PRACTICAL FARMER. 



61 



did house, with outbuildings, die. in the same 

 style next struck his attention, and he inquired 

 who lived there. "Judge H." was the reply. 

 His next interruption was near a school-house, 

 Avhere the boys "all in a roAv," pulled off their 

 hats, and the girls dropped their curtsey as regu- 

 larly as if it had been done by machinery. Hav- 

 ing the organ of philoprogenitiveness W5ll devel- 

 oped, he entered into a confab with them. " Who 

 owns the school-house?" asked he. "Judge H." 

 "Who hires the school-ma'am?" "Judge H." 

 (He was a school-committee man.) By and by he 

 asked the very common question, " Who made 

 you, my little man?" "Judge H. ! !" was the 

 serious reply. 



G , June 19. 



I stopped today at the hospitable mansion of 



Mr P , about two miles from the delightful 



village at Meredith Bridge, after a ride through a 

 succession of fine scenery. On each side of us 

 were hills, over which, the air being light, and a 

 rain-storm threatening, the clouds rolled in all 

 their still and magnificent grandeur. The bright 

 and beautiful sky above and beyond tlie low fly- 

 ing clouds, seemed like glimpses of a brighter 

 world beyond and above this dull earth of ours. 

 It is in such scenes as these, the lover of the grand 

 and beautiful in nature reaps a full reward for the 

 "peltings of the pitiless storms" to which he may 

 be exposed in his pilgrimage. To those who have 

 breathed the pure air of the mountain, or sported 

 amid the green vales of the country, in youth, it 

 brings up to remembrance all their childish de- 

 light in these scenes, and many a sigh is cast for 

 past joys, and the wish half uttered that, for a. 

 while, the cold cares of manhood might be forgot- 

 ten, and their hearts might be as light and careless 

 as when "their nights and days were full of joy." 



" Yes, when thy heart in its pride would stray 



From the pure first loves of its youth away ; 



When the sullying breath of the world would come 



O'er the flowers it brought from its childhood's home — 



Think thou again of the woody glade, 



And the sound by the rustling ivy made ; 



Think of the tree at thy father's door, 



And the kindly spell shall have power once more." 



But I am wandering, as usual, from my subject. 



I found Mr P 's farm one of the best I had 



seen in my journey. Tlis barns large and com- 

 modious — his tools in fine order, and of the bpst 

 Hind — out-houses and fences neat and in good 

 repair — his orchard, except that it was rather too 

 thick set, very fine. It was the residence of one 

 who takes a pride in being a farmer, and vv'ho 

 thinks a thing is not "well enough," so long as it 



can be made better. Mr P raises apples of 



all kinds, so that he can have a continued succes- 

 sion, from the earliest to the latest, and this part 



of his farm is a good source of income. In my 

 walk about his farm, in the evening, I missed a 

 fine looking lot of cattle I had seen driven into 

 the yard ; and on inquiring, I found he drove 

 them every night on to about an acre of land, 

 previously fenced in, where he folded them, in 

 order to manure the ground for raising corn the 

 next season. This mode of manuring struck me 

 as a good one, and he assured me he had found it 

 the best way to manage his corn lands. I shall 

 not now enter into any details as to his mode of 

 proceeding, his success, &c., as I hope he will 

 give us, through your columns, his experience in 

 this process of manuring, its results, &c. From 

 his known interest in the welfare of his brother 

 farmers, I have no doubt he will feel willing to 

 send you a full account of his mode of raising 

 corn, and also of his many improvements on hia 

 farm, and thus insure the thanks of many of the 

 inexperienced. 



Your friend, Rusticus in Urbe. 



NOTES BY THE EDITOR. 



1. The principles of temperance, rightly under- 

 stood, tend to the introduction and culture, instead 

 of the destruction of fruit trees. They would lead 

 us, however, to the exclusive jyropagation of those 

 fruits which are best for the table and culinary 

 purposes. It has often, and we believe justly, 

 been observed by the celebrated Mr Knight, and 

 others, in substance, that good fruit is not only a 

 substitute for, and an antidote against ardent spirit, 

 but a taste for fruit is incompatible and cannot co- 

 exist with an appetite for intoxicating liquors. 



2. Apples may be applied to other purposes 

 besides that of cider making. Their uses for the 

 kitchen, the parlor, the sick chamber, &;c. are not 

 only unolijectionable, but very salutary. Even 

 before it was the fashion to talk about temperance, 

 when cider drinking was considei-ed indispensable 

 to good living, not one farmer in ten made any 

 money by making- cider, "for it cost more than it 

 came to." Besides, it has been found that apples 

 are good for swine. [See N. E. Farmer, vol. xiii. 

 p. 100,116.] If a farmer should set fire to his 

 rij)e crop of rye, for fear it should be made into 

 whiskey, he would not be more foolish than those 

 who destroy their orchards lest apples should be 

 made into cider ; which is almost the only bad use 

 of which apples are susceptible. If a fruit tree 

 does not produce good fruit, let it be grafted from 

 some other which does; but unless rotten or 

 worn out by age, let it not be destroyed as worth- 

 less. 



3. In the address to which our correspondent 

 alludes, the practice of giving cider to cliildren is 

 condemned, as creating an unnatural apjjetite for 

 intoxicating drink — p. 8. Likewise, a table is ap- 



