No. 2. 



Machine for stirring the Subsoil. — Bacon. 



79 



" I now appear before you as your landlord, 

 but for many long- and happy years we have 

 been acquainted with each other, and I trust 

 to Providence to grant us many more of mu- 

 tual confidence and esteem. To you I owe 

 it to express the debt of gratitude due, and 

 to express also, not only in my name, but in 

 that of my family, our acknowledgments for 

 the kind, friendly and liberal conduct of the 

 tenantry to this house, and I have sought this 

 opportunity to meet you, to assure you that 

 the honest and upright tenant will always 

 find in me a kind, anxious and friendly land- 

 lord, and I shall always take a warm interest 

 in your comforts and the farm which you oc- 

 cupy. The possessions which I hold are ex- 

 tensive and important, and I am anxious that 

 my tenantry, wlio have laid out their capital 

 on their farms, should have every encourage- 

 ment and assistance they deserve: let not 

 those fear a rise of rent — as I have often said, 

 so I repeat, " live and let live," shall be my 

 motto through life ; the more a tenant im- 

 proves his land, the more he must benefit him- 

 self, and the happier I shall be to see it : I 

 depend upon your labour for my subsistence, 

 and my residence will be amongst you ; you 

 will meet with every liberal feeling from me 

 — every assistance I will give you. You hold 

 your farms on easy rents, and it is not my 

 intention to raise them : I wish to see you 

 reap every benefit which the times and sea- 

 sons may give you, leaving it to you, to your 

 honour and your friendship, to assist me, 

 should I ever require it at your hands ; and I 

 feel that you will do it, with the same plea- 

 sure tiiat my predecessor and myself assisted 

 you, when in distress. I rely on you as Eng- 

 lish farmers, as neighbours and friends, and 

 the confidence we mutually repose in each 

 other will, I know, never be abused : your 

 farms are yours so long as you like to hold 

 them ; it will be your own fault if you leave 

 them, for on your own care, conduct and 

 management depend entirely your comfort 

 and prosperity. It affords me the highest 

 satisfaction to know that the arrears of rent 

 due are very trifling, my steward has direc- 

 tions to remit those, and I thank you for your 

 punctuality and liberality. Gentlemen, I live 

 in the hope of being of service to you and 

 my country, and 1 heartily wish you all every 

 happiness in this world : long may you live to 

 enjoy and increase your prosperity, as my kind, 

 friendly, happy and independent tenantry." 



Curious Harvesting. — In North Kyna, and 

 other parts of tlie fens, in the county of Lin- 

 colnshire (England), the farmers were paying, 

 the last harvest, 30 shillings per acre for cut- 

 ting wheat, the men working up to their 

 knees in water ; the crop being taken away 

 in boats and laid upon the grass to dry ! 



New Machine for stirring the Sub-soil. 



Messrs. Lawson and Son have communi- 

 cated the following notice of such a machine 

 from G. Burnett, Esq., of Ovington, New- 

 castle-upon-Tyne. 



" I take this opportunity of naming to you, 

 that a shoemaker in this neighbourhood has 

 invented an instrument which promises to do 

 effectually the work of a subsoil plough, 

 taking only half the draught, and stones be- 

 ing but little obstruction to it. It is simply, 

 a heavy metal-wheel, about 5 feet in diame- 

 ter, with slightly-curved iron spikes or teeth, 

 inserted in its broad rim. It is drawn by a 

 pair of horses, while a man, from behind, 

 steadies it with a pair of stilts, similar to 

 those of a plough, the which are fixed in a 

 frame, like to that of a roller, but without 

 support on either side ; perhaps a pair of light 

 wheels might be added with advantage, as 

 tending to relieve the holder considerably." 



Its mode of operation must be that of pick- 

 ing the subsoil loose by its own weight, 

 merely by proceeding onward in the track of 

 the furrow, the depth of the picking being 

 dependent upon the distance the spikes are 

 permitted to enter the subsoil. It is not said 

 how many rows of spikes there are upon the 

 surface of the wheel or at what angle they 

 stand. — Agr. Quarterly Journal. 



Bacon. 



" The kinds most celebrated are, the West- 

 phalia, principally brought from Hamburg; 

 the Hampshire, from England; and in the 

 United States, the Virginia or Southern hams 

 generally. It is not known that there is any 

 thing peculiar in the feeding or pickling the 

 Hamburg hams, but their superiority is attri- 

 buted to the manner in which they are smoked. 

 This is performed in the third or fourth sto- 

 ries of buildings, to which the smoke is con- 

 ducted in tubes, from oak or maple chips, in 

 the cellar of the building : in passing this 

 distance, the vapour, which smoke usually 

 holds, is deposited, and the hams are perfectly 

 dry and cool during the whole process. The 

 Hampshire bacon is made from pork not 

 scalded in dressing, but deprived of the hair 

 by quick fires of straw ; this singeing is re- 

 peated two or three times, as the case may 

 require, when the hog is cut up, pickled, and 

 carefully smoked ; the hams are particularly 

 hard and fine, which is attributed to the skin 

 not having been softened by scalding. 



The great defects in smoking commonly 

 are, the meat is placed too near the fire and 

 the smoke-house is too tight ; it is, therefore, 

 in consequence kept too warm by the fire, 

 and the condensation of the vapour keeps 

 them damp ; dryness, while smoking, is indis- 

 pensable to good bacon." — Cultivator. 



