No. 1. Alternate Crops. — Elegant Extract. — Farmer's Life. 45 



not what is wrung from the hard hand of 

 labour, but the surplus that has been left after 

 labour had received its full remuneration. 

 The wealth of Mr. Coke has been the in- 

 crease of the capital of the country : the acre 

 of ground that is now worth twenty and 

 thirty for one, is worth nothing less to the 

 community in which he lives, than to him- 

 self — its increased value to him, is also in- 

 creased value to them. 



Hon. Isaac HilVs Address. 



Alternate Crops* 



The greatest quantity of grain produced in 

 a rotation, is not alone a proof of its being the 

 best system ; a large quantity of meadow 

 would yield much hay. It is a sin against 

 good husbandry to sell off the hay from a 

 farm, unless it be with great caution, where 

 the farm is near a large town, from whence, 

 or otherwise, it can be plentifully supplied 

 with manure. Numbers of cattle well-fed 

 and well-littered, give the manure, in addi- 

 tion to other manures, requisite for invigo- 

 rating the soil ; but numbers of cattle cannot 

 be kept in good condition throughout the 

 year, unless clover and grass, as well as hay 

 and straw, abound. The summer and winter 

 food must have a due proportion to each other, 

 and the fields of grain are not to exceed the 

 fields of meliorating crops, — these preserve 

 the soil, as well as produce crops ; but grain 

 reduces the soil in producing the crops. Aim 

 at income from live stock, which improves, 

 rather than from grain, which impoverishes 

 your land. — Bordley. 



Elegant Extract. 



" The profession of agriculture brings with 

 it none of these evils. If there lives the man 

 who may eat his bread with a conscience at 

 peace with man and God, it is the man who 

 has brought that bread oitt of the earth by 

 his own honest industry. It is cankered by 

 no fraud ; it is wet by no tears ; it is stained 

 with no blood. The profession of agriculture 

 brings with it none of those agitating passions 

 which are fatal to peace, to satisfaction, or to 

 the enjoyment, even of the common blessings 

 of life : it presents few temptations to vicious 

 indulgence, and removes a man from those 

 seductions by which too often in other situa- 

 tions, health, and character, and peace are 

 sacrificed ; it is favourable to health and to 

 long life ; to habits of industry and frugality ; 

 to temperance and self-government; to the 

 cultivation of the domestic virtues ; and to 

 the calm and delicious enjoyments of domes- 

 tic pleasures in all their purity and fullness !" 

 — H. Colman. 



The Farmer's Life* 



BY H. COLMAN. 



What a means of imparting pleasure is 

 an improved agriculture ! How many charm- 

 ing examples present themselves among us 

 of improvements which every eye gazes upon 

 with unmingled delight. Let a man, accord- 

 ing to his power, take his ten, his twenty, his 

 fifty, his hundred acres. Let him comb the 

 hair, and wash the face of nature. Let him 

 subdue, clear, cultivate, enrich, embellish it. 

 Let him smooth the rough places ; and drain 

 the wet, and fill up the sunken, and enrich 

 the barren. Let him enclose it with a neat 

 and substantial fence. Let him line its bor- 

 ders and road sides with ornamental trees, 

 and let him stock every proper part with 

 vines and fruits. Let his fields and meadows 

 wave with their golden harvest, and let his 

 hills be covered with the herds rejoicing in 

 the fulness with which his labours, under the 

 blessing of God, have spread their table, and 

 who, when he goes among them, hasten from 

 all sides to meet him and gratefully recognize 

 in him a friend and benefactor, and lick the 

 hand which is accustomed to feed and fondle 

 them. Here now let us see the neatly paint- 

 ed cottage with its green shades, its piazzas 

 trellised with vines, its sides covered with the 

 spreading elm or flowing acacia, with here 

 and there the beautiful fir to shade the pic- 

 ture, and the mountain ash showing its rich 

 clusters of crimson fruit among the deep 

 green foliage, and the smooth and verdant 

 lawn stretching its soft and beautiful carpet 

 in the front view ; then look again and see 

 the parents at the close of day, resting from 

 their labours and enjoying the calm evening, 

 with the pledges of mutual and devoted af- 

 fection rioting before them in all the buoyan- 

 cy of youthful innocence and delight; and if^ 

 at such an hour as this, you can hear the 

 hymn of grateful praise rising from this hum- 

 ble abode of peace and love, and its charming 

 notes mingling with the music of the gurg- 

 ling brook that flows near by, or broken by 

 the occasional shrill and hollow notes of the 

 gentle and fearless birds, which deem them- 

 selves loving members of this loving house- 

 hold ; if then, whether traveller or sojourner, 

 your heart is not touched with this charming 

 and not unusual picture of rural felicity, cease 

 to call yourself a man. If still you sigh for 

 the bustle and the noise and the confinement 

 of the city, with its impure water, and its of- 

 fensive odours, with its despicable affectations 

 and its heartless formalities, with its violent 

 excitements, with its midnight festivities, 

 with its utter destitution of sympathy, with 

 its low estimate of human life, with its squalid 

 poverty, its multiplied forms of wretchedness 

 and crime, its pride, its vanity, its ambition, 



