302 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



JCLY 



carefully tended the plants, are reaping the 

 fruit of their labor. The summer fruits are 

 now coming into use, and what can be more 

 delicious than a bowl of fragrant strawberries 

 or refreshing currants, with the evening meal. 

 Do not insist upon sending these all to market. 

 Let the boys and girls who have helped to 

 raise and pick them, have a liberal share. 



In the vicinity of the market it too often 

 happens that the best of every thing and the 

 earliest is sent to market, and only the refuse 

 is used at home. Poor encouragement this to 

 the good wife and the children. Even where 

 market gardening is the leading business, the 

 family should never be neglected. The first 

 thing should be to make them comfortable and 

 contented, and nothing contributes more di- 

 rectly to this end than a good supply of early 

 vegetables and fruits, not doled out with a 

 begrudging hand, as though every pea and 

 berry used at home were so much money lost. 

 No ; let the family enjoy all they need, and sell 

 the balance, and you will all be the happier 

 and healthier for it. The farmer should always 

 feel that he and his family are a unit, — that 

 their interests are one and the same, and their 

 enjoyments should be common. We should 

 like to write a sermon from this text, and per- 

 haps we may some time. 



But just now we must say that the season 

 thus far has been a fine one for the weeds, and 

 it has required much more than the usual 

 amount of labor to kill them. If cut up, they 

 refuse to die. If buried they shoot up again 

 directly. The cultivator and the hoe must be 

 in constant motion. We need a weed tedder 

 to keep stirring the weeds till the life is dried 

 out of them. The wheel hoe is very useful in 

 such seasons, as it will go over a large surface 

 in a short time. 



At any rate, there is no other way but to 

 keep stirring the ground. The soil will not 

 produce two crops at the same time, and the 

 weeds must be kept down or corn will not grow. 

 To finish the haying, to harvest the grain, 

 to take care of the garden, and to keep down 

 the weeds among the growing crops, will be 

 the work of July, and upon our success in do- 

 ing these will depend the result of our farming 

 operations for the year. 



.—A little aium mixed in chicken food is recom- 

 mended l)Otb as a i)rtvcntive aad cure of chicken 

 cholera, by the Prairie Farmer. 



PEBMANENT FARM IMPROVEMENTS. 



The farmer, as well as the mechanic or the 

 tradesman, will not, and perhaps should not, 

 be satisfied without adding something every 

 year to his capital. It is not enough merely 

 to support himself and his family ; it is not 

 enough to add something to the comfort of his 

 family, in the; shape of clothing and conven- 

 iences ; but he needs to add something by 

 which his operations can be carried on with 

 greater facility, with less hard labor and with 

 more profit. He needs to do something by 

 which some portion of his land will yield a 

 larger crop ; and this should be some perma- 

 nent improvement, — as grubbing up a piece of 

 rough land and fitting it for the plough ; drain- 

 ing or ditching another piece, fencing a third, 

 digging and burying the stones in a fourth. 



As his crops increase, he needs to add some 

 stock everj' year, and this will enable him to 

 cultivate more or cultivate better. He needs 

 a mowing machine or horse rake, a new har- 

 ness, better ploughs, new tools. 



All these are additions to his capital. They 

 enable him to do more work and better, 

 and at a less cost. The farmer should look 

 upon them as so much added stock in trade. 



The mechanic and trader invest their earn- 

 ings in their business, until it has reached the 

 limits which circumstances justify, and then 

 they often remove to a wider field of enter- 

 prise ; and this is generally better for them 

 than to invest their surplus in stocks or real 

 estate, because they understand how to man- 

 age their business better than they do to man- 

 age stocks or other property. As they ad- 

 vance in business and expand it, they acquire 

 skill in its management. 



So the farmer can turn his earnings to bet- 

 ter account in his business, than by investing 

 them in other property. , The increase in the 

 beauty and productiveness of a ten acre lot, 

 from the investment of five hundred dollars in 

 its improvement, will alFord him much more 

 satisfaction than it will to count the six per 

 cent, inierest on five hundred dollars. 



The farmer, then, after counting the cost, 

 should decide what permanent improvement 

 he can make each coming year. Perhaps he 

 has a meadow which yields only poor, sour 

 grasses, and yet is susceptible of being drained, 

 and then by being dressed with sand and com- 

 post, and sown with herdsgrass and redtop, 

 may be made to yield brge crops of good hay. 



