NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



255 



This pinching, to promote fruitfulness, requires 

 more skill and practice in pruning, and much more 

 physical information respecting trees, tlian any other 

 pruning. If done too soon, or too severely, the ob- 

 ject is defeated by having the buds break into new 

 shoots, instead of forming fruit-buds, thus requiring 

 pinching and pinching again, before the object is at- 

 tained. Vigorous and feeble growers require differ- 

 ent degrees of pinching, and require it to be done at 

 different seasons. Different soils and climates all 

 affect this matter so much, that no general rules can 

 be safely adoi)ted. Some rank growers on free stocks 

 cannot be brought into bearing by this means, until 

 the pinching and pruning are so severe as to weaken, 

 to some extent, the whole force of the tree, lloot- 

 pruning has the same effect, and, in such cases, is 

 quite necessary ; but this must be done in the fall, 

 when growth has terminated. — American Agricultu- 

 rist. 



WHAT FARMERS OUGHT TO KNOW. 



Let us see what farmers ought to know and do, to 

 raise themselves to the character of professional 

 men ; and what almost any of them might accom- 

 plish in the long winter evenings, at a trifling cost 

 for books, and a little more expense of hard thought 

 and attention. 



A farmer ought to understand the leading princi- 

 ples of chemistry. The soil he plods among at the 

 plough-tail is not a mere inactive mass, sticking to his 

 shoes when wet, and choking him with dust when 

 dry. It is a vast laboratory, full of many and strange 

 materials, always in action, warring, combining, 

 changing, pei-petually ; to-day receiving accessions 

 from the heavens ; to-morrow pouring them into the 

 wide sea, to be again supplied to other lands. The 

 earth is all but a living creature ; aiul he whose busi- 

 ness has been slanderously said to be but " of the 

 earth, earthy," should surely understand the soil's 

 iiature, its elements, its likings, and its diseases. 



^he farmer should understand physiology. Under 

 his care he has the noblest forms of creation — the 

 ox, the horse, the sheep. Can he spend a lil'e among 

 them, and not know how the heart beats — how the 

 nerves thrill — where lie the muscles — what are the 

 principles of action, and the seats of disease — how 

 the fat grows — and how the bones are formed ? Can 

 he be a breeder, who has never studied the peculiar- 

 ities of races ? Can he be any thing but an empiric, 

 who undertakes to feed and fatten cattle, without 

 knowing of what the food is composed, and what 

 parts of the body require this or that element ? 



The farmer should have a knowledge of medicine, 

 and of the elements of surgery ; for though, in this 

 respect, when applied to human ailments, it may 

 prove that " a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," 

 yet many a fine animal is allowed to become dog's 

 meat, because its owner could not distinguish be- 

 tween a fever and an inflammation, set a bone, nor 

 bandage a wound. 



The farmer should be a botanist, llie primeval 

 curse of mother earth was, that she should bring 

 forth thorns and thistles ; and many other noxious 

 weeds, besides, have since been added to her progeny. 

 How great the amount of toil expended, and how 

 serious the loss of crops, from such plants as Canada 

 thistle, burdocks, Turkey weed, and a host of others, 

 let those tell wlio have been the sufferers. Many 

 books have been written on such things ; many plans 

 have been given for eradicating them ; but unless the 

 farmer can distinguish them — unless he knows their 

 character, histories, and modes of growth, how un- 

 aided does he go to his task ! Besides, botany, in all 

 its shapes, is the natural science of the countryman. 

 How does the seed germinate ? IIow does the ten- 

 der leaf unfold itself ? How is the blossom impreg- 



nated and the fruit formed ? "What will injure, what 

 improve each plant ? All these are questions which 

 every farmer should have studied and ascertained. 

 And can any one be content to spend a life in igno- 

 rance of the names and characters of the trees and 

 flowers that are so gorgeously spread around him, 

 painting his fields and woods' with their thousand 

 hues, and rendering this outward world a mass of 

 beauty? 



The farmer should be — or, shall we say, should 

 wish to be — a naturalist. No one has so many op- 

 portunities of observing and noting the habits and 

 peculiarities of animals, birds, and insects. In some 

 cases, this knowledge may be of inestimable service. 

 It must always be a pursuit of pleasure, and cannot 

 fail to refine and improve the mmd and sensibilities, 

 both towards the inferior creation, and towards man. 



But time would fail to tell of what the farmer 

 ought to know and understand. There is no knowl- 

 edge which would not be serviceable to him. There 

 is none which Avill not elevate him in the scale of 

 intellectual beings ; and, what, perhaps, is more im- 

 portant to many, there is scarcely a physical science 

 which he will not find putting money into his pocket 

 constantly. How many times in a life would a ba- 

 rometer save a whole harvest ! IIow many black- 

 smiths' and carpenters' bills may be escaped by the 

 humble knowledge of the use of tools ! Now, if 

 our farmers would but become self-instructors, and if, 

 instead of doing just as their great-grandfathers'did 

 before them, they would think and learn for them- 

 selves, no profession would become more honorable, 

 carry more weight in society, nor be more ardently 

 sought after by the active and intelligent of all 

 classes. Instead of our young men rushing from the 

 country to the city, the city youths would yearn to 

 be farmers ; and instead of the chief emulation being 

 who should save most, the strife would be who 

 sliould accumulate the most by the profoundest ex- 

 periments, most successfully carried into jiractice. 

 By these means, farming would cease to be the mere 

 drudgery of " dirty-handed industry ; " and every 

 operation would become scientific, based on great 

 principles, breeding new thoughts and new results, 

 and ending in valuable acquisitions. Instead of the 

 poet describing the farmer as one w^ho 



" Wandered on, unknowing what he sought, 

 And whistled as he went, for want of thought," 



we should have farmers themselves distinguished 

 authors of valuable works ; scientific, at all events, 

 if not poetic. Some such great minds we already 

 have employed in farming, but, unfortunately, that 

 is not yet the character of the class. G. F. 



Michigan", Jan. 5, 1850. 

 — Am. Ayricult, 



SHADE-TREES. 



Sii.VF.u M.\rLr, {Acer dast/carpium.) — This should 

 occu])y a conspicuous place in the highways and 

 ])ublic grounds. It is a native of our state, and is 

 found in moist, sandy soils, jjarticularly along the 

 margins of streams. To its graceful form and rich 

 tints much of the beauty of the landscape-views 

 along the Ohio, Muskingum, and other large rivers, 

 is owing. It is more hardy than the sugar maple, 

 and adapts itself to all varieties of soil. The inhab- 

 itants of cities and villages at the west should cmjiloy 

 it instead of the sickly and filthy locust-tree. — /awj- 

 ily Visitor. 



Decavcd grain, of any kind, is highly injurious to 

 stock. It has a paralyzing effect upon the animal 

 fed with it, oftentimes causing death. 



