1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



569 



account. As a general habit I think we are 

 farming on the system of our ancestors and 

 taking the tradition of their experience as our 

 guide. But what was true for them is not true 

 for us. When the lands were new, and rich 

 with all the nutriment that Nature had been 

 providing for ages, it was well and wise to 

 take advantage of it. A change, however, 

 has taken place since, which we ought to un- 

 derstand. But now when the land will no 

 longer do of itself what it used to, instead of 

 understanding it and helping it, we spread our 

 labor over twice the surface and then find fault 

 with the whole and say farming wiU not pay 

 for the labor. 



The Agricultural College, 

 He thinks, may do something for farmers, but as 

 few can be educated there, he calls attention to the 

 importance of improving the Common Schools. 

 He then alludes to 



Societies, Clubs and Papers. 

 Association too is a great help to farmers — 

 the mutual aid they may render by debates, 

 consultations, and comparisons of experience. 

 The newspaper is a great teacher nowadays — 

 perhaps the great teacher. To be sure the 

 terrible "we" will now and then sit like the 

 Grand invisible Lama, and dogmatize and give 

 his own private whim where you had a right to 

 look for impartial, catholic criticism, or a fair 

 statement of enlightened public sentiment. 

 But we must bear the lesser evil for the sake 

 of the greater good; for the great "we" is a 

 good fellow after all, and knows a vast deal, 

 and will often tell us some wholesome truths 

 though they cut close home. Moreover he 

 gives his best corner to the farmers of late, 

 and where he gives you all the corners, as 

 your Maine Farmer does, nothing could be 

 better. From all these means which are now 

 in active and increasing exercise, intelligence 

 must be largely deepened and diffused, and we 

 shall soon have a tolerable science of farming, 

 enough acquaintance with the nature and needs 

 of soils to keep us from wasting our materials 

 and our labor, and practical science enough at 

 any rate to keep us from blasting through 

 granite to find coal, or marrying a widow with 

 a hill full of iron pyrites thinking it is gold. 

 "A little learning" certainly isn't "a danger- 

 ous thing," in such cases. By these means 

 too, the farmer will hit upon some system of 

 his own by which he will make his vocation 

 profitable and pleasant. It will depend on 

 circumstances whether you can best cultivate a 

 large farm or a small one ; on the locality, the 

 age, the kind of soil, the nature and nearness 

 of the market, or perhaps on some physical 

 disability ; whether for instance, you have a 

 bullet through your breast, or a wooden leg, 

 or are an old bachelor. If your land will not 

 pay for keeping up, let a good part of it go to 

 grass, or even to trees again. It isn't the 

 worst thing to have a lot of oak, or beech, or 

 sapling pine, or even white birch and poplar 



growing. These last will do for spools and 

 bobbins at any rate, and we are going to have 

 a demand for these things pretty soon. I no- 

 ticed on our marches through the magnificent 

 oaks and chestnuts of Virginia, that in the 

 midst of those immense forests wherever a tree 

 had been cut out, the stump was fenced around 

 with tender care to protect the little shoot 

 springing up to replace the old. I don't call 

 that bad Agriculture. 



Sheep Raising and Dogs. 



If you can't do one thing you can do an- 

 other. If your land is impracticable in other 

 respects, try sheep raising. In travelling in 

 our south-east counties a few weeks since, 

 the aspect of the country being rather sugges- 

 tive of this branch of industry, I asked my 

 friends why they didn't raise more sheep? 

 "We are afraid of the dogs," was the answer. 

 And I have since learned that in the eight 

 counties along our coast, more than two thou- 

 sand sheep a year are actually killed by dogs, 

 to sa} nothing of the number injured. There 

 is a dead loss of ten or twelve thousand dol- 

 lars a year in those counties alone. We 

 can find a way to clear that track. If com- 

 mon sense don't help us out, a little applied 

 chemistry might do. But seriously, the low 

 price of wool just now ought not to discour- 

 age sheep raising. If we attend to the mutton 

 qualities as well as to the lleece, the farmer 

 would find this a highly profitable business, 

 and the farm would constantly improve under 

 it. The readiness of the market would en- 

 able the farmer to make more money from 

 his mutton and his wool together, than those 

 do who are compelled to sacrifice everything 

 to the fineness of fleece. 



Stock Kaising. 



As to stock raising generally, we seem to 

 be on the right road, excepting that it appears 

 to me unfortunate to be obliged to send so 

 many cattle to foreign markets. We ought 

 to have use for them here — every part of 

 them — setting in motion a score of handi- 

 crafts, and feeding at the same time both the 

 factories and the workmen. Horses are our 

 pride. But I suppose you will blame me if I 

 intimate that we should not sacrifice every- 

 thing to speed. Velocity is gained at the 

 expense of power, and I question whether 

 swiftness is the most urgent need nowadays. 

 It might be the main point with "Young Lo':h- 

 invar," or stray Congressmen at Bull Run. 

 But strength, hardihood, action, these it seems 

 to me should be counted among the prize 

 qualities that go to make up blood. But I 

 deem it a most fortunate thing that we are 

 taking so great an interest in raising animals 

 of choice blood. 



Farmers' Sons and Daughters. 



And think it not foreign to my subject, but 

 rather the summary and climax of it all, to 

 say we must aim ip everything to keep our 



