1855. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



339 



commonly called "hip complaint," so great were 

 his sufFt-rings at times. ■ He made arrangements 

 to sell his little farm, when he again encountered 

 his old physician who once more told him to get 

 the looollen shirt and drawers. At last they were 

 procured, and to the patient's astonishment his 

 pain and lameness immediately disappeared. 

 From that time to the present, whenever he lays 

 aside his woollen garments he is attacked with 

 the same disease, but never when he wears them. 



So we say to such as ai-e troubled with rheu- 

 matic diseases, use woollen undergarments, and to 

 say the least you may calculate with safety that 

 you will be much benefited. By woollen gar- 

 ments, Ave mean garments made of the products 

 of sheeps' backs, and not those fabrics known as 

 cotton flannels, which are much better conduc- 

 tors of caloric and far inferior to woollen as gar- 

 ments, c. 



Guilford Centre, Vt., April, 1855. 



POOR FARMING AN EXPENSIVE BUSI- 

 NESS. 



The truth is, poor fai-ming is an expensive 

 business. The cost exceeds the income. If from 

 a very low grade of forming, which must of 

 course be unprofitable, we ascend to abetter con- 

 dition of the art, we shall come to a point where 

 there is neither loss nor gain ; the income equals 

 the outgoes ; the ends meet, as they say. And 

 this, if we understand these niatters, is the very 

 condition in which nine-tenths of our farming 

 now is. 



The farmer of a hundred acres puts on his farm 

 in his own labor, in the labor of his wife and his 

 children, in taxes, insurance, &c., $500. And he 

 takes off in some marketable produce or for home 

 consumption, $500. "The ends meet;" and if 

 there were no better way he need not complain ; 

 for he is working his way through tiie world as 

 quietly and as easily as most men ; for tlie devel- 

 02)ment of higli moral qualities he has the advan- 

 tage of most others ; and what is more, he has 

 the best possible means of training his children 

 to those habits of industry and frugality which 

 more than conspire to make them good men and 

 women and worthy citizens. Let him not, there- 

 fore, complain. But if there is abetter way, let 

 him fall into it. We do not believe that farm- 

 ing is necessarily limited to the operation of put- 

 ting on $500 and taking off $500, and living by 

 the operation, only because what is put on is 

 mostly in the form of labor done by the family. 

 If a farm will give $500, with the labor of one 

 man, it will give a great deal more with the la- 

 bor of two men ; and the excess will more than 

 balance the wages and board of the second. In- 

 stead of puttinjr on $500 and taking off $500, 

 tlie better way is to put on .$700 and take off 

 $900; and then to put on .$000 and take off 

 $1200. There is doubtless a limit beyond whii-h 

 the income could not be made to increase al)ovc 

 the expenditures ; but very few of us are in dan- 

 ger of going beyond the limit. There is much 

 more danger of falling short of it. Our standard 

 is too low. Men are afraid to trust their land, 

 lest it should not pay them. It is the best pay- 

 master in the world. — The Farmer, by J. A. I 

 Nash. 



SPECIFIC MANURES. 



No very important movement for the general 

 good ever yet had uninterrupted success, and as 

 it is struggle and opposition that best acquaints, 

 even the advocates of any measure, witli its 

 strong and weak points, it is not best it should ; 

 indeed, for this reason fair and honorable opposi- 

 tion is to be desii'ed, but the attacks of calumny, 

 deceit and meanness are particularly difficult to be 



met. 



No set of men ever had more uphill work and 

 greater difficulties to face, than the advocates of im- 

 proved agriculture, and that they have triumphed 

 through them, and in spite of them, is sliown by 

 the strong interest felt by the community in gen- 

 eral in agricultural matters ; in the establishment 

 of means for the dififusion of useful knowledge 

 amongst the rural population, in our well attend- 

 ed autumnal cattle shows, in the growing use of 

 various specific manures, &c. 



Any careful observer of the respective theories 

 and "isms" of the day would decide that the ag- 

 ricultural is the most popular one, and that it is 

 likely in the end to be triumphant ; but let no 

 one suppose this popularity has come unsought, 

 or with small effort. How many men have de- 

 voted years of gratuitous labor to the cause ; re- 

 member the untiring efforts of Pickering, Cole- 

 man, Buel, Phinney, Lowell and numerous oth- 

 ers ; or in our own day, it is only necessary to 

 point to the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, 

 who, with an immense amount of gratuitous, and 

 apparently almost tliankless labor, persevere un- 

 dismayed in their efforts to improve and benefit 

 the agricultural condition of their friends and 

 neighbors, whether of the same town, county or 

 State. 



It is most worthy of laudatory notice, that 

 twenty or more men could have been selected 

 from various parts of the State, who would be 

 willing to devote a large portion of their time, 

 unremunerated, to the duties of the Board, and 

 renders them deserving of the State's gratitude. 

 We are apt to but lightly esteem advice gratis, 

 and it is not impossible that these men's efforts 

 are underrated for that very cause, and perhaps 

 many who are aware of their existence suppose 

 them to be the incumbents of fat offices, which 

 are mere sinecures, instead of which the}' give a 

 very large amount of time, labor and money 

 without any other present or prospective reward 

 tlian the success of tlieir measures, and the benefit 

 of their countrymen. 



Since the first establishment of this Board, in 

 spite of opposition, and of the narrow-minded at- 

 tacks of men who judge only by the evidences of 

 their senses, tliey have accomplished an immense 

 amount in the way of undcrmniing prejudices, 

 enliglitening darkness and introducing improve- 

 ment. 



