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CONDUCTED BY ISAAC HIIVL. 



WHO LABOR IN THE EIRTH ARE THE CHOSEH PEOPLE OF GrOD, W HOSE BREASTS HE HAS M U> E HIS I' I. IULIAR DEPOSITS F'R SUT SI \ VITAL ,M' 6EK1 IKE VIHTUE." Irj), - .„„ . 



VOL. 10. NO. 12. 



BOSTON, MASS., DECEMBER 31, 1848. 



WHOLE NO. 120 



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Failure of an Experimental Community. 



A recent number of tin- Revue des Deux Mon 

 des contain!) mi article from Marshal Bugeaud, 

 on tin- principles of Association, as applied lo 

 agricultural labor. Tin! article has some curious 

 details of an attempt at an agricultural associ 

 tion, which was tried in Africa, and the -results 

 of this trial In the following passage Marshal 

 Biigenud [dales the ill success of the experiment 

 lie had made : — 



"f>n reluming from a prolonged expedition, I 

 went tu visit my three little colonies, beginning 

 with that of Mered. It was the end of Septem- 

 ber, 1843. Generally I was received with joy by 

 the military colonists, who considered me as 

 their benefactor, and called me their father. 

 This time il was Sunday. I found them sad, and 

 most uncivil. They were leaning against their 

 doors, and did not move lo come round me, ac- 

 cording ui their custom. 1 saw that there was 

 something extraordinary. 



; ' 1 sent for ihe officer, and he being absent, I 

 ■o I myself to the sergeant major, to it 

 quire the causes of the discouragement, the 

 syuipi s of which I hud remarked. 



"'My men have good reason to be sad,' re- 

 plied the sergeant; ' they are losing the best part 

 of their harvest, and they attribute it to the la- 

 boring in common; they are tired of this ar- 

 rangement, and they are going to ask you to 

 break up ihe association.' 



"'But how do they lose their harvest? They 

 reaped in the beginning of. June, ami we are 

 now at the last of September; it ought to be in 

 the granary long ago.' 



"' You are right, Governor, it ought to be so, 

 but they do not wink, and v. e. have not yet taken 

 rare of a third of the barley or wheat. Depend- 

 ing usually on the prolongation of fine weather, 

 we did not take the precaution lo take the sheaves 

 from the rick perpendicularly; we took what 

 formed Ihe roof from the whole oblong square. 

 The two storms which came lately have soaked 

 Otir ricks, and our grain has sprouted.' 



" 1 went to the ricks and I saw the grain grow- 

 ing on all sides. I immediately assembled the 

 colonics; they formed u circle about me, and 

 we had Ihe following dialogue: 



" ' How is it, my friends, thai, having made your 

 harvest in June, you have not threshed your 

 grain at the end of September?' 



'•' Because,' they replied, 'we do not work.' 



"'And why don't you work?' 



'" Because we depend one on the other; one 

 docs not wish to do more than the oilier, and 

 thus we put ourselves on the level of the idle. 

 Do you not think, Governor, that if we each had 

 our portion of this grain, it would have been 

 threshed long ago? We should have already 



done more than double. Things cannot go on 

 so? we beg you to break lip our association.' 



"' Yes, yes,' cried all the colonists, even the 

 lazy ones. 



'• He put ourselves on the level with the lazy ones, 

 uffected mo too much, lo leave me undecided 

 about giving up the community labor, but I 

 thought it my duly not to yield too soon. So I 

 made an appeal to the sentiments of fraternity, 

 of w hich I knew the force. 



"'How, my friends,' replied 1, 'yon are all 

 comrades of the same regiment, (the 48th,) you 

 selected each other voluntarily, you are young 

 and robust, yon make, in some sort, only a family 

 of brothers, and do you not know how to live 

 and labor in common, without calculating whe- 

 ther one does more than the other?' 



"' Governor, we are very fond of each other, 

 and notwithstanding that, there is no emulation 

 for labor; it does not seem like working for one's 

 self when we work in common. But it would 

 be worse when we marry. Our wives would 

 agree less than we do about work ad every 

 thing else. Il would he a hell. If we prove to 

 you that we have produced more, in the one day 

 each week, which you allowed every man to 

 have for himself, than in the live days of the 

 community, you will nut refuse to let us dissolve 

 our association.' 



'• I proceeded immediately to the verification 

 of this fact. I appraised successfully the sixty- 

 seven individual harvests, the officers wrote 

 down my appraisement, and the sum gave in 

 (act an amount superior by a fifth to the whole 

 of the community harvests. This operation fin- 

 ished, I called the colonists together again. 1 

 declared to ihein that the results of this exami- 

 nation decided me. to establish individual labor 

 among them ; hut I warned them, that since 

 they thought themselves able to take cure of 

 themselves, if they separated I should withdraw 

 their pay and rations. They received this de- 

 claration with unanimous consent." 



Poultry and Eggs. 



Among all nations, and throughout all grades 

 of society, eggs have been a favorite food. But 

 in our cities, particularly in winter, they are sold 

 at such prices that lew families can afford to use 

 them at all, and even those in easy circumstances 

 consider them to he too expensive for common 

 use. There is no need of this. Every family, 

 or nearly every family, can, with very little trou- 

 ble, have eggs in plenty during the year, and of 

 all the animals domesticated lor the use of man, 

 the common dunghill low I is capable of yielding 

 tin-' greatest profit to the owner. In the month 

 of November, I put apart eleven hens and a 

 cock, gave them a small chamber in the wood- 

 house, defended from storms, with an opening 

 to the south. Then food, water, and lime were 

 placed on shelves convenient for them, with 

 nesis and chalk nest ( ggs in plenty. These 

 hens continued to lay eggs through the winter. 

 From these hens 1 received an average of six 

 eggs daily during the winter: and whenever any 

 one of them was disposed to set, namely, as .•sunn 

 as she began lo cluck, she w as separated from 

 ih" others by a grated partition, and her apart- 

 ment darkened. These cluckers were well at- 

 tended and I'ni, They could associate with the 

 other fowls, through the grates, and as soon as 

 any one of these prisoners began to sing, she 

 was liberated, and would very soon lay eggs, it 

 is a pleasant thing to feed and lend a bevy of 

 laying hens. They may be trained So as to fol- 

 low the children, and will lav in a box. Egg 

 shells contain lime, and when ill winter the 

 earth is bound in frost, or covered with snow, if 

 lime be HOI provided for them, they will not lay ; 

 if they do, the ergs must of necessity lie 

 without shells. Old rubbish lime from chitiitiies 



and old buildings is propel 1 for them, and only 

 needs to he broken. They will often attempt lo 

 swallow pieces of lime and plaster as large as 

 walnuts. The singing hen will certainly lay 

 eggs, if she find all things agreeable lo her, but 

 the hen is so much of a prude — as watchful as 

 a weasel, and fastidious as a hypocrite — she 

 must, she will have secrecy and mystery about 

 her nest. All eyes hut her own must be averted. 

 Follow or watch her, and she will forsake her 

 nest and stop laying. She is best pleased with a 

 box covered at the top, with an aperture for 

 light, and a side door by which she can escape 

 unseen. A farmer may keep one hundred fowls 

 in the barn, may suffer them to trample on and 

 destroy his mows of grain, and have fewer eggs 

 than the cottager who keeps a dozen, provides 

 secret nests, chalk nest-eggs, pounded bricks, 

 plenty of corn or other grain, water and gravel 

 for them, and takes care that his hens be not dis- 

 turbed about their nests. Three chalk eggs in a 

 nest are better than one— large eggs are best. I 

 have smiled to see them fondle around, and lay 

 in a nesl of geese eggs. Pullets will begin to 

 lay early in life, when nests and eggs are plenty, 

 and when others tire clucking around them. A 

 dozen dung hill fowls, shut up away from other 

 means of obtaining food, will require something 

 more than a quart of corn a day. I think fifteen 

 bushels it year is a fair allowance for them ; but 

 more or less, let them always have enough by 

 them ; and after they have become habituated to 

 find it at all times in their little manger, they 

 take but a few kernels at a time, except just be- 

 fore going to roost, when they will take nearly a 

 spoonful iti their crops. But just so sure as 

 their provisions come to them scanted or irregu- 

 larly, so sure will they raven up a whole cropiull 

 at ihe time, and stop laying. A dozen fowls, 

 well attended, will furnish a family with mote 

 than two thousand eggs a year, and one hun- 

 dred full grown chickens for the fall and winter 

 stores. 



The expense of keeping a dozen fowls will 

 not amount to more than eight bushels of grain. 

 They may be kept in cities as well us in the 

 country, will do as well shut up the year round, 

 as to run at large. A grated room, well lighted, 

 ten feet by five, partitioned from a stable or out- 

 house, is sufficient for the dozen fowls with their 

 roosts, nesls, and feeding troughs. In ihe spring 

 of the year, rive or six hens will hatch at a lime, 

 and the fifty or sixty chickens may be given to 

 one ben. Two hens will take care of one hun- 

 dred chickens well enough, until they begin to 

 climb their little stick rousts. They then should 

 be separated from the hens entirely. I have 

 often kept the chickens, when young, in my gar- 

 den. They keep the May bug and other insects 

 from the vines. In case of confining fow Is in 

 summer, it should he remembered that a ground 

 floor should be chosen ; or it is just as well to 

 set in their pen, boxes of well-dried, pulverized 

 earth, for them to wallow in during warm wea- 

 ther. Their pens should be kepi clean. — Penn. 

 Cultivator. 



On Plants selecting their Food. 



We till know, ihut upon a good soil we can 

 grow grain, potatoes, hei t-rool, poppies and to- 

 bacco. In the grain and potatoes, we have ready 

 formed starch, in the beet-root, sugar, in the 

 poppy, opium alfd a fixed oil, iu the tobacco the 

 narcotic principle, a volatile oil, and ready form- 

 ed nitre, or saltpetre, and some of these plants 

 contain sulphur, others none. 



All these substances, in the several plants, so 

 different in composition and quality, are derived 

 from the same compounds ill the soil which na- 

 ture supplies as food for all plants. But how is 

 it, that these different modifications and arrange- 

 ments of ihe same elementary substances are 

 brought about? Are plants sentient beings? 



