308 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



July 



trees had entirely ceased growing, the leaves 

 curled up, and with the shoots and small limhs, 

 became discolored and dirty. I tried various 

 remedies with but little benefit, until at last 1 

 heard of Quassia. The trees in each instance soon 

 after commenced a second growtli, making vigor- 

 ous shoots, entirely free of the aphis. I presume 

 this decoction will prove equally efficacious and 

 harmless on other varieties of trees, but have not 

 tried. A white-wash of soft soap, water and lime is 

 recommended for the bark louse. I have not 

 tried it, but feel prejudice against any application 

 which will form such a lasting coat — closing tlie 

 pores of the bark. I believe that soft soap diluted 

 with the Quassia water, will prove a remedy if 

 applied early in the season, while the insects are 

 young; I intend trying it. Will some of your 

 correspondents experienced in this matter, advise 

 as to the best mode of ridding our orchards of 

 these destructive insects? a. g. n. 



Waukesha, Wis., 1854. 



OUT-DOORS AT IDLEWILD ; 



OR COUNTRY-LIF£ WITHIN CITY REACH 

 BY N. P. WILLIS. 



I find the fixrmers generally willing to admit 

 that a boy's work for fow hours a day, would 

 fixirly pay for his hoard. In pushing inquiry as 

 to the different kinds of farm work, I find, too, 

 that there is but a small portion of it which is be- 

 yond the strength of a well-grown lad of fifteen. 

 For ditch-digging, hay-pitching, cradling of grain, 

 wall-laying and heavy plowing, they would de- 

 pend, of course, on the main strength of a regular 

 "hand;" but for sowing, light-plowing, hoeing, 

 weeding, carting and scattering manure, reaping, 

 thrashing, and all the lesser industries of stock- 

 tending and barn work, a smart boy is often as 

 capable as a man. This applies to grain farms, 

 or to those mainly devoted to hay and stock. 

 Where the produce is only fruit or vegetables for 

 the city market, the work is easier, and perhaps 

 the whole of it could be done by boys. 



But boy-labor, to be reliable for the master, 

 must not be boy-slavery. It must be enlivened 

 and steadied by an understood footing of recipro- 

 cities between boy and master — both having an 

 interest in its being faithfully done. And this is 

 a state of things that could not be entered upon 

 to-morrow — with the present general idea of how 

 boys may be used. Information is sadly wanted 

 on this subject. The most valuable addition that 

 could be made, just now, to "literature for the 

 people," would be a manual of boy-employment 

 and treatment — defining his rights like those of a 

 hired man, giving the terms of an agreement for 

 his labor, specifying his privileges of spare time 

 and agricultural instruction, describing the care 

 of him by the mother of tlio funiily, and plainly 

 stating the ways to make liim think for himself 

 and respect himself, and so l)e thouglit of and re- 

 spected by those around him. With this kind of 

 understanding, every intelligent farmer could prof- 

 itably take half a dozen boys to work witli hi.s one 

 or two hired men, and teach them farming while 

 allowing them to play enough and r«ad enough 

 as well as earn enough — a Utopian idea for the 

 present, perhaps, or, one at least by which the 

 foor boy is not likely to profit for a while. 



There is a class of boys, however, for whom I 

 think a beginning might be made immediately 

 practicalde — the sons of parents who could clothe 

 them, provide them with books and see to their 

 schooling and incidental wants for the first year. 

 [The clothes, by the way, are the sore spot in boy 

 wrongs in the country, and the extinguisher to 

 that boy ;;;vV/e without which his character becomes 

 the fruitful soil for rustic meannesses. Among 

 the old farmer's "dodges," the excuse for all his 

 overworkings of the boy is "the money it costs to 

 clothe and school him" — while the poor lad's habi- 

 liments are the remainders of the old man's worn- 

 out coats and trousers, fitted and patched with such 

 skill and taste as Heaven may have vouchsafed 

 to the old woman's needle. The consciousness 

 (No. 1) with w^iich the "young farmer" walks 

 about in a pair of patched and big-breeched pan- 

 taloons "fitted" by only cutting the legs off at the 

 knee, and the consciousness (No. 2) with which 

 lie hears himself glorified by a political orator, a 

 few years after, as the country's "independent 

 bulwark," "bone and sinew," "nature's gentle- 

 man" and "best citizen," are two points between 

 which, to say the least, there is a chasm.] 



There are progressive steps of agricultural life 

 under this phase, of course, which would follow 

 in due succession. A literature for the boy-class 

 of farmers is wanted — beginning with a simplifi- 

 cation of so much of the science of soils and pro- 

 ducts as the youthful mind could readily under- 

 stand. Other and correlative knowledge might 

 be selected and combined into a series expressly 

 designated The Young Farmer's Library. A 

 newspaper for them would soon flower upon this 

 stem, and it is not difficult to imagine that the 

 pride and enthusiasm of boys throughout the 

 country might thus be gradually interested in the 

 pursuit. 



One word as to an important point — the sub- 

 sequent setting up of the young farmer for him- 

 self. It would be but a "middling sort of chap," 

 in this part of the country, who should have 

 lived and worked in a neighborhood, for years, and 

 not have character and credit enough to get trust- 

 ed for land to live upon. Almost every one of 

 our oldest and now independent farmers took his 

 land originally on that tenure. But, while a 

 much smaller quantity of land is wanted for the 

 skilful and well practised gardener, the profits are 

 far beyond those of ordinary farming. The soil 

 increases in value, too, under the hand of the 

 cultivator. By purchasing forty acres, he could 

 so improve, while taking off crops, that twenty 

 would sell, after four or five years, for more than 

 the cost of the forty. Tliis has occurred so often, 

 as to be calculated on, among regular prospects 

 and resources. And it is for this facility of a first 

 start on arriving at manhood — a start upon char- 

 acter without capital — that I should advocate the 

 education by boy labor upon single farms, in pre- 

 ference to education in Farmers' Colleges. Ever 

 so well instructed in a large institution, the youth 

 is adrift, when he leaves it. To have a farm, (aa 

 a stranger wishing to settle anywhere,) he must 

 buy and stockit, with "money down." And, not 

 only has the laboring boy the advantage of hav- 

 ing supported himself, and extended his roots of 

 character and credit where he means to grow and 

 flourish, but the practice of his agricultural edu- 

 cation has been vpon the soil, and in the climate, 



