her gifts in forms of beauty, and in 

 the richest hues. While, then, we luxuriate up- 

 on the bounties of nature, let us learn the lessons 

 she would teach us, and while our senses are 

 gratified, may our hearts be growing better. 



The farmers in Vermont and New Hampshire 

 find it the safer way to cut up their corn as soon 

 as the kernel is well glazed, and shock it in the 

 field. This secures it from the frost. Perhaps 

 there is a slight loss in the weight of the grain, 

 which we might avoid were we sure of good 

 weather to ripen it. But the stover is better 

 dried off in this way, and the additional security 

 against frost amply compensates for the slight 

 shrinkage of the kernel. This practice, we think, 

 is gaining favor. Those that have adopted it 

 say it is no more work to husk the corn and se- 

 c are the stover than when the stalks are cut and 

 made into bundles before the corn is fully riotj. 

 We think there are many fields that it will bf 

 safest to treat in this way, this fall. 



The sun is now returning from his annual vis- 

 it to the north, and on the twentieth of this 

 month, he will have reached the equator, the 

 point from which he started on the 20th of last 

 March, just six months ago. At that time, the 

 days and nights will be of equal length. From 

 then, till the 20th of December, the days will be 

 growing shorter, and we shall enjoy less and less 

 of the cheering rays of the sun. During the long 

 nights of the northern latitudes, the earth loses 

 more heat than it receives in the short days, 

 consequently the cold at length becomes so in- 

 tense, and the surface of the land and the watea- 

 becomes so deeply frozen, that the oblique rays of 

 the sun are scarcely felt during the short period of 

 his shining. If the inhabitants in these latitude; 

 enjoy the advantage of the long days and con- 

 tinual sunlight in the summer, they suffer the in- 

 convenience of short days, and the absence of 

 sunlight in the winter. These advantages and 

 disadvantages, the bitter and the sweet, the e^5 



