

■DEVOTED TO AGBICULTUilE AND ITS KINDKED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. X. 



BOSTON, DECEMBER, 1858. 



NO. 12. 



JOEL N0UR3E, Propribtob. 

 Office. ..13 Commercial St. 



SIMON BROWN, EDITOR. 



FRED'K HOLBROOK, ) Associate 

 HENRY F. FRENCH, ( Editors 



CAIiSNDAR rOR DECEMBER. 



"What's that to me, / cannnt stay ; rememl>er, 

 I am the thirty first of old December." 



'•In April or in May, 

 A pleasant garden, full of fragrant flowers, 

 When the fresh earth, new clad in garments gay, 

 Decks every wood and grove with pleasant bowers. 

 And now again on some Decesiber's day 

 We see it marred with winter's storms and showers." 



ECEMBER. The days 

 are now the short- 

 est. The sun, from 

 the distant south^ 

 throws his rays up- 

 on us for a few 

 short hours, and 

 ^1\^^-^ [U@ !^.^ ^^^' ^° obliquely, 

 Ifrff'^^'^^'^S that they produce 

 '" ' ' ^ T*! but little impres- 

 r^ -- ^'°'-^ upon the at- 

 •v-.,a3^-=-- mosphere or the 

 earth. 

 ^^ \-^- ^ Now is the night 



of the year, — the 

 time of its rest — when veg. 

 ~""" ^- I etables and hybernating an- 



imals and insects are taking 

 their sleep. All vegetable life re- 

 quires a season of rest. In, more 

 southern climes, the leaves wither, 

 and dry and fall, before they are touched by the 

 frost, and the trees remain naked and desolate, 

 until the rainy season awakens them into new 

 life and activity. The trees that open their buds 

 and expand their leaves in February and March, 

 drop their fruit in July and August, and com- 

 mence their season of rest, while with us, the 

 trees that open their buds in May, retain their 

 leaves till the frosts of October paint them with 

 a hundred brilliant hues. 



Every climate has its own season of rest. In 

 tropical climates, animals and insects which re- 

 quire a season of rest, burrow into the earth to 

 avoid the heat and drought, o.nd remain in a dor- 



mant state until the returning moisture recalls 

 them to life and action. In the regions of the 

 north, they go into the earth, and into caves and 

 holes, to avoid the destructive effects of the cold 

 and frost, and hybernate until the genial breath 

 of spring quickens the organs of their peculiar 

 forms of life, when they come forth, each to his 

 appropriate work. 



The Summer is for man, also, the season of la- 

 bor, and the Winter the season of rest, when he 

 may enjoy the fruits of his labor, and the pleasures 

 appropriate to theWinter, and recruit his exhaust- 

 ed energies for the demands of another year. The 

 Winter is with us peculiarly the season for social 

 enjoyment and intellectual improvement. Our 

 long winter evenings afford abundant opportuni- 

 ty for visiting and social intercourse, and fireside 

 pleasures. Evening schools, singing schools, lec- 

 tures, religious meetings, and public and private 

 entertainmants afford to all classes abundant op- 

 portunity for pleasure, or instruction, or both, 

 suited to their respective tastes. The lectures 

 which are now so common all over the country, 

 have become an important institution for good o-r 

 for evil. The lyceum has to a great extent changed 

 its original purpose, which was mutual instruc- 

 tion, the development of the faculties and the 

 cultivation of the talents of its members, by the 

 mutual pursuit of scientific or literary studies. 



The lyceum lecture has now become more a 

 matter of entertainment, and our people have be- 

 come as fastidious, in the choice of lecturers, as 

 city audiences are in the choice of actors on the 

 boards of the theatre. Instruction the most solid, 

 sentiments the most pure and elevating, and a 

 style the most chaste and beautiful, will by no 

 means satisfy the demands of our exacting audi- 

 ences. Startling paradoxes, sparkling thoughts, 

 brilliant illustrations, glowing descriptions, and 

 the music of eloquence, are demanded, at what- 

 ever cost. We do^ibt whether the style of lec» 

 turing now in vogue is the most useful, either 

 to the risen, or rising generation. Lectures which 



