160 



Hints to Farmers. — 7%e Cabinet 



Vol. V. 



it require a large land investment, nor fences, 

 nor does it require the owner to labour 

 through the summer to support them through 

 the winter. Care is indeed necessary, but a 

 child or superannuated person can perform 

 most of the duties that are necessary. The 

 cobwebs must be kept away from the imme- 

 diate vicinity of the hive, and all other annoy- 

 ances removed, &c. It is added, truly, that 

 the management of bees is a delightful em- 

 ployment, and may be pursued with the best 

 success in cities and villages, as well as 

 towns and country. It is a source of great 

 amusement as well as comfort and profit. 

 They collect honey and bread from most kinds 

 of forest trees, as well as garden flowers ; or- 

 chards, forests, and trees — all contribute to 

 their wants, and their owner is gratified with 

 a taste of the whole. Sweet mignonette is 

 especially mentioned as easily cultivated by 

 drills in a garden, and is one of the finest and 

 richest flowers in the world, from which the 

 honey-bee can extract its food. — Mercantile 

 Journal. 



Hints to Farmers. 



We go over the ground too rapidly: we 

 should check this whirlwind headway of 

 clearing new ground, which has walked into 

 the beautiful forests of the west, until there 

 is scarcely fire and fencing wood left. Why 

 really I am astonished ; for the morus mulli- 

 caulis mania will hardly ^build the forest as 

 fast as the clearing mania will cut them 

 down. 



The embodied spirit of modern farming 

 eeems to be, building fences and felling oaks ! 

 Indeed we go over the ground too rapidly : 

 we should cultivate less, and more thoroughly 

 than we now do: already barren patches ap- 

 pear upon our hill-sides, and weeds choke our 

 grain in the hollows, while the axe of the 

 settler is ringing in the new grounds — this 

 will never do; it is all wrong, unequivocally 

 wrong, and we must cease so to over-crop 

 ourselves : we njjist learn to adjust our labour, 

 and confine it to fewer acres, cultivating 

 those acres well : by so doing, we save our 

 soil, our timber, our time and our trouble, and 

 garner up more amply the rich treasures of 

 tillage. 



The same labour in manuring that is given 

 to clearing, will make the old fields new, and 

 leave the woodlands as so much future wealth. 

 Five acres in roots and ten in grass, will 

 make as much stock-food as fifty acres in 

 corn ; and animals fed thus are preserved 

 from a variety of corn-food diseases; the 

 milk-cows in particular, furnishing more and 

 richer milk and butter than from any other 

 food whatever ; and here too is a clear saving 

 of 35 acres of ground ! — Southern Cult. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 The Cabinet. 



READ, AND LEARN TO BE WISE. 



Mr. Editor, — Having been a subscriber 



for the Farmers' Cabinet from the beginning, 

 I think it right to inform you that I am de- 

 lighted with your labours. The magnificent 

 style in which the late numbers have been 

 adorned with the portraits of some of the 

 finest animals in the country, is above all 

 praise. You give us too much for our mo- 

 ney ; some single numbers are worth a whole 

 year's subscription. From what I have said, 

 however, you are not to suppose I wish you 

 to relax in your exertions, but to express a 

 hope that the farmers everywhere will pa- 

 tronise a work which is so well worthy their 

 attention. Only think of the good done by 

 it to the young people in our families, girls, 

 as well as boys, for they all read it with avi- 

 dity, and are doubtless made wiser and better 

 by your labours. The only way in which 

 our agriculture is to be improved is by in- 

 structing the rising generation in the princi- 

 ples as well as the practice of the art. 



Old folks are apt to think they know 

 enough already, although they may actually 

 be very ignorant, but the young ones are the 

 stuff" that will take a new impression most 

 easily, and there the result of your labours 

 will be most conspicuous. The day is now 

 gone by, never to return again I trust, when 

 farmers think it useless to record their own 

 experience or to read the experience of 

 others. 



We are rapidly becoming a thinking peo- 

 ple, and people who reason and think, like to 

 be informed of the reasonings and thoughts 

 of others in the line of their profession. 



Doctors and lawyers have their books, de- 

 tailing the practice and opinions and judg- 

 ments of those who have preceded them, as 

 well as of their contemporaries; mechanics 

 and artists have their books, furnishing all 

 the current improvements in their respective 

 occupations; and why should not farmers, 

 who furnish subsistence for the whole of 

 them, have their books tool Go ahead, tell 

 us all about agriculture, horticulture and do- 

 mestic economy, and the principles which 

 govern them, and though some of us perhaps 

 may be conceited or ignorant enough to sup- 

 pose we want no further instruction, yet I 

 am sure your labours will not be lost on a 

 people who are daily increasing in intelli- 

 gence, and are annually adding to their 

 wealth. B. F. 



Bucks County, Nov. 1840. 



Nature, by her secret and mysterious 

 promptings, teaches all who live, that exercise 

 is requisite and necessary to their very being. 



