DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. IX. 



BOSTON, SEPTEMBER, 1857. 



NO. 9. 



JOEL NOURSE, Proprietor. 

 Office.. .13 Commercial St. 



SIMON BROWN, EDITOR. 



FRED'K IIOLBROOK, ^ Asj^ociatb 

 HENRY E. FRENCH, J Editors. 



SEPTEMBER. 



"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness ! 



Close bosom friend of the maturing sun : 



Conspiring with him how to load and bless 



With fruit the vines that round the thatch eaves run ; 



To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees, 



And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core ; 



To swell the ground, and plump the hazel shells 



With a sweet kernel ; to set budding more, 



And still more, later flowers for the bees, 



Until they think warm days will never cease, 



For summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells." 



Keats 



/^=^5| URELY it may be said 

 v^k^ that no season of 

 ^.C-""' Tf*^ilT#|¥^'5^'' ">.Bv, \ the year comes at- 

 '^^ "T-!.-^'^ IJtended with so 



much beauty, and 

 so many bounties 

 and blessings for all 

 classes, as the au- 

 tumn. We have 

 never met an indi- 

 ^ • ' > vidual that did not 

 — welcome it for its 

 temperate climate, its clear 

 sunny days, its gorgeous 

 woods, its joyful harvests, 

 and in many cases its re- 

 "2i-^^ storative coolness to those who 

 have been visited by the diseases 

 of hot weather. To the laborer it 

 biings relief from the sultry toil of 

 summer; to the sedentary mun an 

 opportunity for vigorous exercise ; to the farmer, 

 the reward of his industry; to the lover of nature, 

 prospects of beauty unrivalled by those of any other 

 season. It is peculiarly the season of jollities and 

 festivities ; the season for garnering the produce 

 of the year, and making glad the heart with its 

 golden abundance ; and though it leads along the 

 cold and cheerless winter, we welcome it with re- 

 joicings and with thanksgi\'ings. 



"While the year was yet young," says a modern 

 writer whose name we have forgotten, "and the 



^^:>^-^A 



soft winds of spring went whispering abroad tidings 

 of green leaves and budding flowers; when the 

 blue canopy of heaven shone with a serene and 

 happy light, and hidden runnels began to chime a 

 cheerful music, and the primrose glimmered in the 

 hedge-row, and the violet peered forth timidly from 

 mossy banks and southern slopes, when trees were 

 bursting into leaf, and buds rehearsed what seemed 

 a half-forgotten strain, and insect life began to stir 

 and waken from its wintry sleep — what season so 

 hilarious as the sunny, showery spring ! 



"It melted into summer; and what a well-spring 

 of enjoyment was there then, in dim woods, and 

 by the margin of bounding rivers, when the fierce 

 heat of day was yet prevailing unabated ; and when 

 the more grateful twilight stealthily succeeded, go 

 where you would, how deep — how almost divine a 

 calm, descending hour by hour, and deepening as 

 it fell, invested all the purpling earth ! At such a 

 time, how often did we say in our hearts, what sea- 

 son can vie with affluent and flowery summer ! 



"But that, too, merged by gradations, delicate 

 and imperceptible as rainbow-tints, into the fruitful 

 and teeming autumn — a gladsome and a blessed 

 season. And each hath its particular and individ- 

 ual grace ; each its distinct and separate attributes 

 and associations, a charm exclusive and incommu- 

 nicable." 



To the New England farmer what a succession of 

 glad employments does this season lead up ; to him 

 especially who has not forsaken the simplicity of 

 habits of his forefathers, while he has shaken off 

 their superstitions and their prejudices. With a 

 joyful heart he walks abroad and surveys the re- 

 ward of his toils, and beholds with a rational pride, 

 the value of his own services to the great world. 

 At the present time, especially, is this fact made 

 apparent to the community. Go where we will, 

 the fields, the barns, the granaries, the stores and 

 markets, are full of the immediate produce of the 

 farm. At other seasons it is more or less concealed 

 by the metamorphoses which the diflerent articles 

 of produce have assumed, after passing through the 



