&I)C Jarmcr's ittcmtl)In ittsitor. 



167 



quite so strong as an article culled self-interest. 

 Of course it is on this principle, the desire of 

 making money, that fanners engage in this un- 

 holy business. And yet, we are far from believ- 

 ing that it is a money-making business after all. 

 For cider-making is a dirty, ugly trade, at the 

 best, and the extreme low price for which it sells 

 in market, will hardly pay the expense of laving 

 up a cheese and pressing out the cider. As to 

 the price of " Wink'em " in market we know 

 nothing, only that in communities and neighbor- 

 hoods where it is- sold and drank, there is moral 

 desolution enough. In the early stages of the 

 great temperance reformation some farmers with 

 a large amount of zeal for the cause, cut down 

 thrifty apple orchards, which was a great mis- 

 take, as they afterwards saw. Of all the fruits 

 raised in New England, the apple is the most 

 important, when well cultivated. The best 

 course farmers can adopt with their old apple 

 orchards, which only have natuaral fruit is, for 

 all thrifty growing trees, just cut off the top anil 

 set on a new one by grafting with good and val- 

 uable market fruit. Let all the old unthrifty 

 trees he removed at once, and with proper care 

 and attention, the thrilly trees will soon come 

 into bearing. As to a market for fruit, we be- 

 lieve that there will he a good one for the next 

 century to come, and in fact we much doubt 

 whether the supply of good fruit will ever meet 

 the demand, both in this country and in foreign 

 countries. As to the effect of cider and brandy 

 drinking on the morals of our agricultural com- 

 munity, who that has watched the course of 

 things for the list twenty-five or thirty years, has 

 not seen its deplorable effects. How many fine 

 farms and estates have passed into other hands, 

 which should have remained in the family name, 

 merely for this cause. We could name instances 

 ourselves if we chose, where it would seem that 

 the evils of drinking and drunkenness have been 

 handed down from grand-father to grand-son, so 

 that now hardly a family name exists. This on- 

 ly proves the old doctrine true, that " evil com- 

 munications and habits will always corrupt good 

 morals and manners every where." It is not ne- 

 cessary here to describe the condition of the 

 drunken farmer, with health, mind, property 

 wasting away and reputation gone, for it is a 

 melancholy sight to look upon. After all, we do 

 not think there has been as much shiftlessness 

 and ruin caused by drinking here as in some 

 of the western States. Inasmuch as here the 

 article was home-made, and was mostly drank 

 by their own firesides, so the evil was made more 

 social. But in the western States the drink was 

 all or mostly mult liquor and whiskey, and these 

 dri.iks were to be had ul the tavern and grog- 

 shops. And hence that reckless habit of tavern 

 and bar-room lounging among farmers, the worst 

 of all evils that can fall on an agricultural com- 

 munity. Then the converting of agricultural 

 produce into mult liquor and whiskey, was an- 

 other great evil, when this same grain should go 

 to sustain animal and human life, instead of be- 

 ing made into poison to kill mankind. We leave 

 every candid man to judge how much influence 

 improved (arming could have on the minds of 

 these farmers who paid mure attention to liquor- 

 making and drinking than to farm improvements. 



In fact at the present day, it is hardly possible to 

 find a thriving agricultural community where li- 

 quor is manufactured and used to any consider- 

 able extent among farmers. We are satisfied 

 however at the present time farmers are lovers 

 of good order and morals generally, and if soi 



we do not see how they can engage in that busi- 

 ness which helps to ruin mankind. But we be- 

 lieve that the time has already come when men 

 who will cntruge in brandy or liquor making, 

 selling, or drinking as a consumption or bever- 

 age, cannot be called gentlemen in the strict 

 sense of the term. 



When we commenced this article we did not 

 intend to give a temperance lecture ; but know- 

 ing that farmers have bad a good deal to do 

 formerly, and more than they ought to have at 

 the present time, with alcoholic drinks, we have 

 thought that a few ideas might not be out of 

 place on this subject. If any thing has been 

 said out of place, it bus on our part been a fail- 

 ure of the senses and not of the heart. 

 Yours, &c, 



L. DURAND. 



Derby, Ct., Nov. 19, 184-9. 



Ashes and Lime for Plum Trees. — H. Good- 

 win, of South Canaan, Conn., in a late number 

 of the Berkshire Culturist, gives the following 

 account of an experiment he tried with his 

 plum trees: 



"I have in my garden a plum tree, which, for 

 three or four years past has borne very full, but 

 not till this year, has one of the plums been 

 sound. 



"They all were bored, or rotted, and fell from 

 the tree before they were ripe. Two or three 

 other plum trees, of a different kind, which have 

 borne less, shared the same fate. Last year, a 

 young tree, which stood near an ash leach, and 

 which had never borne before, produced a soli- 

 tary iilum, and that was sound. This suggested 

 the idea, that its preservation was owing lo the 

 ashes which had been scattered around the roots 

 of the tree. Following out the hint thus given, 

 1 last spring spread ashes and lime, with manure 

 and salt, around all my trees. The result has 

 been, that they all have borne, this year, more 

 than usual, and most of the fruit has been sound. 

 This result I ascribe in part, to the ashes and 

 lime. The same, I find, is recommended by 

 'An Old Digger.' And the conclusion is obvi- 

 ous, that alkali enough will destroy the young 

 insects as they lie burrowed in the ground, or 

 attempt to emerge from it in the spring. If in 

 this way sound plums can be raised, it will be 

 found a very easy way. Let some of your read- 

 ers try the experiment and note the result." 



Quality of Milk. — We have often remarked 

 that it is the quality of the milk, rather than the 

 quantity, which gives value to the dairy-cow. 

 Great astonishment is sometimes produced by 

 statements of the large quantity of milk yielded 

 daily, by some cows. But such statements are 

 of little consequence. The most remarkable 

 cows for the production of butter, have given but 

 medium quantities of milk. For instance, the 

 celebrated Sussex, or Cramp cow, which for sev- 

 eral years made an average of six hundred lbs. 

 of butler a year, gave, at the most, but twenty 

 quarts per day ; and the Oaks cow, which made 

 480 pounds of butter in a year, gave but sixteen 

 to eighteen quarts per day. John Uolbert, of 

 Chemung, N. Y., states that he has found, by 

 churning milk separately, that one of his best 

 cows will make as much butter as three of his 

 poorest — all giving an equal quantity of milk. 

 He states, also, that one hundred pounds of milk 

 drawn from his cows which give the richest milk, 

 will make one pound more butter than one hun- 

 dred pounds drawn from the whole herd ; and 

 he adds, that there is more difference in the 

 quality than in the quantity. His advice in con- 

 clusion is, that all dairymen look well to the 

 quality of milk their cows give. — Albany Cull. 



He is n fool who makes his doctor his heir. 



Value of Berkshire Swine. — A correspon- 

 dent from New Jersey thus writes us : "Some 

 years since, I had a very fine stock of Berkshire 

 hogs, hut from neglect and other causes, they 

 have entirely disappeared, since which, I have 

 not enjoyed the luxury of a good ham on my 

 own table; I am fully satisfied they have been 

 more sinned against than sinning, and am desir- 

 ous of procuring a few for breeders, but know 

 not where to apply for information except to 

 yourself." 



The above is just what we told the public over 

 and over again, several years ago, would soon be 

 the complaint when the demand for this breed 

 of swine began to subside, and they were reject- 

 ed for some new-fangled notion. Taking every 

 thing into consideration, we think the Berkshire 

 the best farmer's hog ever raised in this country. 

 A large western pork-packer, just returned from 

 a six months' tour in Great Britain and Ireland, 

 informs us that he has now got to commence 

 growing a herd of Berkshire swine before he 

 can have a proper mixture of lean and fat in his 

 pork lo suit English markets. He also wants 

 jean hams, which he can find nowhere so perfect 

 as in Berkshire pigs. — American Agriculturist. 



Effects of Imagination.— The following an- 

 ecdote was related by the celebrated father Tay- 

 lor, in the course of a recent lecture : " It hap- 

 pened years ago, in the days of old-fashioned 

 meeting-houses, with their pews like pens, and 

 their pulpits perched up at an elevation which 

 placed them without the pale of human sympa- 

 thy, and when a fire for the purpose of warming 

 a church was a thing unheard of, that some en- 

 terprising young men who hud worshipped in 

 such a church, determined to have the house 

 warmed by stoves. But the project encountered 

 the most violent opposition from all the old peo- 

 ple. They declared that it should not be ; that 

 stoves were not a gospel ordinance ; that the 

 congregation must suffocate. The young men, 

 however, prevailed ; and one Sabbath the con- 

 gregation heheld in the chureh two formidable 

 black stoves, with the pipes traversing the entire 

 length of the house. The old men and women 

 looked on with horror, and held their breath for 

 the result. The exercises of the church pro- 

 ceeded. Soon a lady fainted away, and in a few 

 moments another gasped for breath, and was 

 carried out of the church, and then another. At 

 last a stout burly man swooned and fell. The 

 frightened minister at once dismissed the church, 

 and there was a general rush of the indignant 

 people toward the stoves. The windows were 

 thrown open, and they were about to precipitate 

 the offenders from the house, when, lo ! and be- 

 hold ! the stoves were cold ! and not a particle 

 of fire had been kindled in either of them. The 

 masons had not quite time to finish putting them 

 up, and no fire had been made. The triumph of 

 the young advocates of stoves was complete." — 

 Alloa Monthly AdveHiser. 



Analysis of Indian Corn. 



One of the most valuable crops of America is 

 the Indian corn crop. As all of our readers 

 know, it enters largely into the sustenance of 

 man and beast. Not a particle of it need be lost. 

 What of it cannot be directly converted into 

 bread, for the food of man, can be fed out to his 

 cattle, sheep and hogs, and thus converted into 

 milk, beef, mutton or pork, and thus contribute 

 to his support. 



A crop of such universal application to the 

 wants of life, and so extensively spread over a 

 whole continent, should not only be highly prized, 

 but well understood in all its parts, and in all its 

 stages of progress, from the germ to the full 

 ripeness of the kernel. 



The New York State Agricultural Society 

 have procured a thorough analysis of Indian 

 corn, by Mr, Salisbury, an able chemist, which 



