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112 



&l)c .farmer's ittontljlu Visitor. 



AgriculturitI Societies. 



It is a fact that ill all t lie best agricultural 

 counties in the Eastern Slates, Agricultural 

 Societies have for a long time existed anrl have 

 been munificently sustained. This has been 

 done because experience has proved that their 

 influences are productive of great good to the 

 agricultural interest. In the first place, they 

 have had the effect of placing the leading inter- 

 est of the country prominently belbre the peo- 

 ple. This has made those engaged in agricul- 

 ture feel their importance as a professional class. 

 It has stimulated their industry, ami made the 

 individuals composing that cla-s emulous to riv- 

 al each other in every branch of their business. 

 The finest stock of the country has been made 

 to attain a high point of excellence. Farming 

 lias been done with more system ; more neat- 

 ness; more economy; and with greater profit. 

 Experiments have been made in the composition 

 and value of manures, and every thing that could 

 be made available to increase the fertility of the 

 soil has been employed for that purpose. Waste 

 lands and brush pastures have been ploughed 

 up, and the earth worked to a great depth, and 

 a new source of wealth has been found in lands 

 which before had been scarcely worth fencing. 

 The black muck, or mud in sloughs, ponds, bot- 

 toms of brooks, the accumulation of ages, lias 

 been carted out, thrown into compost heaps, 

 made to ferment, and manufactured into valuable 

 manure, and when genereusly distributed on 

 worn-out or exhausted soils, has made a liberal 

 return for the labor thus bestowed. Farmers 

 have learned that small farms well cultivated are 

 more profitable than large farms half-cultivated. 

 That it was more profitable to raise eighty bu- 

 shels of corn on one acre, than upon two acres ; 

 that it paid far better to grow four tons of timo- 

 thy upon one acre than upon four acres. These 

 results began a disposition to farm upon a sys- 

 tem ; to make neat and beautiful farms, and to 

 beautify the country with good farm houses, out 

 buildings, fences, gates, and other improvements, 

 which make the business of farming pleasant, 

 desirable and profitable. It is this state of things 

 that has induced men of capital, taste and edu- 

 cation, to become indentified with the agricultur- 

 al class. 



The same fact may be generally stated in re- 

 gard to some other distinct branches connected 

 with agriculture. Horticulture, as a branch of 

 agriculture, is now receiving great attention in 

 many portions of the Eastern Slates. The ad- 

 vances which this science has made, (it may 

 properly be called science,) within the last few 

 years, has astonished its most ardent friends. 

 Valuable varieties of fruits have been produced, 

 which were unknown in former years. Apples, 

 Pears, Peaches, Plums, Strawberries, Grapes, 

 Currants, Gooseberries, &c, have been greatly 

 improved. It is now esteemed essential to the 

 health and comfort of farmers, that they should 

 cultivate ihe most valuable fruits. Common 

 fruits may be regarded as an advance from the 

 savage or natural state of such fruits, while the 

 excellent varieties are an evidence of the most 

 refined civilization. It is even now slated by 

 intelligent pomologists that they have only ar- 

 rived at the starling point of horticultural im- 

 provement!). If so, lo what perfection fruils 

 must attain before they reach the goal of im- 

 provement ? — Illinois Journal. 



Good rule. — I'he editor of the Prairie Farmer 

 says he was taught when a hoy to refrain from 

 grumbling at two things. Tl>- fine i~ that which 

 In cannot help — and the other, that which he 

 can help. 



Agricultural Schools, and Schools for Instruc- 

 tion in the Mechanic Aits. 



The following is from the late message of Gov. 

 Fish to the legislature of New York : 



I think the time has arrived when the State is 

 called on to make provision for the advancement 

 of Agricultural Science, and of knowledge, in 

 the Mechanic Arts. Of late years, the science of 

 Agriculture has received much attention, and its 

 influence, in combination with the practical la- 

 bors of those engaged in the ennobling pursuit 

 of husbandry, has lessened the toil and increased 

 the returns of the idlers of the soil. Similar are 

 the results with respect to the Mechanic Arts. 

 If the wealth and power, and independence of a 

 nation are to be estimated by its ability to sup- 

 ply, from within itself; its most essential wants, 

 and from its abundance to minister to the wants 

 of others, it is both wise and politic for the State 

 to aid the advancement of those particular bran- 

 ches of knowledge more immediately bearing up- 

 on the pursuits of the great producing classes. 



In this view, I cannot too strongly recommend 

 the endowment by the Slate of an Agricultural 

 School, and a School for Instruction in the Me- 

 chanic Arts. 1 »uuld suggest an annual Appro- 

 priation, lobe expended under the direction of 

 the Regents of the University, for instructors in 

 the several branches of learning connected with 

 Agriculture and the .Mechanic Ails. The appro- 

 priation should be sufficient to insure the best 

 talents, to test the utility of the plan, and, if 

 deemed expedient, its duration may, in the first 

 instance, be limited. 



Keep at Work. 



Does a mountain on you frown 7 



Keep at work : 

 You may undermine it yet; 



If you siand and tliump us base, 

 Sorry bruises you may get. 



Keep at work. 



D.>e8 Miss Fortune's face look sour ? 



Keep at work : 

 She may smile again some day ; 



II you pull your hair and tret, 

 Rest assured she'll have her way. 



Keep at work. 



Are you censured by your friends ? 



Keep at work. 

 Whether they are wrong or right, 



May be you must 'hide your time, 

 If for victory you tight, 



Keep at work. 



W the devil growls at you, 



Keep at work : 

 That's the best way lo resist ; 



If you hold an argument, 

 You may feel his iron fiat. 



Keep at work. 



Are your talents vilified , 7 



Keep at work. 

 Greater men than you are hated j 



II you're righl. then go abend — 

 Grit will be appreciated. 



Keep at work. 



Every thing is done by labor: 



Keep at work, 

 It vou would improve your station : 



They have help from Providence 

 Who work out their own salvation. 



Keep at work. — Franklin. 



A i,essom for scolding VVivF.s. — "And I dare 

 say ton have scolded your wife very often, New- 

 man," said I once. 



Newman looked down, and his wife took up 

 the reply — 



"Never lo signify — and if he has 1 deserved 

 it?" 



"And I dare s ly if the truth were told, vou 

 have scolded him quite as often. " 



" Nay," said the old woman with a beauty of 

 kindness, which all ihe poetry in the world can- 

 not excel, " How can a wile scold her good man 

 who has been working for her and her little ones 

 all ihe day ? It may do for a man to he peevish, 

 for it is he who bears the crosses of the world ; 

 but who should make him for_et them but bis 

 own wife? And she had best for her own sake 

 — for nobody can scold much when the scolding 

 is all on one side." 



Sandy Plains. — Clay, ashes, decomposed or 

 rotten manure, with clover, il is said, has proved 

 to be the best means of improving sandy plain 

 lands. Plaster is useful in situations where it 

 will act. This can be ascertained by trial. 



Military Glory. 



There is something inexplicable in the rever- 

 ence paid by men to honors won in battle. The 

 world's history appears, indeed to be preserved 

 rather in the history of battle-fields than in any 

 other way. It is very true that the struggles of 

 man with his fellow-man have been incessant, and 

 the contest for power or fame makes up the daily 

 current of political events; but that will hardly ac- 

 count for the fact that while a i'aw men worship at 

 old shrines of learning and do homage to the di- 

 vinity dwelling in them, by far the greater portion 

 of the race are better satisfied with viewing bat- 

 tle-fields and relics of hard blows, battered 

 swords and shields, and the like evidences of 

 man's haired to man. Few who visit Greece, 

 care to search out Ihe favorite resorts of the old 

 philosophers ; but all rush to Marathon or Ther- 

 mopylae. Even in countries made interesting 

 by modern events, few care to remain for any 

 length of time in the bouses of great or good 

 men, or to tread on ground hallowed by the foot- 

 steps of departed worthies, while ihe mass pour 

 s'eadily to Waterloo, to Culloden, Marston Moor, 

 and a hundred similar places, renowned as soil 

 fertilized by the blood of men. If further illus- 

 tration of the fact that men worship military 

 glory were needed, it may be found in ihe atten- 

 tion paid to soldiers who have fought bravely, 

 compared with that paid lo men who are only 

 known as giants in intellect : but the fact is loo 

 notorious to need proof. 



An illustration is afforded by an anecdote of 

 Kosciusko in bis retirement, not long before his 

 death. He then resided in a cottage in a village 

 of France; and during the invasion of France, 

 a Polish regiment from the army passed through 

 the village. Some outrages were commuted by 

 the soldiery, and Kosciusko, an old and feeble 

 man, came out of his cottage and addressed 

 them. "When i was ay Polish soldier," said he, 

 " we did not do t litis." » 



" Who are you that speak so boldly r" asked 

 an officer very rudely. 



" 1 am Kosciusko," was the quiet reply. 



The name run from rank to rank, from corps 

 to corps, until it grew to a shout of intense de- 

 votion, and the march abandoned, all gathered 

 in a mass around the veteran defender of Po- 

 land. — jV. Y. Journal of Commerce. 



Novel Pels. — A correspondent of the Boston 

 Journal, writing from Hingham, Mass., which 

 place he had visited on a pleasure excursion, 

 says : 



" We took the younger members of the party 

 to visit Wear Kiver Iron Foundry, and the pond 

 near it, and .Miss Thomas' pels — ihe fish and tur- 

 tle in it. This child of nine years had fed these 

 fish four years yvith bread. She was first amused 

 by throwing the crumbs into the water when she 

 eat her meals on the stones of the bank, and 

 seeing ihe fish dait for them she took an interest 

 in the fish, and has fed them regularly since. 

 Strange as it may seem, they know her voice. 

 On our -requesting her to teed and call them, she 

 did so, and called 'turte, turte, turte,' several 

 times; directly we could see the untie popping 

 their heads up over the pond, then swim lo her 

 and take the bread from her hands. The fish 

 did the same; several hundred of which, con- 

 sisting of large black pouts, six to eight inches 

 long, shiners and minnows of all sizes, flocked 

 around her, perfectly tame. The turtles were of 

 two kinds, ' snappers ' and the common yellow 

 spoiled ones. This was a most interesting sight, 

 and well worth a long ride to see it. 



E.nvv. — When a statue had been erected to 

 Theagenes, a celebrated victor in one of the pub- 

 lic games of Greece, by his fellow-citizens of 

 Thasos, we are told that it excited so strongly 

 ihe hatred of one of his rivals, that he went to 

 it every night, and endeavored lo throw it down 

 by repealed blows, till at last, unfortunately suc- 

 cessful, he was crushed to death beneath iis fall. 

 This, if we consider the self-consuming misery 

 of envy, is truly what happens lo every envious 

 man. He may perhaps throw down his rival's 

 glory, but he is crushed in bis soul beneath the 

 glory which he overturns. 



