THE GENEbEE FARMER 



49 



lowest and quickest before a high wind, whether 

 accompanied by a storm or not. During and pre- 

 ceding fair weather, it rises and remains the high- 

 est. As a farmer, I find it very valuable during 

 the summer season, particularly during haying- 

 time, when I watch it closely, as it always gives a 

 few hours notice of rain storms and thunder show- 

 ers. I remember one time last summer ; it was 

 very foggy in the morning and had all the usual 

 appearances of a storm, but the barometer said 

 'fair,' as the mercury was rising. "We mowed all 

 the forenoon, and at noon the fog broke away and 

 we had a fine afternoon to get up the hay in, while 

 neighbor Jones kept his whole crew ' laying still ' 

 all the forenoon for fear of rain." 



"I always thought I could tell pretty near what 

 kind of weather was coming." 



"Well neighbor, if there is any one thing I have 

 learned during several years of weather observa- 

 tion and record, it is to be very careful about fore- 

 telling weather but a few hours in advance. 



Belfast, Maine. GEO. E. BKACKETT. 



THE FAKMEK IS KING. 



" Cotton is King," said a Senator. " Nay," 

 said another, " Gold is King." Nay, say we, the 

 Farmer is King! A monarch is prepared for his 

 throne by a careful education. But who is nur- 

 tured with such an education as the farmer? He 

 is nursed in the strong embrace of prolific, many- 

 handed Nature. Our mother Nature keeps the 

 wisest school. Great Nature — rude, yet gentle; 

 stern, yet kindly; terrible, yet loving; frugal, yet 

 bountiful. We almost believe that no men can be 

 God's great men, unless nurtured in the strong 

 embrace of our great mother on the bosom of the 

 earth. 



All men should, some time in their lives, live out 

 in the midst of Nature and till the soil. He who 

 has been born and reared and who lives in a city, 

 debarred the privilege of communing with Nature, 

 is most unfortunate. He can never be a whole 

 man. He lacks the stern poetic teachings of this 

 great school. Nothing can compensate for it. 

 "An undevout astronomer is mad!" exclaimed a 

 wise man. An undevout farmer is a monster! we 

 exclaim. What! can the husbandman receive his 

 food direct from heaven — -its rains, and dews, and 

 sunshine ; it smiles over him in the blue and span- 

 gled vault, sun and moon and star lit; all around 

 him in the wavy grass and grain, the many-tinted 

 flowers; in the voices of the wind and the bending 

 trees; underneath him, in prolific, fresh-turned 

 soil — and still be a monster, out of tune with outer 

 and inner Nature? Who lives so far from tempta- 

 tion ? Who lives so nigh his Creator ? enwrapped 

 all about with his arms — fed from his dazzling, 

 munificent hand. He sleeps between the leaves of 

 God's pictured book — the Universe. 



"He loved husbandry," is the enconium that in- 

 spiration pays to one of the best Kings of Israel, 

 and who had one of the longest and prosperous of 

 reigns. " Hzzah, the King," says the sacred wri- 

 ter, " digged many wells, for he had much cattle ; 

 husbandmen also, and vine-dressers in the moun- 

 tains, and in Carmel, for he loved husbandry." 

 If this could have been said of his successor, the 

 Jews had not been parted and scattered, as at this 



day, among the nations. As long as it can be said 

 of the sovereigns of these States, u they r love hus- 

 bandry," the Republic is safe. Small farms grow 

 true patriots. The wealth of the Republic must 

 be a common wealth. It is the nature of power to 

 seek to increase itself. When monarchs increase in 

 power, it is in bald words the growth of tyranny. 

 Not so the King Farmer. His tyranny is over bar- 

 renness. He smites, and lo! the sterile earth 

 groans; but it is with abundance. He brings his 

 enemies to the faggot and the stake; but they are 

 the thistle, the dock, the daisy and the briar. He 

 overruns and subdues the territories of his foes; 

 but they are the swamp. and the quagmire. He 

 plows up the very foundations of the strongholds 

 of his destroyers ; but they are the deadly malaria, 

 the stinging insect, and the fanged and poisonous 

 reptile. The earth is his slave ; but it is the sla- 

 very of love, for it buds and blossoms before him, 

 and the trees clasp their hands for joy for him. 

 He chains his servants to do his will ; but they are 

 the elements, the huge and willing ox, and the 

 majestic horse, impatient to do his bidding, and 

 champing lor the word that bids him go. 



"When the monarch Farmer raises himself on 

 high and stretches his scepter abroad, cities spring 

 up under its shadow. The sound of the spindle, 

 the loom, the anvil, and the ponderous foundry and 

 mill are heard. The hum of the industrious mul- 

 titudes comes up like the voice of many waters ; 

 white- winged ships fly over the unstable main; 

 men cast aside their hides and fig leaves and are 

 clothed in imperial garments, and women are ar- 

 rayed in fabrics fine as gossamer and many tinted 

 as the sunset cloud. Penury, pestilence and fam- 

 ine he keeps bound in his prison-house. Labor 

 stands in the door of his magazines, and in his stal- 

 wart hand he holds the scales of human life, and 

 weighs out the supplies of trade and art, and artists 

 and armies; of school and church and state; food 

 and raiment, abundance and luxury. He deals out 

 the progress of human kind. The Farmer is 

 King — the Monarch of men. o. n. bemext. 



New York, 66 East 29th strset. 



Pretty good — though emanating from the city of 

 New York. But our esteemed correspondent has 

 been long a farmer, and loves the country and 

 doubtless sighs for its quiet enjoyments. — Eds. 



The Flax and Linen Trade of Ireland. — Bel- 

 fast, the great emporium of the linen trade, export 

 ed in 1860, 65,600,000 yards of linen and 13,200,000 

 lbs. of yarn and thread. Next in importance to 

 the flax industry, is the trade in sewed muslins, 

 employing about half a million of persons in Ire- 

 land. Another manufacture carried on in Belfast 

 is important in the consumption of agricultural 

 produce — namely, starch making from wheat. Ten 

 firms use nearly 240,000 bushels of the finest red 

 wheat every year. The wheaten starch made by 

 the old fermentative process, is largely used by 

 bleachers, the goods retaining their stiffness longer 

 than if dressed with the rice and other starches. 

 The whole of this business is at present nearly par- 

 alyzed, as America was the best market for Irish 

 linen goods, very limited quantities of which have 

 been imported during the past nine months. 



