THE FARMKRS CABINET. 



VOL. I. 



OardeiiiiiST of tlsc <wcrBiin,ns in 1' pasture. They lived more on vegetables 

 PennJityivailiM. jjthaa any other people, and made gardens 



Havinof mentioned the great emifrration of accordingly, 

 r.ermans'into Petinsvlvania previous to the ' I may describe some of their modes of rai- 

 French war, I mnv^iow <r\ve some brief sins; and savincr .wa'«. 



sketches of their economy, farming, garden- ' Of beans, tliey raised abundance, and had 

 ing; &c., for which they were so justly ad- several better Icinds than 1 have s. en of late 

 mfred, as forty-five or fifly years ago I was yfi<"s. To save seed they would pick by 

 much amoncrst thein as a'surveyor and con- hand the earliest large pods, hang theln up 

 veyancer, w'ell acquainted with many of the •" a bag, and not shell them until wanted to 

 worthies that had crossed the Atlantic, and plant.— the same with their sf^rdeii peas— 

 learned to understand their language intelli- saying it prevented the bug; and I never 

 o-ibly in business. | saw. a bug in a pea kept in this manner. 



They had come from a country where neces- Of cabbage, for the early kinds, they sow- 

 sity had obliged them to raise ail they could ed the seed on a scaffold raised five or six 

 from a little land : every thing they did was feet from the ground to prevent the small fly 

 in the best manner, and they would not un-. from eating ihem. After the small fly was 

 dertake more than they could accomplish in! done, sow their winter and suur krout cab- 

 due season. — They always washed their seet^b age broad cast, and where too thick, pull it 

 wheat in a tub of water, carefully skimming out for their cows and pigs, 

 off all that would swim, saying it would pro-|| Their way of saving cucumber seed, after 

 duce chess. I have known them to pick' the first, or such nearest the root, began to be 



out by hand the largest and best wheat heads, 

 and sow it on new ground, well prepared to 

 raise the best of clean seed ; then after the 

 wheat came off, put the stubble in with tur- 

 neps — flax the next spring— then wheat again 

 and sow grass seed on the snow either for 

 mowing or pasture for milch cows. They 

 generally cleared a small piece of land every 

 year, for the purpose of clean seed wheat, 

 turneps and good flax. Dutch wheat used to 

 command an extra price for superfine flour. 



For seed com, it v/ould be the first they 

 took out of the field, selecting the largest, 

 most forward ears from such stalks as bore 

 three, leaving two or three thicknesses of 

 husks on, and hanging the ears up in some 

 building in that order, until they shelled it 

 to plant, and then only take about one third 

 of the ear out of the middle, and never plant 

 any where the rows were crooked on the ear. 

 To prevent birds or squirrels from taking it 

 up, they would steep it in a strong decoction 

 of hellebore roots. 



Oats, after thpy were six or eight inches 

 high, they wouhl roll tiiem down flat, saying 

 it kept them from lodging, and they headed 

 better. Sufliice it to say, that they raised far 

 better, and heavier crops than farmers origin- 

 ally from any other parts of Europe. 



As to tiieadoius, they were the people that 

 first introduced Irrigation into Pennsylva- 

 nia. If they had a stream of water that could 

 be led over the banks, it was a primary ob- 

 ject to do it. They kept their meadows dres- 

 sed smooth and fine, and destroyed all bad 

 weeds, so that their hay was clean and sweet. 

 They were famous for large barns to contain 

 all their produce, and to house all their stock 

 of creatures in stormy weather; — and very 

 careful of their manure. When snow was 

 on the ground, they carted the dung out of 

 their stables, direct on their wheat, and spread 

 ifvery even, saying it prevented its heaving 

 out with the frost; and seeded the fields for 



soft on the vine, they would take them in, 

 puncture the blossom, and lay that down- 

 ward on a slanting board, stick the butt full 

 of oats — which would grow and extract the 

 moisture. In that way the cucumbers were 

 dried in the house, and the seed never taken 

 out until put into the ground. 



Melons, they could not dry in that manner, 

 but would scrape out the seed with as much 

 of the glutinous liquid as they could on a 

 coarse paper, on a level board ; there let 

 them dry in the house and never suffer them 

 to be washed, or dried in the sun, saying it 

 would weaken the vigor of their growth : 

 and they never would use seed more than 

 two years old. 



Since I have been away from amongst 

 these good honest people, I believe that all 

 my particular acquaintance that had crossed 

 the water, (and learned their modes of farm- 

 ing and gardening in a country where expe-- 

 riments were older than in America,) are 

 dead. But from what I have seen in my 

 last travels, it does not appear that their 

 descendants have lost the knowledge of 

 their forefathers. Description cannot convey 

 a correct idea of the elegance of their man- 

 agement. Let any of the best farmers in the 

 Eastern Stales, at a proper season of the year, 

 take a tour to Bethlehem, Nazareth, Greaten- 

 dall, and Christian Spring, in Northampton 

 county. All those estates belong to the so- 

 ciety of Moravian brethren — then go viewr 

 the large farms (private property) in Berks 

 and Lancaster counties, — and they must ad- 

 mit them to be the best farms in all the Uni- 

 ted States, and that the emigration from Ger- 

 many was the making of Pennsylvania. 



Samuel Preston. 



Stochport, Pennsi/lvania. 



A beau dressed out is as the cinnamon tree 

 — the bark is worth more than the body. 

 Overburi/. 



