N¥.W ENGLAND FARJ!IE11. 



!'ul>!i.shed by John B. Russei-l at the corner of Congress lUid Liuilall Streets, (entruiiio Iroin l.irila!! street) Thomas G. 1'j:6SEnden Editor. 



VOL. V. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24^ 1826. 



No. 18. 



AGIUCULTUKE. 



[Prepared for the JVew England Farmer.] 



they liuvo butcher meat on Hint liuy only. Thev 

 are divided into llireo classes, accor.Un^ to age 

 and strength; an entry is made in a book cvcrv 

 I night of the nuiriber of hours each class has work'- 

 i.Ai'.NCHiNG TREES, <fcc. I.N swiTZEH t A.Ni). ! od, spccilying tlie sort of labor done, in order tliat 

 A singular construction was erected for the 't "'ay he charged to the proper acconut, each p-.r- 

 rpiue o1' bringing down to the lake of Lncerne j "-''^ular crop having an account opened for it, as j 

 10 pine troes^uhioh grow upon Mount Pila- i «'eU as every new building, the live stock, the 

 V the enoineer Riipp The wood was p'lr- |"«":'i'nos, the schools themselves, &c. &c. In | 

 asril by a company for £3000, and £'.tOOO wee "inter, and whenever there is not-out-of-doors' | 

 peiulcd" in constructing the slide. The length P^o'k. the boys plait straw for (hairs, make bas- 

 (ho slide is about 44,000 English feet, or about kets, saw logs with the cross saw and split them, 

 iit miles and two furlongs ; and the difFeronce , thrash and winnow corn, grind colors, knit stock- 

 level of its two extremities is about S800 feet. . '»5rsi or assist the whoolrvright and other artific- 

 is a wooden trough, about five feet broad andjers, of whom there are many employed in the ps- 

 r teet deep, the bottom of which consists of tablisliment. For all which different sorts of la- 

 ce trees, the middle one being a liulo hollow- hour an adequate salary is credited to each boy's 

 ; and small rills of water are conducted into it, class. 



ti:e purpose of diminishing the friction. The i " 'i'l'e boys never see a newspaper, and scarcely 

 •livity, at its commencement, is about 99^°.— | a Ixjok- They are taught, viva voce, a few matters 

 p lar'co pines, with their branches and boughs j o*' f^'Ct, and rules of practical application ; the rest 

 oti", arc jdaced in the slide, and .iescending by "f tlieir education consists chiefly in inculcating 

 ir own gravity, thev acquire such an impetus i habits of industry, frugality, veracity, docility, and 

 their descent through :he first part of the slide, ! mutual kindness, by means of good example rath- 

 Ihey perform their journey of eight miles and ' er than precepts ; and above all by the absence of 



bad cxiiinple. It has been said of the Bell and 

 Lanc?.ster schools, that the good they do is mostly 

 negative: they take children out of the streets, 

 employ them in a harmless sort of mental sport 'i 

 or S hours in the day, e.xercise their understandinsr 

 gently and pleasantly, and accustom them to order 

 and rule, without compulsion. Now, what these 

 schools undertake to do for a few hours of each 

 week, during one or two years of a boy's life, the 



arter in the short space of six minutes ; and 



icr t'avourable circumstances, that is, in wet 



at!ier, in tliree minutes. Only one tree de- 



nds at a time, but, by means of signals placed 



ng the sliue, another tree is launched as soon 

 s predecessor has plunged into the lake — ■ 



neliuies the moving trees spring or oolt out of 

 tioiifh, and when this happens, they have been 



'wn to cut through trees in the neighborhool, 



if it had been done by an a.xe. When the trcts r-Sc/wo; nf Industry at Hofwyl does incess.-.nlly dur- 



ch the lake they are formed into rafts, and ing '•'>e whole course of his youth ; providing, at 



the same time, for his whole physical maintenance, 

 at a rate which must be deemed excessively cheap 

 for any but the very lowest of people. 



The practicability of this scheme for inculcat 

 ing individual prudence and practical morality, not 

 only in the agricultural but .in all the operative 

 classes of society, M. Simond considers as demon- 

 strated ; and it only remains to ascertain the ex- 

 tent of its application. " Two only of the pupils 



they 

 .ted down the Reuss into the Rhine." 



iRIClLTlRAL, ESTAELItllMENT IN SWITZER- 

 LAND. 



'his establishment " was invented, and is con- 

 rted at the sole expense of M. Fellenbcrg, a 

 prietor and agriculturist. His object was to 

 ly a sounder system of education for the great 

 y of the people, in order to stop the progress 



rror and corruption. Upwards of 19 years ago | have left Hofu yl, for a place, before the end of 



undertook to systematise domestic education, I their time, and one, with M. de Fellenberg's leave, 



to show on a large scale how the children of i is become chief manager of the immense estate of 



poor might be best taught, and their labour at 

 same time most profitably applied ; in short 

 i- the first twenty years of a poor rrfan's life 

 lit be so employed as to provide both for lis 

 port and his education. The peasants in his 

 «;liborhood weie at first rather shy of trusting 

 ir children for a new experiment ; and being 

 s oblincd to take iiis pupils .vherehe could find 

 m, m;iny of the earliest were sons of vagrar.fs. 

 literally picked up on the hi/hv.-ays ; this is 

 case with one or two of the most uistinguished 

 ils. 



""/ifiV treaimerd is nearly that of children under 

 paternal roof. They go out every morning to 

 ir work soon after sun rise, having first break- 

 ed, and received a Ics.son of about half an hour: 

 y return at noon. Dinner 'akes them half an 

 r, a lesson of one hour follo'vs : then to work 

 in till six in the cening. On Sunday the dif 

 int lessons take six hours instead of two ; and 



Comte Abafty, in Hungary, and has, it is said, 

 doubled its proceeds by the improved method of 

 husbandry he has introduced. This young man, 

 whose name is Madorly, was originally a beggar 

 boy, and not particularly distinguished at school. 

 Another directs a school established near Zurich, 

 and acquits himself to the entire satisfaction of his 

 employers. M. Fellenberg has besides a number 

 of pupils of the higher classes, some of whom be- 

 long to the first families of Germany, Russia, and 

 Switzerland. They live enfnmille with their mas- 

 ter, and nre instructed by the d liferent tutors in 

 the theory and practice of agriculture and in the 

 ;irts and sciences on which it is founded (See Si- 

 iMniVs Account of Sivitzeiinnd, vol. i. Vd. Rev. 1619 

 No. 64. Des Institutes dc Hofwyl, Paris 1819.) 



THE FAIR SEX IN OLDEN TIME. 



In the reign of Henry VIII. in Engl,-i.d, Sir A. 

 Fitzherbert, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, 



wrote a treatise, entitled The Hook of Husbandry, 

 from which the following is extracted; " It is a 

 wive'.s occupation to wynouc all manner of cornes, 

 t'.' make inalte, to washe, and wrynge, to make 

 hoye, sheve come, [reap] and, in time of node, to 



I help her hushande to fill the mucke wayne or 

 diinge cart, drive the ploiighe, to loade heye, come 

 ami suche other. And to go or ride to the market, 



I to sol butter, ehese, mylk, egges, chckyns, capons, 

 heunes, pyggcs, gese, and all manner of cornes.'' 

 Very ungenteel employment for ladies ! 



NUISA.NCES IN LO.NDON. 



Blytlie an old English writer on agriculture, 

 who wrote a book called " Improver Improved," 

 published in 1649, says " It was not many years 

 since the fair»iis city of London petitioned the 

 Parliament of F.nghtnd against two nuisances or 

 offensive commodities, which were likely to come 

 into great use and esteem; and that was Jsowcas- 

 tlc coal, in regard of their stench, &c. ; and hops 

 in regard thuy would spoyle the taste of drinck, 

 and endanger the people." 



LEAVES or TREES FODDER FOR CATTLE. 



A remarkable feature in the agriculture of 

 France, and of most warm countries, is the use of 

 leaves of trees as food for cattle. Not only are 

 mulberry, olive, poplar, vine, and other leaves 

 gathered in autumn, when they begin to change 

 colour, and ac<piire a .sweetness of taste ; but spray 

 is cut green iiT July, dried in the sun or in the 

 shade of trees in woods, faggoted, and stacked for 

 winter use. Turing that season they are given to 

 sheep and cattle like hay ; and sometimes, boiled 

 with griij s or ran, to cows. The astringency of 

 some sorts ojpllavcs, as the oak, is esteemed medi- 

 cinal, especially for sheep. 



CULTIVATION or THE VUfE IN FRANCE. 



The vine is cultivated in France in fields, and 

 on terraced hill.q, as in Italy, but managed in a dif- 

 ferent manner to what it is in that country. Here 

 it is kept low, and treated more as a plantation of 

 raspberries or currants are in England. It is ei- 

 ther planted in large plats, in rows three or four 

 feet apart, and the plants at two or three feet dis- 

 tance in the row ; or it is planted in double or sin- 

 gle rows alternating with ridges of arable land 



In some cases also two close rows, and a space of 

 six or seven feet alternate, to admit a sort of horse 

 hoeing culture in the wide interval. Most gener- 

 ally, plantations are made by dibbling in cuttings 

 of two feet in length ; presEing the earth firmly to 

 their lower end, an essential part of the operation, 

 noticed even by Xenophon. In pruning, a stem or 

 stool of a foot or more is left above ground, and the 

 young shoots are every year cut down within two 

 buds of this stool. These stools get very unwieldy 

 after sixty or a hundred years, and then it is cus- 

 tomary, in some places to lay down branches from 

 them, and form new stools, leaving the old for a 

 time, which, however, soon cease to produce any 

 but weak shoots. The winter pruning of the vine 

 generally takes place in February ; the worjen 

 \'l ;got the branches, and tlit ir value, as fuel, is 

 expected to pay the cxpenoe of 'h't'.-ising. In srm- 

 mer, the ground is t v; ■•? c' ''i ■ic'" ho'^d, aaJ the 

 young shoots tied to sI;'j. c;..i.O': f. i';"Vhf. ~r 



