1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



133 



HOW TO RAISE ONIONS. 



Mr. Brown : — Will you be kind enough to tell 

 us how to raise onions ? 1 can now raise scullions 

 and maggots. A Subscriber. 



January, 1857. 



Remarks. — Here is a fine opportunity for some 

 successful onion grower to tell "A Subscriber" how 

 he does it. 



TIIE ARBOR VIT.'E. 



Mr. Brown : — I have been a constant reader of 

 your most valuable paper for the last 5 years, and 

 have received much benefit by the perusal of its pa- 

 ges. Although I am in the West, it is a welcome 

 visitor here. 



Can you or some one of your readers give me 

 information in regard to the seed of the arbor vi- 

 tae ? Can the plant be successfully grown from 

 it ? If so, when should it be gathered, and how 

 preserved, and when sown? Also, where can the 

 Concord grape be bought for $ 1 ? 



Bad Ax, Wis., 1857. C. W. SAUNDERS. 



Remarks. — The Concord grape may be pur- 

 chased of E. W. Bull, the originator, at Concord, 

 Mass. 



BUCKTHORN HEDGES. 



Charles Bower, Montpelier, Vt., may find a 

 particular account of the manner of planting and 

 rearing the buckthorn hedge in the Monthly Far- 

 mer for 1852, page 108. 



For the Kew England Pafmer. 



"£: FARMER'S SON." 



"I shall wait patiently for your advice, whether 

 I had better stick to the farm or something else." 



The above quotation I find in the closing sen- 

 tence of a letter published in your valuable paper, 

 and signed "A Farmer's Son." I rejoice to see 

 that his communications have been replied to truth- 

 fully and ably, both editorially and otherwise, and 

 hope they will exert a salutary influence, not only 

 upon him, but upon thousands of others of like 

 stamp, who are constantly deseriing the farm for 

 something, or anything a little more attractive in 

 imagination, but too frequently turn out to be very 

 much less so in reality. 



I am but a plain, common farmer, now upon the 

 down-hill of kfe, unaccustomed to writing for oth- 

 ers to read, without early advantages of any kind 

 except what little kno\^ ledge I could pick up in 

 reading and study at the fire-side in the long win- 

 ter evenings of my yonth, the days being occupied 

 in chopping and hauling wood, threshing and feed- 

 ing horses, cattle and sheep. I did, however, at- 

 tend a district school one winter two months, and 

 should have been blessed with another month, had 

 not the school-house taken fire one prodigious cold 

 night, and burnt down. This was a damper upon 

 my hopes. I had unexpectedly graduated in all 

 the English branches I had commenced, and even 

 before I could wrte a legible hand. But the farm 

 was my delight ; I stuck to it, and without a dollar 

 in the world, except what could be earned by farm 

 labor, and investing the proceeds of this labor in a 

 productive farm after many years of severe toil, I 

 can now survey the past with satisfaction, and the 



future, whatever remains to me in time, with pleas- 

 urable anticipations of pecuniary ease and indepen- 

 dence. 



I know, Mr. Editor, that the early part of this 

 brief history cannot be very flattering to "a far* 

 mer's son," but my case was an exception, not the 

 rule even of those times, much less of the present} 

 now, money is much more abundant, much easier 

 obtained, farm wages have doubled, and nothing 

 but industry, economy and prudence, coupled with 

 energy and good judgment, with a fair share of 

 common sense, can fail to render a young man 

 starting in life, perfectly independent, by sticking 

 to agricultural pursuits, by the time he is 35 years 

 old. If he cannot get ahead fast enough here in 

 New England, how easy it is, with a few hundred 

 dollars in his pocket, to emigrate to the west, where 

 lands are more productive, and much cheaper ; and 

 how sure it is, that in the end, he must become 

 wealthy, if there is enough of him to make a map 

 in any avocation. 



I know there are some few who make fortunes 

 in other pursuits, in merchandising, in speculating, 

 in the professions ; but few they are, comparatively. 

 I think it has been ascertained that but five of each 

 one hundred of city merchants succeed in the end. 

 Some few others may live from hand to mouth, 

 but the majority go under the auctioneer's hammer. 

 The mechanic, tlie next most useful class to the 

 farmer, if industrious, ought to succeed ; but gener- 

 ally, as a class, they fall behind the farmers in 

 wealth and influence. 



Again, there is a satisfaction to those who hate 

 a taste for the cultivation of the soil. The pursuit 

 of agriculture has a tendency to expand the mind, 

 as we are continually in the midst of nature's 

 works, inviting to contemplation, to reflection, to 

 the admiration of the beauty and harmony, the 

 benevolence and goodness of an all wise Creator, 

 who commanded that the tilling of the earth should 

 be the first and foremost occupation of man ; and 

 we have the satisfaction to feel and to know that 

 we are benefactors of our race, that all are benefit- 

 ed, and none injured, by our calling. 



We seek not to appropriate the labor of others 

 to ourselves ; we do not live upon the misfortunes 

 of our fellow-men, nor are we beholden to pubho 

 patronage, to the whims and caprices of the mul- 

 titude for a livehhood ; we have the promise of 

 "seed-time and harvest," and if we are faithful to 

 our trust, each returning year is sure to replenish 

 our granaries and increase our flocks and herds. 

 There is no necessity for making life a scene of un- 

 ceasing toil and vexation. Skill, judgment, order 

 and system are essential, and when these are com- 

 bined, things will go smooth, and the farm will be- 

 come profitable and remunerative. 



Though I say it not in a spirit of boasting, yet 

 among all my youthful companions, many of whom 

 left the farm for what they deemed a more lucra- 

 tive business, not one now in the land of the living, 

 (and those who have gone, have died poor,) would 

 I exchange conditions with, pecuniarily, by thous- 

 ands of dollars, and yet the story of my early pov- 

 erty and slow beginnings has not half been told^ 

 and for the benefit of youth who are becoming 

 tired of the farm, I will add a few words descrip- 

 tive of the discouragements of my early life, though 

 throughout the whole, I never entertaned an idea 

 of changing my purpose, or doing anything else 

 but farming. 



