26 



Running Commentaries. 



Vol. VII. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Running Commentaries on the July 



Number of the Farmers' Cabinet. 



BY A DESULTORY READER. 



1. Charles Squarey's Treatise on Agri- 

 cultural Chemistry — as to the Substances 

 that enter into the composition of Plants. — 

 "These he considers as four, viz. — carbon, 

 hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen.'''' Now, 

 Mr. Editor, you may dwell upon the auspi- 

 cious results of applying science, and espe- 

 cially chemistry, to agriculture, until dooms- 

 day, but you will never do general service 

 to your readers until the terms employed are 

 reduced, by no matter how much circumlo- 

 cution, to plain English, if such a thing be 

 possible — is it ! The moment a plain farmer 

 who has not studied Latin and Greek, from 

 which those terms are chiefly derived, and 

 who has not gone through a course of chem- 

 istry — the moment, I say, such a reader 

 comes to carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxy- 

 gen, soda, silex, and ammonia, with many 

 others equally Greek — to men of plain, com- 

 mon, English education — that moment such 

 a farmer or plain reader will " skip," and go 

 on to the next article, which is 

 the com post- yard. 



The great obstacle to the formation of 

 compost-heaps in this country, as it is to al- 

 most all other agricultural improvements, is 

 the scarcity and dearness of labour ; — nev- 

 ertheless, collections of large quantities of 

 compost is practised to greater extent and 

 more systematically, in Talbot county, Ma- 

 ryland, and especially, be it observed, among 

 gentlemen who there compose a society for 

 agricultural converzationes, than any where 

 else that I know of, in a slave-holding state 

 among large landholders. Some of these 

 gentlemen contrive to collect and haul out 

 8,000 loads in a year. If one of them would 

 write a plain description, the time, the how, 

 and the where and the with what, it is done, 

 he would render a service which would enti- 

 tle him to the thanks of his brother farmers. 

 In tlie meantime I pass to the next article, 

 on 



FIELD-MICE. 



This communication is interesting, because 

 it discloses, in the writer, a habit of reading, 

 the love of which is the most pregnant and 

 cheapest source of happiness that education 

 can throw in the way of any mortal man, and 

 especially a cowjitry-man ; but there are in 

 this communication, signed John Taney, two 

 very common defects: 



1. He does not give his locality, which 

 ought always to be done, for reasons of utili- 

 ty, too obvious to be mentioned. 2. He is 



not sufficiently exact in the description of his 

 mouse-trap ! No error is so common among 

 writers as looseness of description and omis- 

 sion of dates and localities, to show the sea- 

 son and climate when and where, the thing 

 related was done, or took place. Beg your 

 correspondents to correct this careless habit. 

 It arises from the inconsiderate presumption 

 that the reader already knows more than he 

 does, or that things and facts which are 

 really important to make the information 

 complete, are not so esteemed by the writer. 

 We are told to use a small quantity of this, 

 and a. few of that — or, as the witness said in 

 an assault and battery case, in court, that 

 Tom had knocked down Dick with a stone, 

 " as big, may it please your honour, as a piece 

 of chalk !" The small quantity, and the few 

 days, should be always specified! So much 

 for Mr. Taney, who I followed to the end 

 and was entertained, though I believe and 

 hope it will be a long time before our people 

 will be seen setting traps for catching ground- 

 mice — as to moles, is it settled, that they do 

 more harm than good ] 



Now, in regard to Renovation — the head- 

 ing of a paper should be made more descrip- 

 tive of its contents — so that if these have no 

 attraction for the reader, he may pass on, 

 without stopping to read a considerable por- 

 tion of the article before he can discover 

 what this " renovation" means. A brief sy- 

 nopsis of the contents, in the heading of 

 essays, is convenient and useful. In refer- 

 ence to the cultivation of the vine, the first 

 reflection which strikes the reader, is the 

 disgrace which attaches to ninety-nine out 

 of a hundred farmers — that they are too inert 

 to provide such a cheap and wholesome 

 luxury as a bunch of grapes, for their family, 

 or friends, when they visit them: but as to 

 the fertility of a vineyard being kept up en- 

 tirely by burying its own cuttings, I have 

 my doubts. Could a cow live alone by suck- 

 ing herself] even though she took all her 

 own milk? Whereas in the case of the 

 grape-vine, we take, in the grapes, the cream 

 of the produce — doubtless more of the nou- 

 rishment absorbed by the vine as to matur- 

 ing the grape, than to the formation of the 

 cuttings. However, the hints are important, 

 especially the remarks of "Another Poor 

 Man," quoted by a Vine-Dresser — who, 

 again, omits his locality, though in this case 

 the whereabouts is not so important. But 

 as a general rule, the place where a thing 

 is written, especially where practices and 

 results are detailed, should always be given. 

 The next article is headed 



Magnify Your Calling. 



A better heading would have been — Your 

 Calling, let it be duly estimated! There 



