NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



47 



The number of eggs to be expected in ■winter, 

 compared with warm weather, will not amount to 

 more than three fifths ; but the difference between 

 fourteen and twenty -two cents per dozen is to be 

 added to the value of the winter produce, wliich will 

 about equalize the receipts with those of summer. 



The conditions under which the laying of hens can 

 be protracted to the fullest natural extent, are sys- 

 tematic feeding, (tiiking care to prevent repletion,) 

 M-armth in the end of the fall and opening winter, 

 and cleanliuess in food, water, and roosting places. 

 I am, sir, &c., 



A FIRESIDE FARMER. 



Boston, Jan. 7, 1850. 



MAN AND THE SOIL. 



BY M. GUIZOT, LATE PRIME MIMISTER OP FRAXCE. 



Movable property, or capital, may procure a man 

 all the advantages of wealth; but property in land 

 gives him much more than this. It gives him a 

 place in the domain of the world ; it unites his life 

 with the life that animates all creation. Money is 

 an instrument by which man can procure the satis- 

 faction of his wants and his desires. Landed property 

 is the establishment of man as sovereign in the midst 

 of nature. It satisfies not only his wants and his 

 desires, but tastes deeply implanted in his nature. 

 For his fanuly it creates that domestic country, called 

 home, -v^ith all the living sympathies, and all the 

 future hopes and projects, which people it. And 

 whilst property in land is more consonant than any 

 other to the nature of man, it also affords a field of 

 activity the most favorable to his moral development 



— the most suited to inspire a just sentiment of his 

 nature and his powers. In almost aU the other 

 trades or professions, whether commercial or scien- 

 tific, success appears to depend solely upon himself, 



— on his talents, address, prudence, and vigilance. 

 In agricultural Ufe, man is constantly in the presence 

 of God and of his power. Activity, talent, prudence, 

 and vigilance, are as necessary here as elsewhere to 

 the success of his labors ; but they are no less insuf- 

 ficient than they are necessary. It is God who rules 

 the seasons and the temperature, the sun and the 

 rain, and all those phenomena of nature which deter- 

 mine the success or the failure of the labors of man 

 on the soil which he cultivates. There is no pride 

 which can resist this dependence, no address Avhich 

 can escape it. Nor is it only a sentiment of humility 

 as to his power over his own destiny which is thus 

 inculcated upon man ; he learns also tranquillity and 

 patience. He cannot flatter himself that the most 

 ingenious invention, or the most restless activity, 

 will insure his success : when he has done all that 

 depends upon him for the cultivation and the fertil- 

 ization of the soU, he must wait with resignation. 

 The more profoundly we examine the situation in 

 which man is placed by the possession and cultiva- 

 tion of the soil, the more do we discover how rich it 

 is in salutary lessons to his reason, and benign influ- 

 ences on his character. Men do not analyze these 

 facts, but they have an instinctive sentiment of them 

 which powerfully contributes to that peculiar respect 

 in which they hold property in land, and to the pre- 

 ponderance which that kind of property enjoys over 

 every other. This preponderance is a natural, legiti- 

 mate, and salutary fact, which, especially in a great 

 country, society at large has a strong interest in 

 recognizing and respecting. 



elements of vegetable and animated nature in the 

 soil. For instance : in most soUs we find iron 

 abundant ; then, if we look into the animal economy, 

 we find iron in the muscles of both man and the 

 lower orders of brute creation. And the wonder- 

 working chemist detects nature in using the same 

 ingredient in coloring all the fruits and flowers. All 

 things having once been created, the making prin- 

 ciple stopped, and a changing one immediately took 

 its place, and has never ceased to act since muta- 

 bility was mdelibly stamped upon creation. In the 

 formation of plants and animals, Nature, gradually 

 collecting her material, slowly forms her most per- 

 fect specimens ; but, like a human mechanic, inas- 

 much as she lacks one or more of the materials, in 

 the same degree is the fabric imperfect. Thus we 

 see that if the soil in the field lacks one or more 

 ingredients in the formation of a vegetable, the plant 

 assumes a dwarfish, sickly appearance, like an ani- 

 mal robbed of its food. Now, the farmer, to be a 

 good husbandman, must plant the germ, and place 

 around it all the materials of which it should be 

 composed; then Nature, the handy workman, soon 

 rears the perfect plant. 



The question now arises, what those ingredients 

 and materials are. The chemist has given us all the 

 knowledge he has on the subject; the air and the 

 water, the soU and the subsoil, have each a part in 

 their possession, and should each be made to con- 

 tribute a share. Nature, in the production of a 

 perfect plant, does not restrict herself to the animal, 

 vegetable, or mineral world. The opinion so gener- 

 ally prevalent that the soil, two or three feet below 

 the surface, must consequently be entirely barren 

 and useless, may be, and doubtless is, erroneous in 

 many instances, especially in that called hard pan. 

 If, in producing the perfect plant, nineteen may pos- 

 sibly be found in the surface soU, while the twentieth 

 may be found in the subsoil. Instances have oc- 

 curred where -G good dresiiing from soil ten feet deep, 

 entirely destitute, to all appeiirance, of vegetable 

 matter, have had equally as good, or the same ben- 

 eficial effect, as a good dressmg of gypsum. This is 

 truly an age of improvement. Many a fanner has 

 found, while others have yet to find, a mine of 

 wealth below the reach of his plough, of which he 

 Avas as unconscious as the mountain of its ore. It is 

 very reasonable to suppose that the newly-created 

 world was, at first, entirely a mineral mass of matter, 

 from which vegetables soon grew abundantly enough 

 to support all aiumated nature. Geologists generally 

 suppose the action of the elements, for an indefinite 

 length of time, was necessary to fit it for the abode 

 of plants and animals ; but I believe the action of the 

 frost, with the winter's rain and snow, to be a pow- 

 erful fertilizer in this climate ; hence fall ploughing 

 and deep plougliing should go together. — Selected, 



ON THE NATURE OF SOILS. 



An all-wise Creator, for some all-wise purposes, 

 decreed that plants and animals should derive their 

 subsistence from the soil; hcuce wc find all the 



GEOMETRY APPLIED TO FARMING. 



It may appear, at first sight, as if the science of 

 geometry could have but little to do with agriculture; 

 and yet there are few of the ordinary occupations of 

 life in which it is of such general utility. The farm- 

 er does not plant a row of corn, or construct a drain, 

 or a road, or even plough his ground, without apply- 

 ing, whether he be conscious of it or not, important 

 mathematical principles. He cannot build a fence, 

 or plan a dwelling, or a barn, without describing 

 mathematical figures ; and in doing this he can, by 

 the application of a few of the most obvious princi- 

 ples of geometry, be enabled to save as well time 

 and labor as money. I propose, in this short article, 

 to demonstrate the above fact in such a manner as 

 shall render it jjlain to alL And first, let \i3 take 

 fencing- 



