1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



209 



free thought. Industry is the wand which brings 

 fortune at its call, and makes the penniless man 

 equal to- the millionaire. With his good right arm 

 he can earn his bread, nor stops to see in which 

 quarter sits the wind of patronage. Patronage! 

 AVe detest the word. It implies something given 

 and not earned — accorded by bounty and not 

 wrought by brains or hands ! 'Tis this word which 

 has prostituted the press — this daily seeking for 

 aid by advocacy of this man's claims or that man's 

 opinions, which makes a public press the menial for 

 some ambitious charlatan in his pursuit of great- 

 ness. But free from such dictatorship, acting only 

 in accordance with a feeling that it is to right — toil- 

 ing ceaselessly while others rest, the man who 

 brings this great lever of industry to his aid may 

 bid defiance to "outrageous fortune," and feel se- 

 cure against all the world. 'Tis said by the poet, 

 that "There is a divinity which shapes our ends," 

 and we believe the good genius which guides it, is 

 that untiring industry that asks only from mankind 

 the fruits of labor bestowed. — California Globe, 



For the New England Farmer. 



CATTLE MARKET REPORTS. 



' Mr. Editor : — The question has often been 

 asked me in and out of our State, "what agricul- 

 tural paper do you prefer ?" My answer is that 

 all things considered, I prefer the JVew England 

 Farmer to any other paper devoted to the great 

 farming interest of Massachusetts and New Eng- 

 land. But there is one particular, Mr. Editor, in 

 which I think the Farmer, as well as all other Mas- 

 sachusetts agricultural papers, is sadly deficient. 



I allude to the meagre, short and unsatisfactory 

 reports of the great cattle markets at Cambridge 

 and Brighton. More than one-half of the entire 

 annual produce of the stock-raising farms of New 

 England consists of neat stock, horses, swine and 

 sheep, a large portion of which are taken to Cam- 

 bridge and Brighton for sale ; enough, at any rate, 

 to control, so far as beef, pork and swine are con- 

 cerned the price of almost every animal of those 

 classes throughout New England ; amounting to a 

 number of millions of dollars every year. Now 

 what can I know of the weekly sale of cattle at 

 Cambridge and Brighton, from the shallow and in- 

 significant reports given by any paper that attempts 

 to report them. 



Sir, I think very few of your readers anticipate 

 the mail that brings their weekly Farmer with 

 more anxiety than myself, or read with more in 

 terest its valuable contents. But what can I know 

 of the value of beef, mutton and swine in the stall, 

 yard or pen, at home, by the reports of the Brigh- 

 ton markets? Absolutely, just about nothing at all. 



Look at the reports of Solon Robinson, in the New 

 York Tribune, of the great cattle fairs at New York 

 city. Every week, some two columns of the fine, 

 close type of that paper is occuj^ed with a minute 

 account of all the cattle at market. Giving, not on- 

 ly the exact. number from each State, but the name 

 of the farmer by whom fattened, the name of the 

 purchaser or drover by whom brought to market, 

 the name of the salesman and purchaser or butch- 

 er ; g'ving the estimated weight of the beef in the 

 quarter.*, noting carefully the price of each drove, 

 and giving the weekly variations in the prices of 

 any and every grade of animal and meat at the mar- 

 ket. And then his practical remarks and sugges' 



tions to the farmer, connected with his market re- 

 ports, making, in all, a document worth, to every 

 stock-producer in New York, and all the great 

 stock-producing States of the West, ten times the 

 annual subscription of that great paper. Why, any 

 farmer of good judgment can tell within three 

 dollars the value of an eighty dollar bullock in his 

 stall, by the Tniime's reports. What can I know, 

 I ask, of Cambridge and Brighton markets, by the 

 reports of the Fanner J And I think they are quite 

 as good as those of any other paper. Just about 

 as much as the court found out in a case of assault, 

 by the testimony of the witness who said the stone 

 thrown at plaintiff was as large as a piece of chalk, 

 and not much more. 



Sir, your paper was started, and is still published 

 with the professed desire of benefiting the farming 

 interests of New England ; and it has been patro- 

 nized by thousands of the most intelligent farmers, 

 with the same purpose ; allow me to add, that in 

 most respects, that purpose has been well accom- 

 plished. But in relation to the sales of millions of 

 our farm produce annually at Cambridge and 

 Brighton , we say, give us "more light." 



What say you, brother farmers of Massachusetts, 

 Vermont and New Hampshire, will not the JVew 

 England Farmer be still more valuable to you with 

 a full and complete report of the transactions of the 

 great market days for the sale of the staple pro- 

 duce of our farms, than it now is, as highly as you 

 prize it ? Would not such reports as we desire, in- 

 crease the subscription list of the Far?nerfi\e hun- 

 dred or one thousand within the first year ? I be- 

 lieve it would. At any rate, it would deserve it. 

 Would not such reports have a tendency to prevent 

 this whispering-in-the-ear sort of trade, so much 

 practised at Brighton, by which the dishonest drov- 

 er and butcher may, and do, no doubt, sometimes 

 defraud the honest farmer out of five to ten dollars 

 in a yoke of fat cattle. I do not wish to insinuate 

 that the drovers and butchers are more dishonest 

 than others as a class, but the limited informa- 

 tion that the farmer can obtain of the Brighton and 

 Cambridge sales, makes him liable to be defrauded 

 in the sale of his stock. 



I am, dear sir, for progress and improvement, 

 most cordially yours, Joshua T. Everett. 



Everettville, Princeton, 1857. 



Fattening Properties of Peas and Beans. — 

 These articles have been found by chemical anal- 

 ysis, rich in nitrogen. The inference has been that 

 they would be sj)ecially useful in supporting the 

 waste of the muscles of animals, and it has been 

 suggested that they would be particularly useful in 

 the production of wool. They are evidently valua- 

 ble for these purposes, but not the less valuable 

 for the production of fat. Those persons who have 

 used peas for fattening hogs, consider them worth 

 as much as Indian corn. In districts where that 

 grain is not grown, very fine pork is produced from 

 peas. Dickson, in his work "On the breeding of 

 Live Stock," states that a sweep-stakes was entered 

 into between five East Lothian farmers, to be 

 claimed by the one who should be pronounced the 

 best feeder of cattle. Forty cattle of the same 

 breed, and in equal condition, were divided between 

 them, as fairly as possible. They were jjut up to- 

 gether the secend week in September, and killed at 

 Christmas following. The winner of the stakes fed 

 his animals wholly on boiled beaiis with hav. — Ex. 



