THE GENESEE FARMER. 



21 



deed, they are forced to do this through the scarci- 

 ty of hands, and the high wages they demand. A 

 few of these we shall take occasion to notice, con- 

 testing ourselves, at present, with the drawiugs 

 and description of oue of these labor-saving con- 

 trivances, which we saw on B.'s farm — namely, a 

 " dug churning apparatus." 



DOG POWER CHURN. 



In passing out to the yard, we had occasion to 

 50 through the dairy, on approaching which, my 

 host shouted, "Hallo, Jem ! go on, sir!" the reply 

 to which was an increase in the "rattle, rattle," of 

 an apparatus which had evidently been only lan- 

 guidly at work. This appeal had been addressed, 

 as I discovered on entering the dairy 7 , to a dog, 

 which- I saw walking doggedly (no pun, good 

 reader, I protest !) up — or rather, attempting to 

 walk up — an inclined plane, the surface of which, 

 being moveable, yielded to his tread, and effectu- 

 ally prevented him from reaching the summit of 

 his walk, to which he was ever approaching, but 

 which he never reached. Doubtless, to a dog of a 

 thinking mind, the mystery of the eternal walk, 

 walk, without any corresponding advance, would 

 be puzzling. B. told me many amusing traits of 

 the two dogs he kept for churning purposes'. Each 

 took the "demnition grind," as Mantalini would 

 have termed it, in turn ; and it was curious to 

 know with what accuracy the dogs knew the re- 

 turn of the churning day. So well, indeed, did 

 they know, and, knowing, dread it, that, if not 

 locked up the night previous, the morn of the 

 churning day would arrive, but it would bring no 

 dogs to do its work. They would wisely " slope" 

 to the quiet shade of the woods hard by, where 

 the silence would be unbroken by the rattle of 

 their treadmill. Such decamping always ended by 

 the due return of the dogs, but at such a time as 

 to make sure of the churning having been per- 

 formed by human hands, or by other dogs, duly 

 " loaned " from some neighboring farm. 



Starting a Baulky Horse. — A correspondent 

 describes what to him was a novel way of curing 

 a balky horse : Fasten a strong rope to his tail ; 

 pass it between his legs ; then attach a team to the 

 rope and give the word, forward march ! 



CULTURE OF TOBACCO AT THE NORTH. 



Levi Bartlktt, of New Hampshire, writes as 

 follows to the Country Gentleman : 



As the old song has it, " Tobacco is an Indian 

 weed," and a vile' weed it is, too ; nevertheless, 

 men and women, and even children, will in one 

 form or another make use of it. Millions of peo- 

 ple daily chew, smoke, or snuff it, and they will 

 continue so to do as long as water runs and tobacco 

 is grown, and it is a nearly useless task to argue 

 and reason with them of the expense of it, or of its 

 deleterious effect upon the human system, or of 

 the tilthiness of the habit. In despite of all these, 

 chew, smoke, and snuff they will, whether tobacco 

 is ten cents or fifty or more cents per pound, or 

 cigars are two for a cent or ten cents for one cigar. 

 It makes but little difference — indulge in the lux- 

 ury they will. In these matters this is yet a free 

 country, and every one has the privilege of doing 

 as he or she pleases — providing they do right, and 

 enact no wrong in their doing. And it does not 

 well become me, an habitual user of the weed of 

 forty years' standing, " to get up in meeting" and 

 declare the use of tobacco wrong. No man is 

 obliged to bear testimony against himself. 



The truth is, mankind are as the poet Burns 

 said, "an. unco squad," having many evil propensi- 

 ties, and unfortunately too many of us are prone 

 to gratify them. Therefore we must take human 

 nature as it is, and men and women as they are, 

 and a portion of them will use tobacco, despite all 

 the scolding and lecturing of a whole army of 

 self-styled reformers and anti-tobacco societies, to 

 say nothing of the expense — which, by the way, 

 is.no trifling sura with thousands, both of the rich 

 and the poor. At the low price tobacco has been 

 selling for years past, it has cost many a stingy 

 farmer from $5 to $15 per year for tobacco for his 

 and his family's use. If his town or county should 

 assess upon him such an additional tax for educa- 

 tional or other public purposes, we should proba- 

 bly soon hear him talking loudly about the " right 

 of secession." 



Tobacco has risen very much in price during the 

 past six months, and if this deplorable war con- 

 tinues for some two, three, or more years, as some 

 persons predict, it will reach a higher figure per 

 pound than the most inveterate chewer or smoker 

 ever dreamed of, unless a large portion of the Free 

 States go into its culture — if not largely, they 

 should raise enough for home use. The plant can 

 be successfully and profitably grown in all the 

 "Free States," as was the almost universal prac- 

 tice among the farmers here in Central New Hamp- 

 shire, half a century ago. I have recently in- 

 quired of several of our "oldest inhabitants" in 

 reference to its culture, curing, &c, and find they 

 were precisely as now practiced in Connecticut 

 and other sections where grown upon a large scale. 



The past season I grew a few splendid plants. 

 For smoking, this "home grown" is tip-top, and 

 for chewing I get the " natural leaf," pure and un- 

 defiled. 



Sell interest and a just pride of independence- 

 should prompt farmers, as far as possible, to raise 

 every necessary farm product for family use — to- 

 bacco included, if needed. But, some will say, 

 tobacco is wholly unnecessary, and that the culture 



