1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



379 



stock at least $1000. Mr. Kimball was re- 

 cently in Massachusetts looking for another 

 animal to supply the place of Mogul. 



For the New England Farmer, 

 A PLEA FOB FAKMING. 



There has been a doleful cry among farm- 

 ers, both before and since the late war, that 

 farming was an up-hill business, — its prices 

 were low, and labor was high. But I believe 

 that such a mode of reasoning cannot stand 

 the test of facts. In this section of country, 

 prices of farm produce have nearly or quite 

 doubled, since the commencement of the war. 

 Hay $25 per ton, formerly $10 or $12 ; corn 

 $1.60, once 75 cts. ; oats $1, once 40 cts., 

 &c; Not so with labor. Before the present 

 scale of war prices, the farmer had to pay 

 $1.50 per day for good hands in haying, while 

 even now the laborer exacts only about fifty 

 cents more. * 



Again the field of demand is widening for 

 the New England farmer, to a vast 'extent. 

 The wailings of hungry millions is borne to 

 our ears on every southern breeze, from culti- 

 vators, who, in the days of my grandfather, 

 helped to supply our markets with "Virginia 

 pork," "Southern corn," and "Richmond 

 Hour." Now they scarcely supply their own 

 wants. Emigration's tide at the rate of one 

 million and a half a year, is setting westward 

 to consume what otherwise might arrive in our 

 markets. Mechanics and manufactures tending 

 south and west, effect about the same result. 

 Still the same complaint continues, — "labor 

 is so high that farming does not pay." "The 

 fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in 

 ourselves." "Farming is not honorable!" 

 because the swell, fop or poisonous jjnave, 

 with dashing horse and fine equipage, covered 

 perhaps, from his creditors, passes the honest 

 farmer in the street with cold disdain, or a 

 grimace, or a sneer, forgetting, perhaps, or 

 never having read what wise old Alexander 

 Pope once said ; — 



Honor and shame from no condition rise : 

 Act well jour part, there all the i.oaor lies. 



If any individual, whether lawyer, minister, 

 mechanic, or farmer, is not master of his call- 

 ing or business, or imperfectly practices it, of 

 course the profession or occupation is dishon- 

 ored by him. 



While the farmer who inherits the paternal 

 acres, ample and broad, continues, by the 

 skinning process, to harvest his waning crops 

 for many consecutive years ; while he pitches 

 out the manure of his stalls to the sun and 

 rain, but never replenishes his barn-yard or 

 stables with muck or loam ; while he sows no 

 clover seed or plaster to plough in to his ex- 

 hausted fields ; while he sutlers his cattle and 

 horses to gnaw the fall and spring feed to 

 their hearts' content ; while be denudes the 

 grand old hills of their forests, to obtain money 



to buy corn and flour of the sunset regions of 

 the West, that should be raised on his own 

 cleared acres, thus paying dividends to west- 

 ern railroad stockholders ; while he harnesses 

 up his team once every day or two and visits 

 the village store or post offic«e to hear or talk 

 political news three or four hours, as though 

 the whole "government was upon his shoul- 

 ders ;" and while he is too wise for farmer's 

 clubs, agricultural papers, and book-farm- 

 ing. — no wonder that farming is "dishonora- 

 ble" and will not pay ; or that the sons of such 

 farmers leave the old homestead for the coun- 

 ters of the city merchant, or the workshop of 

 the mechanic, leaving the science of agricul- 

 ture, the pedestal of the column of national 

 wealth and power thus short of labor. 



M. J. IIarvey. 

 Epping, N. H., 1868. 



GARDEN HINTS. 



Transplanting of annuals, tomatoes, cab- 

 bage, &c., should never be done when the 

 ground is wet. It is also a bad practice to 

 puddle the roots, that is, to wet and so mud 

 the roots by dipping them in a pail of mud as 

 to cause them to adhere together. Our most 

 successful practice in transplanting is to plant 

 in the dry ground, when the earth pulverizes 

 fine like meal ; sift the earth among the roots 

 until the hole is half filled with earth ; then 

 fill the hole with water, and as soon as it has 

 soaked away, draw in dry soil to finish and 

 level the surface. 



Increasing the Size of Fruit. — While 

 the fruit is swelling, the size of raspberries and 

 strawberries may be increased by thinning out 

 the number on a cane or plant, removing all 

 suckers or newly-forming attached plants, and 

 watering occasionally with manure water. 



Tomatoes will bear more abundantly, and 

 occasion the least trouble, if the ends of 

 the shoots, just beyond the fruit, are pinched 

 off. A surface mulch of rotten manure, and 

 if a dry time, frequent watering, well repay 

 in increased size and abundance of fruit. 



Herbaceous Plants, as soon as they have 

 done flowering, may be easily propagated by 

 cuttings. These should be planted in a cold 

 frame in a mixture of sand and loam, and kept 

 shaded until the roots have formed. 



Asparagus should not be cut too late in the 

 season, or its value another year will be les- 

 sened. A dressing of well-rotted manure 

 lightly forked in should now be given the bed. 



Fuchsias should be shaded from the mid- 

 day sun. It is a good time now to make cut- 

 tings and propagate. — Neio York Horticultu- 

 rist. 



—Of the $142,000,000 worth of breadstuffs im- 

 ported by England last year, only #16,000,000 

 worth went out from the United States. 



