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DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. VII. 



BOSTON, OCTOBER, 1855. 



NO. 10. 



JOEL NOURSE, Proprietor, 

 Office.. ..QuiNcr Hall. 



SIMON BROWN, EDITOR. 



FRED'K HOLBROOK, ) Associate 

 HENRY F. FRENCH, ( Editors. 



CALENDAR FOR OCTOBER. 



CTOBER is upon us, 



with its transjiarent 



atmosphere, and 



clear, cool eveU' 



ings. The Stimmer 



is over and gone 



Through the first 



Atdumn month we 



have approached, 



as it Avere, the bridge 



which divides Summer from 



Winter ; we ai-e about to pass 



it. Let us pay cheerfully the 



toll of grateful hearts. 



The forests have put off 

 their beautiful robes of green, 

 so pleasant to the 

 eye, and so cheer- 

 ing to the heart, 

 and now stand 

 clothed in thoir gor- 

 geous Autumnal 

 hues — pranked out in their richest apparel, only to 

 be laid in the dreary grave of Winter. They shall 

 rise in renewed verdure, and thus Nature gives her 

 sanction of immortality to Revelation. He who has 

 said, "seed time and harvest shall not fail," has 

 blessed the husl)andman with abundance, and this 

 is the time for his thanksgivings to ascend to that 

 Giver of All Good for his benevolence and his mer- 

 cies. 



No month in the whole year presents a time 

 more suitable for reflection than October. The 

 heat, the labor and the hurry of Summer have 

 passed away — the harvest has l)ecn mostly gathered 

 in, the days arc cool, clear and comfortable, the 

 evenings are getting long, and the cheerful fire 

 blazes on the hearth, soon after the sun disajjpcars. 

 During the day-time the odds and ends of the farm 

 work are leisurely gathered up by the snug and 

 thrifty farmer, and all the necessary preparations 



are made to enter joyously upon the ice-bound sea- 

 son so soon to follow. The late fruit is carefully 

 gathered and packed away for preservation or sale, 

 or is converted into some pleasant beverage for 

 winter use — the latter harvests are stowed away in 

 the barns and granaries — the flail and the threshing 

 machine are busy with their clatter. [We some- 

 times almost regret that the threshing machines 

 were ever invented, for to our ears, there is nothing 

 more cheering than to hear from all around a farm- 

 ing neighborhood the measured clack of the flail, 

 as it comes longer, or more faint, according to the 

 distance, or to the thickness of "the tlire.shing" up- 

 on the floor. Every farmer who was a boy ere 

 threshing machines came into use, will doubtless 

 recall the hours and hours that he has listened, in 

 a still, sunshiny day, to the clack, clack — clack, 

 clack — clack, clack, of the flails coming from the 

 threshing floors for miles around him. Many and 

 many a time have we done so.] The cattle floor is 

 carefully prepared for its winter tenants. 



Are there any loose clapboards or battens upon 

 the barn, they are made fast, and every air-hole 

 through which the sharp blasts of muter can pene- 

 trate to make the cattle uncomfortable, are careful- 

 ly closed up, for "the merciful man is merciful to 

 his beast," and the good farmer would no sooner 

 see one of his oxen suffer from cold through his 

 own negligence, than one of his children. As the 

 sailor, when he sees the storm approacliing, takes 

 care "to make all snug" — so the good farmer, as 

 winter approaches, takes care to molvC all comforta- 

 ble. 



And the evenings of October ! Go with mc to 

 farmer Wellman's, and let us see how those even- 

 ings are passed. The sun has just gone down in a 

 clear and cloudless West, and the chill of evening is 

 ajjproacbing. Do you hear Good wife Wellman — 

 "John, it's time to build a fire in the sitting-room ; 

 the evening is a-going to be chilly, and your father 

 and the men folks will be in directly." John — a 

 boy of perhaps eight or ten summers — for farmer 



