316 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



them, and mix in bran meal, &c. Cattle eat them 

 very well indeed. Horses are not fond of them. 



I can cut about one ton in an hour, though I do 

 not usually cut so fast. I cut up enough at once 

 to last several days. A table six or eight feet long 

 should be attached to the back of the cutter to as- 

 sist in getting the hay spread for the cutter. Be- 

 fore I commence haying I cut up hay enough to last 

 our horses until October. Hay will not dry much 

 after being cut up, it lies so much more compact 

 than before it is cut. 1 think this arrangement for 

 cutting hay, stalks, S:c., is worth to me the cost of 

 the horse power and the cutter every year. 



Middlefield, Ct, May, 1857. David Ltman. 



For the New England Farmer. 



PLOWING THE DEEP. 



Steamsbip Khersonese, at Sea, ) 

 Mat 8, 1857. | 



My Friend Brown : — This is a kind of steam 

 plowing that may not especially concern agriculture, 

 but there is so much that comes under my notice 

 daily on board ship, in this my first voyage, which 

 may interest our readers, who have not been far 

 from land, that I will attempt, though the ship is 

 rolling, and I have no place more private for writ- 

 ing than the common cabin, to let them see a little 

 of "a life on the ocean wave," without the trouble 

 of leaving their homes. The Khersonese is an iron 

 steamship of twenty-three hundred tons, propelled 

 both by a full suit of sails like a common ship, 

 and a screw which works under water at her stern 

 by steam. I embarked at Portland for Liver- 

 erpool on the 2d instant. By the kindness of the 

 captain I found my accommodations as good as the 

 fhip can afford, and as good as those of the best 

 class of steamships, and in anything I may cay not 

 -jomplimentary to ship life, it may be in the outset 

 understood, that I am perfectly satisfied with both 

 the ship and her officers. There is, however, so 

 wide a difference between the comforts of home on 

 the commonest homestead in New England, and 

 the best steamship that ever floated, that our far- 

 mers and their boys may all of them derive from 

 a glimpse at sea life, a lesson of contentment with 

 their lot on the land. 



Such suggestive remarks and circumstances as 

 meet you at every turn, on your stepping on board 

 the ship ! "We have assigned you the dryest state- 

 room in the ship," blandly remarked the steward, 

 as he triumphantly introduced me to my spacious 

 .apartment, of about seven feet by six, which was to 

 oe my bed-room and dressing-room for the voyage ; 

 "you will be perfectly dry unless the sea is very 

 rough." There was one blessing in disguise, surely, 

 that I should not probably be drowned in my berth 

 like a rat in a box trap, so long as the weather is 

 good ! I walk upon deck. Seven fine boats are 

 hung suspended over the ship's side, with casks of 

 water always stowed, ready to be lowered at a mo- 

 ment's warning, in ease of a shipwreck or a fire, 



enough to carry all the passengers till they starve to 

 death or are picked up — comforting thought ! Let us 

 descend to the cabin. There in the passage, is a sort 

 of stand on which are hung six regulation muskets, 

 six la)ge pistols and six rusty sabres, ready to be 

 used, it is presumed, in case of mutiny on the part 

 of the crew, by us passengers in self-defence — de- 

 lightful suggestion of safety ! 



In the cabin, the tables are all screwed to the 

 floor, hanging shelves, full of glass and china, swing 

 from hooks like pendulums, to keep their equilib- 

 rium while the ship rolls in a rough sea. Then on 

 the dining tables are racks, as they are called, 

 wooden frames about two inches high, within which 

 the plates are set to prevent their sliding off the 

 table or out of your reach ; without which, as every 

 day's experience shows, one would be more likely 

 to receive his soup into his waistcoat pockets than 

 into. his mouth ; so that coming up to the rack for 

 our fodder is no figure of speech. 



And here is the ship's physician, a prominent 

 personage always, both in the ship's advertisements 

 and on board, suggestive of the great probability 

 that ere many hours you will feel, through sea-sick- 

 ness, under great obligations to any kind friend who 

 will take the trouble to drop you quietly overboard. 

 Not disheartened by all these elaborate prepara- 

 tions for our comfort and safety, we set gaily forth 

 from Portland at about four P. M., the cheers of 

 hundreds on the wharf answering our parting gun. 



We went on quietly till night. Nearly every 

 passenger who had not before been to sea was 

 down with sea-sickness before dark. I alone es- 

 caped, and from that time to the present, have had 

 no experience of that disheartening illness, but 

 have taken the rollings and thumpings which have 

 been liberally dispensed to us, thus far, with a clear 

 head and good appetite. I should like to read some 

 minute description of the process of getting into 

 his berth, by a landsman first on board ship. Im- 

 agine a shelf raised some twenty inches from the 

 floor, and about eighteen inches wide, with another 

 shelf two feet above it. On this shelf is your bed, 

 and this space is partly closed by a strip six inches 

 deep along the front, to keep you from rolling out. 

 Into this box, which bears an ominous resemblance 

 in size and shape to a coffin, one is expected to 

 deposite himself for the night. If you attempt it 

 feet foremost, you certainly come out at the same 

 hole you went in at. But I will not pursue the 

 subject. Lieut. Maury ought to publish in his 

 next "Sailing Directions" some suggestions on this 

 point, for the benefit of fresh-water sailors. After 

 all, however, I find my slumbers about as regular 

 here as on shore. The very oddity of creeping in- 

 to such a hole and calling it a bed, puts one into 

 good humor, and prepares him for pleasant 

 dreams. 



The worst enemy we have found to contend 



