NEW ENGL.ANB FARMER. 



PUBLISHED BY GEO. C. BARRETT, NO. 52, NORTH MARKET STREET, (at the Agricultural Warehouse.)-T. G. FESSENDEN, EDITOR. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 10, 1833. 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



■ . • I : 



For the New England Farmer. 

 M. PEIil-EIVBERG'S ESTABLISHMENT, COWS 

 OP SWITZERIiASID, &c. 



The following letter, written in French, by ijlie 

 celebrated agriculturist, M. Fellenberg, of Hofwyl, 

 Switzerland, to tlie Hon. Thomas L. Winthrc)!', 

 President of the Massachusetts Society for prc- 

 nioting agriculture, has been translated for the 

 JVew England Farmer. 



Sir, I have the honor to enclose herewith a 

 letter of thanks to the Agricultural Society of Mas- 

 sachusetts ; and hasten to reply at the same time 

 to your inquiries respecting our milch cows, and 

 our bulls. I do not believe that you would find 

 it for your advantage to acquire them ; imless 

 your breed of cattle should be extremely bad ; 

 ours speedily degenerate when sent abroad, and 

 the transportation of them will be attended with 

 great expense. The season is also unfavorable to 

 their purchase ; cattle, when taken immediately 

 from their stalls, are very apt to be injured by 

 long journics ; the best time to purchase them is 

 in September, or October ; in those months they 

 return home of course, from our mountains. Our 

 best cows do not give but a little more than 4 pots 

 of milk a day; the medium quantity for the entire 

 year ; the pot of milk weighs 4 pounds, of IS 

 ounces. It is advisable to purchase the heiferl, 

 which will cost you from 10 to 12 French louis- 

 dors each, in the autumn ; the bulls may also be 

 purchased at about the same price ; but it is the 

 expense of transportation which makes me fear for 

 your interest. However, notwithstanding my ob- 

 servations, if you shall still be desirous of having 

 these animals purchased, I will give orders to have 

 sent in the autumn to Havre, those well chosen, to 

 the address of the person whom you shall please 

 10 designate. 



I pray you sir, to accept my most cordial salu- 

 tations. Emanuel de Fellenberg. 



Hofwi/l, April l&th, 1833. 



Remarks of the Editor of the jYctc England Far- 

 mer. It, perhaps, may not be amiss, in this place, 

 to give some notices of the celebrated establishment 

 of M. Fellenberg, the writer of the above letter. 



The establishment at Hofwyl, near Berne, was 

 invented, and is conducted at the sole expense of 

 M. Fellenberg, and was founded in 1809. His 

 object was to apply a sounder system of education 

 to the great body of the people, in order to stop 

 the progress of error and corruption. He under- 

 took to systematize education, and to show on a 

 large scale how the children of the poor might best 

 be taught, and their labor at the samo time most 

 profitably applied ; in short, liow the first twenty 

 years of a poor man's life might be so employed 

 as to provide both for his «upport and education. 

 The peasants in the neighborhood were at first rath 

 er shy of trusting their children for a new experi- 

 ment ; and being obliged to take his pupils where 

 he could find them, many of the earliest were the 

 sons of vagrants, and literally picked up in the 

 highways ; this was the case of some of the most 

 distinguished pupils. 



Their treatment is nearly that of children under 



the paternal roof. They go out every morning to 

 their work soon after sunrise, having first break- 

 fiisted and received a lesson of about half an hour: 

 they return at noon. Dinner takes them half an 

 hour, a lesson of on(?*%(5iur follows ; then to their 

 work again till six in the evening. On Sunday 

 the dilVcrent lessons take six hours instead of two, 

 and they have butcher-meat on that day only. 

 They are divided into three classes according to 

 age and strength ; an entry is made in a book eve- 

 ry night of the number of hours each class has 

 worked, specifying the sort of labor done, in order 

 that it may be charged to the proper account, each 

 particular crop having an account opened for it, 

 as well as every new building, the live stock, the 

 machines, the schools themselves, &c. &c. In 

 winter, and whenever there is not out-of-door work, 

 the boys plait straw for chairs, make baskets, saw 

 logs with the cross-saw and split them, thrash and 

 winnow corn, grind colors, knit stockings, or assist 

 :he wheelwright and other artificers, of whom 

 there are many employed in the establishment. 

 For all which difierent sorts of labor au adequate 

 salary is credited to each boy's class. 



The education of the boys consists chiefly in in- 

 ^ulcating habits of industry, frugality, veracity, 

 locility and nmtual kindness, by means of good 

 e.xample rather than precepts ; and above all by 

 tlie absence of bad example. It has been said of 

 'he Bell and Lancaster schools that the good they 

 do is mostly negative : they take children out of 

 the streets, employ tlieni in a harmless sort of 

 meiual sport two or three hours in the day, exer- 

 cise* ilieir understanding gently and pleasantly, and 

 acciletoni them to order and rule without compul- 

 sion.) Now what these schools undertake to do 

 for ajfew hours of each week, during one or two 

 year^of a boy's life, the School of Industry at Hof- 

 wyl |oes incessantly, during the whole course of 

 his yt)uth ; providing at the same time, for his 

 whole physical maintenance at a very cheap rate. 

 See Xoudon's En. of Agr. Art. 343, &c. Like- 

 wise, vV. E. Farmer, vol. x, p. 73. 



Wilh regard to the Swiss possessing a superior 

 breed of cows, we have seen notices to that effect 

 in Aircrican newsijapers, one of which we repub- 

 lished from the Pliiladelphia Gazette, vol. v. p. 332, 

 of the.Vcjtf England Farmer. Those reports, how- 

 ever, nre not confirmed by the foregoing letter of 

 M. Fellenberg. 



For the- New England Farmer. 

 THE -WANDERER. No. 4. 



I HkvE refrained from troubling you of late, you 

 have qeen so much better occupied ; but my lucu- 

 bratiols have increased upon me. However de- 

 lightfully you set forth " the Fruits and Flowers," 

 that adorn our gardens, which I do not mean to 

 undervalue, yet more truly to enjoy their fragrance, 

 we must exercise the other senses. 



Let us then move over our fields, and see how 

 they are dressed. Horticulture is a beautiful les- 

 son to the Agriculturist. Let its rules then be 

 profitably observed. How is it in our walks ? Is 

 our care and attention in Agriculture, all it should 

 be ? I am sorry to call your readers, from the 

 Rose to the Thistle. But the fact is to be lament- 

 ed, that most pestilent intruder the Canada Thistle, 



NO. 52. 



is making progress through our country ; and an 

 evil which a dollar or two in a township would 

 now eradicate, bids fair hereafter to inflict incal- 

 culable injury on our soil. It would be difficult 

 to conceive, unless it was seen, the withering ef- 

 fects of this noxious weed. I5ut as I not long 

 since jiassed through Upper Canada, I had occa- 

 sion to know that the crops of wheat were lessen- 

 ing year after year under its influence. Clover 

 and the artificial grasses too were Hiding, beneath 

 its destructive shade and competition. The Pea 

 seemed its only accompaniment, and to this cul- 

 ture, the Farnn rs found themselves driven. I 

 asked of one and another, why this was allowed, 

 and what measures of prevention were taken ? 

 There was no satisfactory answer to be had. They 

 saw the wheat fields overrun, and the export of 

 the country changed and nearly ruined, in a sort 

 of dumb submission ! ! Peas are cultivated under 

 the unobstructed shade of the Thistle. In whiU 

 should be the " Grass crop," the Thistle " takes 

 the field," and when you ask the cultivator as to 

 this, he replies — " The cattle get through the 

 winter with it," and so it appeared ; though from 

 their lean and melancholy look, you would think 

 they had lately taken leave of some of their race ! ! ! 

 Not but that there is great fertility in much of tha 

 soil in Upper Canada, and we speak of the suffer- 

 ings of our neighbors with unfeigned regret. Come 

 then, let us look about us. Is this pestilent evil 

 malung its inroals upon us? If so, are our Far- 

 mers awake ? Have wc improved on tiint excel- 

 lent caution, "learn to be wise by others' harm." 

 As I have wandered to and fro, I have Lad a 

 melancholy conviction to the contrary of this. In 

 our good county of Middlesex, we have the Thistle 

 by the wayside ! ! I have seen it between Boston 

 and Watertown, spreading its seed on gossamer 

 wing, in undisturbed and rank luxuriance. In 

 Worcester too, where so much is seen to delight, 

 passing through Webster, with its flourishing fac- 

 tories, on the central turnpike, even here is the 

 thistle in baleful aspect. 



If then this evil threatens us, what should be 

 our means of prevention ? 



Here we wish we had better information for a 

 guide — but at the worst the thistle is but of annual 

 growth, and by early cutting (and perhaps more 

 than once) it may be extirpated. On a small ex- 

 tent of ground I mowed them, and then watei^d 

 the ground with a salt pickle by which the thistle 

 lyas destroyed and the land benefited. 



The evil is not now very extensive, and it may 

 be easily checked. But exertion is necessary ; 

 for who can estimate it when it shall be wafted 

 into field and garden in odious mixture with every 

 thing about us. If I have justly denounced an in- 

 truder, let it be looked to. 



Some connoisseurs would give a hundred pounds 

 for the painted head of a beggar, who would threat- 

 en the living mendicant with the stocks. 



Fame is represented bearing a trumpet. Would 

 not the picture be truer, were she holding a hand- 

 full of dust? 



Fishermen, in order to handle eels securely, first 

 cover them with dirt. In like manner does de- 

 traction strive to grasp excellence. 



