462 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



grain. Every bushel should be in the ground 

 by the middle of September. In my last I allud- 

 ed to the manner of cultivation and gave such 

 reasons as I think to be right ; Mr. Editor, you 

 recommended li to li bushel to the acre. For 

 six years I sowed two bushels to the acre.and nev- 

 er found I had over-se(!ded. I soak the seed in 

 weak salt pickle over night, skimming off the foul 

 seed and then rake it well in ashes on the barn- 

 floor ; this makes it come up very quick. 



A farmer in Maine says he has got the best 

 wheat from pasture lands. 



The luasie pasture lands of the old States, if cul- 

 tivated in wheat, would furnish the people with 

 bread. Hundreds of thousands of such, and of 

 excellent quality (many of which hold their own 

 although fed from generation to generation) were 

 they cultivated, would disclose a richness of soil, 

 capable of producing large crops, and when pre- 

 pared to lay down to grass, ten acres thus brought 

 up, will produce more feed than fifty acres of or- 

 dinary pasturage that stock have ranged over for 

 a century. Drought pinches it less ; feed con- 

 tinues good when the old pasture is dry ; the cows 

 go home well charged witli milk ; they have not 

 worked so hard to till themselves ; they fatten in- 

 stead of growing lean, and thus a double object 

 would be gained by reforming the old, worn-out 

 pasturage system, which constitutes a large por- 

 tion of the farms of New England. 



Et would seem to be a good season to plow a 

 pasture and sow wheat on the sod, and if well- 

 manured, grass seed may be sown at the same 

 time, so that little time would be lost in using it 

 as a pasture ; 1 have practiced in this way, (lay- 

 ing down to grass on the sod) although the grass 

 somewhat interferes with the wheat crop, but not 

 much. Yours truly, H. Poor. 



Brooklyn, N. Y.,Aiig., 28, 1854. 



WHICH IS THE HAPPIEST MAN? 



We know a man in Michigan who lives on the 

 interest of his money, and that is only $70 per 

 annum. He has, it is true, a small house with 

 one room in it, three or four acres of land, and 

 keeps a cow, a couple of pigs and a few hens, yet 

 he and his wife always appear cheerful and con- 

 tented, and preserve a respectable appearance on 

 their $70 per annum. 



We know of a man in New York, who expends 

 $25,000 per annum for his household expenses 

 lie pays for ^as-light more than the whole income 

 of the Michigan man. He makes annual holiday 

 presents to more than the whole amount of the 

 property of t!ie Michigan man. It costs him a 

 sum six timts as large as the whole income of our 

 philosopher It support a single waiter. 



We know t'lem both very well, and we think 

 our Michigan friend by far the happiest, health- 

 iest and most enviable man. They are both ad- 

 vanced in ye.irs. The cheapness of hooks and pa- 

 pers places abundance of rational enjoyment in the 

 power of the countryman ; an accumulation of 

 physical ills, and a necessity for intense activity, 

 deprive the citizen of calm and quiet enjoyment 

 and reflection. The former, in the probable course 

 of events, will die of old age ;it ninety, the latter 

 at seventy. Such is the distribution of happiness 

 and wealth.— roZerfo (O.) Blade. 



For the New England Farmer. 



HAY-CUTTERS-HOW TO SAVE CHIL- 

 DREN'S FINGERS. 



My DejVR Brown : — A lady says I must forth- 

 with lell the public, through the Farmer ^ how I 

 have contrived to fasten my hay-cutter, so that chil- 

 dren cannot cut off their fingers with it. It is 

 one that has a crank and fly-wheel, of the kind 

 most used. I first fastened the machine to the 

 barn floor with hasps. Then I took a round wal- 

 nut stick, about 4 feet long and ]| inch in di- 

 ameter, for a spring, and made it fast to a post of 

 the barn, so that it projects over the fly-wheel, as 

 high up as a man of proper size can conveniently 

 reach. About a hand's breadth from the end' of 

 my spring, I attached a leather strap, which 

 hangs down over the wheel, and to the end of the 

 strap I fastened a hook, which I made in about 

 two minutes, of a piece of No. 9 wire, doubled 

 and twisted. Let the strap be short enough to 

 give sufficient strain, take hold of the projecting 

 end of the spring and bend it down, and hook on 

 to the fly-wheel. A spring which a man can thus 

 bend in an instant, will support the weight of a 

 whole family of small children, without starting. 

 If anybody knows of a better contrivance than 

 this, for the purpose, it is his duty to make it 

 known. I think it is about a fair estimate, that 

 one child in every four, where a hay-cutter is used, 

 in their bringing up, will be found, with more or 

 less fingers cut off. One of my own cut one of his 

 nearly off, at three years old, and I know of 

 a family where three boys out of seven have lost 

 portions of their fingers in this way. 



I was induced thus to secure mine, one day last 

 week, for the safety of the children of a friend 

 from a city, who came with his family to visit me, 

 knowing that the first civility shown by country 

 children to their little cousins from the city is, to 

 cut their fingers off with the hay-cutter, and I 

 finished the job the first morning tefore breakfast 

 with my own hands, so that, if you can, guess at 

 what time I rise, and at what time breakfast is 

 ready, you can calculate just how much time it 

 took. 



If somebody will "continue the subject" and in- 

 vent some way to protect the hands of men as well 

 as children, from these machines, ho will prove a 

 benefactor to his race. I have had a machine in 

 use seven years, and one of my men cut one fin- 

 ger entirely off, and that and Willie's finger , which 

 entirely recovered, are the worst cuts we have had. 

 Ono of my neighlx>rs has been less fortunate ; and 

 from what I hear, I should judge that, in the same 

 time, something less than half a peck of fingers 

 had undergone the gujUotine, with his machine . 



To be sure, everylx)dy knows, that if a man is 

 careful, he need not thus injure himself, but it has 

 always struck me as a poor kind of oonso-lation to 

 tell a person thus maimed, that his accident was 



