474 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



For the Neie Enf>land Farmer. 

 BOOKFABMIISrG. 

 BY ICnABOD II OE. 



Mr. Gilman made his beginning upon the hop- 

 yard in the hardest part, but after the first few 

 days' work, made much better pi'ogress, and be- 

 fore he finally got through with it, the hop-yard 

 looked like a new creation. All the stones on or 

 near the surface were needed in the drains, and 

 iiany others were drawn from a large stone heap 

 n one part of the field, which had grown, by the 

 annual accumulation of years, to quite a mound. 

 A sing e year was sufficient to convince Mr. Gil- 

 nan that the labor upon the hop-yard was by no 

 jieans 'ost. The second year it was no light job 

 Lo dra' a scythe through the tall, rank timothy 

 and clover, that grew where before only worth- 

 less hassock and brakes had been found, and the 

 acre which then had produced less than a ton of 

 bedding hay, now produced more than two tons 

 of the f rst quality. 



This was a result quite beyond the anticipa- 

 tions of Mr. Gilman, and those parts of his fields 

 which 1 eretofore had been but eye-sores to him, 

 he beg- n to regard with much such feelings as 

 an enthusiastic surgeon does a fracture or other 

 wound, which gives an opportunity for the exer- 

 cise of his skill. By being careful to obtain the 

 best implements for use on the farm, and taking 

 advant- ge of every improvement and invention 

 for saving manual labor that came within reach 

 of his r cans and circumstances, Mr. Gilman both 

 lightened the labors of farming, and gained time 

 to make great improvements upon his lands. 



"Want to hire fifty dollars, du ye ? It's jest 

 as I told ye, this 'ere book-farmin's jest runnin' 

 en ye inter the ground. What 'pon airth ye 

 want fif'.y dollars for, neighbor Gilman ?" 



"I'm < oing to buy a mower and reaper that 

 works b' horse-power." 



"Whpt! goin' to give fifty dollars for one of 

 them fo lish consarns ?" 



"It w 11 cost nearly a hundred dollars !" 



"Hurderd dollars! why, yer crazy! I jest 

 tho . you'd come to that, readin' so many of them 

 foolish ag'cult'ral books. I wonders ye haint in 

 the poor-house 'fore now, layin' out so much for 

 every kind of a notiorf that comes along — new- 

 fashiored harrers and cultivaters, Kay-cutters and 

 sich things, and now ye'r goin' to throw 'way a 

 hunde 1 dollars on a mower for that 'ar little 

 farm of yourn !" 



"Perhaps some of my neighbors may want to 

 hire it once in a while." 



"Ye needn't make any calc'lations of that sort 

 on me ; I wouldn't have one of the foolish things 

 on my farm." 



"Did you ever see one ?" 



"Nf ! nor don't want tu — they're only jest got 

 up by them crafty fellers that wants tu'git their 

 livin' by their wit, and git sich foolish folks as 

 you are tii buy their good-for-nothin' inven- 

 tions." 



"You've been laughing at my foolishness, as 

 yoi call it, but somehow, I have managed to 

 rai"e more corn, more oats, more wheat, and more 

 b y, too, than you have, with less than half the 



bor you have bestowed on yours. 



"Wal, I know my crops has been purty light 

 for a year or two past, but it's owin' tu the sea- 



sons — one was dry and the next was wet. These 

 things is above our control, ye know." 



"VVe can't control the season, to be sure, but 

 these foolish notions of mine that you've been 

 laughing at, have enabled me to raise good crops 

 in wet or dry seasons, either." 



"You may make your farm du so, but taint the 

 nater of my land." 



"It isn't owing to the nature of the land, as 

 much as it to the nature of the cultivation. 

 When I began upon my present system of culti- 

 vation, there wasn't any difierence between my 

 farm and yours, only in size. As you say, I 

 don't think there is much danger of your using a 

 mower on your farm, till you have got the sur- 

 face a little smoother, and freer of rocks and 

 stones than it is now." 



"Wal, my farm is jest as nater made it, and I 

 aint to blame for that, and my father was a good 

 farmer, and he never heern of sich a thing as a 

 cultivater, nor never dreamed of sich a thing as 

 a mower ; and I b'leeve it's all nonsense tryin' 

 tu use one. Better save yer money for suthin' 

 else. I haint got s'much money by me's I use 

 tu have. These 'ei-e bad seasons has spiled my 

 crops, and one thing or 'nother has took off a 

 good deal of my loose change. I 'spect I've got 

 suthin' like fifty dollars, and I 'spose if I don't 

 let ye have the money, ye'U git it somewhere 

 else, so I's goods let ye have it 's any body." 



"Yes, I shall get it somewhere. But, Mr. 

 Richards, why don't you take better care of your 

 apple trees, and not let them die off so ?" 



'•Me let 'um die ! You talk as if you had pow- 

 er to control Providence. I 'spect trees must 

 die as well as folks. These 'ere hard winters kills 

 everything, and the apple trees 'mong the rest." 



"Winterkill an apple tree! Why, an apple 

 tree is as hardy as an oak tree ! The fact is, Mr. 

 Richards, if you had spent a dollar or two a year 

 for a good agricultural paper, and taken ten min- 

 utes a day, or even two minutes, you would have 

 found out what ailed your tipple trees, and could 

 have saved them healthy and sound. You wont 

 have twenty bushels of good sound fruit in your 

 orchard this season." 



"No, they bloomed well, and the fruit sotharn- 

 some, but, somehow, the fruit's all fell off. Wal, 

 but what 'spect 'tis ails the trees, if 'taint the 

 winter kills 'um r"' 



"Why, just come here, and I'll show you; if 

 you'll just poke away the grass you'll see 

 around this tree, close down to the ground, what 

 it is." 



"I don't see nothin' but the chankins the 

 worms has made in the rotten wood." 



"Ah, that's the very mischief. The borers 

 have bored your trees into honeycomb, and the 

 trees have died in consequence of it, and no 

 wonder at it. See here, while I take this sprout 

 and strip off the leaves ! I'll show you how to 

 dispose of the fellow that made this hole. There, 

 you see by the end of the stick, that that has put 

 a stop to that fellow's operations." 



"Wal, now, that beats all, I vum ! who'd a 

 thought it !" 



"Why, anybody that takes those foolish agri- 

 cultural books would have thought of it, for 

 there is a great deal said about the apple tree 

 borer in them, and full directions given how to 

 get rid of tl^em. I have single trees in my orch- 



