42 Farming a " miserable Business." — Preservation of Plants. Vol. VI. 



fodder; but our women folks do not like dairy 

 work, so we buy our butter and sell our milk 

 to tlie milk man for about eleven cents a 

 gallon. 



Do you keep swine ] 



Only one or two for our own pork. We 

 do not have any skimmed or butter-milk for 

 them. Besides, there is no great profit in 

 fattening hogs. Tliey will not much more 

 than pay for what they eat. I know they 

 will make a large quantity of manure, but 

 then you must cast in a great deal of stuff' 

 into their pens or else they can't make any. 

 But come, I must show you a .sow I have 

 got; she is only fifteen months old, and 1 sold 

 her piffs for more tlian forty dollars. I sup- 

 pose Ishall make her weigh four hundred in 

 the fall. 



Do you raise your own grain and potatoes ? 



Not all. I raise about three acres of corn 

 and about as much rye, and about six hun- 

 dred bushels of potatoes. We sell hay and 

 buy Genesee fiour. We have tried wheat, 

 but sometimes it blasted, and it don't make 

 white flour, and our women folks say that 

 they cannot make handsome pie-crust or 

 white broad with it. 



How many iiave you in your family] 



I have a wife and eiyiit children, and my 

 father lives with me. 



Have you any trade? 



No, I have nothing but my farm. 



Does your farm support your family and 

 pay your labour? 



Why yes; I have nothing else, except a 

 little interest that comes from some money 

 which 1 received for the sale of wood from 

 oft' the farm some time ago, which came to 

 about five hundred dollars, and which I put 

 out at interest. We sell enough produce 

 from the farm to pay our hired labour, which 

 costs about a hundred dollars a year, and our 

 store bills and taxes. 



We have very much abridged this conver- 

 sation, and we shall leave it without farther 

 comment. But here is a husbandman on a 

 farm valued at four thousand dollars, not pro- 

 ducing more than one-third of what it might 

 be made to produce, yet supporting a family 

 of eleven persons, and paying all expenses, 

 excepting the labour and superintendence of 

 one man, and the farm gradually increasing 

 in value by every expenditure, however small, 

 for its improvement; this man, too, not work- 

 ing half the time, and he and his family liv- 

 ing in the enjoyment of all the luxuries which 

 you can reasonably ask. Let such a man, if 

 he will, take his two hunched and forty dol- 

 lars income, and labour no more hours than 

 he docs in the country, and jro into Boston 

 and try to support his family there. The end 

 of the year would make him ashamed to com- 



plain of his present condition. His whole 

 money income of two hundred and forty dol- 

 lars would scarcely pay for his fuel, his taxes, 

 and the rent of a ten-footer. What an evil 

 it is that our farmers do not know their bless- 

 ings! — N. Ertg. Far. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Preservation of Plants in Pots. 



Mr. Editor, — I have a desire to acquaint 

 you with the mode by which 1 succeeded the 

 last winter in preserving my plants, while 

 many of my neighbours lost all theirs, some 

 by over and some by under nursing. It is 

 customary, we know, to place the plants 

 either in the garret or the cellar as a place 

 of protection during the winter, but experi- 

 ence has proved that these extremes are 

 equally unsuitable for the purpose ; so also is 

 the room in which we usually reside, as well 

 as the kitchen, these being too uniformly- 

 warm, while an out-house is too cold. Now, 

 taking these things into consideration, and 

 being desirous to save some very favourite 

 plants in pots the last winter, 1 determined to 

 try how the atmosphere of the bed-room — 

 without fire — would suit them, and I found 

 that to be exactly the place, for I saved every 

 plant, and they came out in the spring per- 

 f(3Ctly strong and healthy. The way I did 

 was this : 



I first fastened down the upper sashes of 

 the windows, and then placed shelves around 

 the walls within two feet of the ceiling, and 

 upon them I ranged the plants, which were 

 thus kept in a pretty even temperature, espe- 

 cially by night; and when the windows and 

 doors were throv.'n open during the day for 

 the purpose of airing the room, the plants 

 were above the current of air, which passed 

 either into or out of the room, t/iat never 

 reaching to the ceiling, as all draught was 

 cut ofl' by fastening down the upper sashes. 

 And here they stood, fresh and green, with- 

 out heat sufficient to force forward vegeta- 

 tion, or cold to freeze the earth in the pots 

 during the whole of the winter. It was ne- 

 cessary to exercise caution in the supply of 

 moisture — this being given only in fine, open 

 weather, in the morning, and in very small 

 quantity, sometimes sprinkling the leaves 

 slightly — and in the severest part of the win- 

 ter I never had a leaf frozen. I should add, 

 I took the precaution, when the weather was 

 at the very coldest, to set each pot contain- 

 ing the plant into an empty one rather larger 

 than it, filling the interspace with dry saw- 

 dust, which so ell'ectually protected the earth 

 from frost, even when the thermometer was 

 very low, that not a plant ever suffered in the 

 least ; being careful, however, to remove these 

 casings so soon as all expectation of such very 

 severe cold had passed away, or premature 



