30 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



^AN. 



received from my father and his estate for these 

 slaves iuul 1 will set free tin equal number." 



In hid youtli and later age, he fought duels : 

 in his middle life he was against them ; and for 

 a while, would neither give nor receive a chal- 

 lenge. He was under religious convictions to the 

 contr.uy, hut finally yielded (as he believed) to 

 an argument of his own, that a duel is a private 

 war, and rested upon the same basis as public 

 war ; and that both were allowable Avhen there 

 was no other redress for injuries. That was his 

 argument ; but I thought his relapse came more 

 from feeling than reason ; and especially from the 

 death of Decatur, to whom he was greatly at- 

 tached, and whose duel with Barron, long and 

 greatly excited him. He had religious impres- 

 sions, and a vein of piety which showed itself 

 more in private than in external observances. — 

 He was habitual in his reverential regard for the 

 divinity of our religion ; and one of his beautiful 

 expressions was that, "If woman has lost us par- 

 a Use, she has gained us heaven. " The Bible and 

 fcjhakespeare were, in his later years, his constant 

 companions — travelling with him on the road — 

 remaining with him in tlie chamber. The last 

 time I saw him (in that last visit to Washington, 

 after his return from the Russian mission, and 

 when he was in the full view of death,) I heard 

 him read the chapter in the Revelations (of the 

 opining of the seals,) with such power and beau- 

 ty of voice and delivery, and such depth of pa- 

 thos, that I felt as if I had never heard the chap- 

 ter read before. When he had got to the end of 

 the opening of the sixth seal, he stopped the 

 reading, laid the book open at the j^lace on his 

 breast, as he lay on his bed, and began a discourse 

 upon the beauty and 8ul>iimity of the Scriptural 

 writings, compared to which he considered all 

 human composition vain and emj^ty. Going over 

 the images presented by the opening of the seals, 

 he averred that their divinity w^as in their sub- 

 limity — that no human power could take the 

 same images, and inspire the awe and terror, and 

 sink ourselvea.into such nothingness in the pres- 

 ence of the ''wrath of the Lamb" that he want- 

 ed no proof of their divine oi'igin but the sub- 

 lime feelings which they inspire. — Benton's Thir- 

 tij Years. 



HOW LOKG IT TAKES TO GET AP- 

 PLES. 



Mr. BucKMiNSTHR, Editor of the Ploughman, 

 in a recent editorial says — 



"We have three hundred trees set, two years 

 ago, in our orchard in Framingham. Some of 

 these (the Baldwins) bear fruit this year. One 

 has borne thirty-seven good apples. People may 

 preach about waiting 2(» or oO years for a young 

 orchard to come to bearing — and they must wait 

 if they procure good-for-nothing trees and set 

 them in a good-for-nothing soil. But why not 

 give young trees a chance to grow?" 



The trees spoken of above, are very handsome, 

 and promising, and we think an examination of 

 them would satisfy a person about to plant an 

 orchard that trees of "three or four years of age, 

 handsomely lieaded in the nursery, would prove 

 the most profitable, althougli costing something 

 more than younger ancl smaller ones at first. 



For the New England Farmer. 



AGRICULTUEAL IMPLEMENTS. 



REPORTED TO THE CONCORD FARMERS' CLUB, IJY 

 JOHN RAYNOLDS. 



Agriculture, being the mother of the arts, and 

 the chief reliance of civilized man for the means 

 of subsistence, and its operations having been, in 

 a great degree, dependent upon the application of 

 muscular strength, it has ?ia/Mr«//?/ followed that 

 man's inventive genius has been more or less en- 

 gaged, during the last half century, in the im- 

 provement of machinery, and all the implements 

 of farm husbandry. 



In our country this spirit of improvement, this 

 constant striving for something better, has per- 

 haps been more apparent than in any other part 

 of the world, and has been attended" with better 

 and happier results. One of the evidences of this 

 is, that during the last year one hundred and four- 

 teen patents have been granted lor agricultural 

 implements, twenty-seven of which were for har- 

 vesters, power reapers, mowers, &c. 



Agricultural organizations and cattle shows 

 serve to awaken the attention of farmei-s to the 

 necessity of employing all the aids which mechan- 

 ical skill and invention can supply, and thereby 

 increases the demand for that skill ; and every 

 aid which the latter can contribute to the success 

 or prosperity of the iixrmer, is so much con- 

 tributed to its own. 



I believe it is now generally conceded, by most 

 good farmers, that horse power and labor-saving 

 machines may be introduced with advantage and 

 profit. The farmer and agricultural implement 

 maker are mutually bound together by the strong- 

 est ties of interest, and the same stimulus which 

 promotes the advancement of the one, operates 

 equally to the advantage of the other. It is this 

 stimulus which has brought to so high a state of 

 perfection the various kinds of machinery and im- 

 plements now employed on the farm. 



The flow is the inost important implement used 

 on the farm, and great improvements have been 

 made in this article within a few years, especially 

 in the draft, and in its adaptation to subsoiling. 

 The double, or sod and subsoil plow, as it is called, 

 I consider one of the best implements now in use, 

 and I think that any farmer wlio has witnessed 

 its operation, cannot but be convinced of its great 

 utility and importance. 



Another indispensable implement upon the 

 farm, and one of great utility, is the harrow. 

 This naturally follows the plow, and perhaps 

 ranks the second in importance. There are many 

 forms of this implement. Having occasion to 

 purchase one recently for my own use, I have 

 examined somewhat carefully their various merits, 

 and have come to the conclusion that there are 

 none in use better than the square and improved 

 hinge harrows. 



The roller I consider a very valuable article, 

 especially on light soils. Among the advantages 

 to be derived from its use are, that on sowing 

 down ty grass, it smoothes the land l)y forcing 

 sods and small stones into the soft ground, pul- 

 verizes the lumps of earth, and, by pressing tlie 

 light, loose soil around the seeds sowed, they will 

 be more likely to germinate ; by making the earth 

 compact, also, at the surface, insects will be in a 

 measure deprived of their shelter. Rollers are 



