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DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. VI. 



BOSTON, JANUARY, 1854. 



NO. 1. 



RAYNOLDS <fe NOURSE, Proprietoks. 

 Office Q.iiincy Hall. 



SIMON BROWN, Editor. 



FREU'K IIGLKROOK,^ Associate 

 HENRY F. FRENCH, 5 Editors. 



CALENDAR FOR JANUAEY. 



"Tlie shutter closed, Uie lamp alijiht, 

 The faggot chopt and blazing bright, — 

 Tlie farmer now, from labor free, 

 Dances his children on his knee ; 

 While underneath his master's seat, 

 The tired dog lies in slumbers sweet." 



T IS within the memory of 

 many of our readers, that in 

 the course of the last forty 

 years the habits of farmers, 

 in the winter months, have 

 materially changed, especial- 

 ly in their evening occupa 

 tions. HqHhv schools of vice 

 could scarcely be devised by 

 him who would see how ra 

 pidly and thoroughly he 

 could contaminate the un- 

 susjiecting j^outh of country 

 places, than those which 

 were establis''ied, and most 

 liberally supjjorted, in near 

 ly all the towns in New Eng- 

 Isind, in the village stores ! 



The short day's work over, the cattle tied up 

 and supper hastily swallowed, most of the males 

 af the family hurried oflf to the stores ; all had 

 caught the mania, from the stripling of a fcAv 

 years, to the man bowed with age and wlios 

 locks had blossomed for the gi-avo ! Wlicre th 

 distance was thought to be too great for walking, 

 the faithful old liorse that had been hauling wood 

 all day was liitchcd to the sleigh, and after leav 

 ing his freight, left to "bide the peltings of the 

 pitiless storm," shiver in the cutting blast, or, 

 haply, if the elements were kindly, nod over the 

 dilapidated stone wall or rickety fence, now and 

 then disturbed in his slumbers, pricking up his 

 ears, and wondering at the uproarious mirtli with- 

 in, louder tban the crash of tlie falling forest 

 trees during tlie day in the woods. 1 



These nightly gatherings contained all the ele-l 



ments of corruption ; no man or boy returned to 

 his roof-tree from them with unsullied purity. In 

 their withering cmln'aces his good principles were 

 undermined, his moral sense blunted, and his affec 

 tions weakened for those whose happiness ought 

 to have been to him above all price. Those were 

 times when it was fashionable to drink intoxicat- 

 ing liquors. The little tin, glass and gill cups, 

 the half pints and pints, were in greater demand 

 to jX)rtion out the burning fluid, than were the 

 scales and measures to furnish the flour and oil, 

 the sugar and coffee and tea, to supply the de- 

 serted board at home. 



Drinkmg inflamed the passions, and these in- 

 duced betting, gambling, and trials of personal 

 prowess, which often ended in bloody noses, broken 

 heads, and neighborhood quarrels, in which their 

 wives and daughters were often involved. Such 

 was the practice through much of New England 

 for many years. Its consequences were plain all 

 over the land. Unpaintcd and dilapidated houses 

 and barns, straggling fences, tumbling walls, and 

 lonely fields, half-starved and scurvy cattle, and 

 ragged, unwashed and uneducated children, were 

 its types. Husbands grew negligent in their per- 

 sonal appearance, and indifferent as to the world's^ 

 estimation of thorn, and the poor wife and mother 

 care-worn and disheartened, while mortgage after 

 mortgage rested with overwhelming power upon 

 tlio farm, until it l)ecame inovital)le tliat the home- 

 stead must be abandoned, and they must seek 

 somewlicro else in the wide world a habitation 

 (their Home they had lost) for themselves and 

 their suffering little ones. 



Tliis terrible scourge to the land has been great- 

 ly alleviated, but not entirely done away ; it will 

 never be until the farmer comes to converse mostly 

 of things instead of jrrsons, and he can find pro- 

 fit and amvisement in hooks, and jiloasiirc in tlie bo- 

 som of his ow!i family. But the great change that 

 has taken place is encouraging. The fine dwellings 

 upon thousiinds of our farms, especially the warm 



