90 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR, 



June, 1842. 



the whole rtmge of philosophy tlieie is no truth 

 more susceptible of defence th;iu this, that it is 

 the lot of hiimniiiiy to err, and niir own experi- 

 ence liaclics 11:^, lli.it the i'in)ilii\fd too orten eon- 

 ceivr iliat it istliL-ir (/(»<-, .-111(1 iHit the exertion of 

 their jiliy.-icMl and mental energies, which they 

 have disposed of We have seen hands, who had 

 come to us with the best of reputations for indus- 

 try and fidelity, displaying more ingenuity, and 

 wasting more time, in efforts to kill time, than 

 would have enabled them to acrpiit themselves 

 well, and done us justice, had that energy and 

 time been properly and honesily directed. We 

 regret to be compelled to s|)eal< thus, but as we 

 are justified by truth, and tlic pid)lic interest re- 

 quire, its utterance, a sense of duty constrains us 

 to admonish every one engaged in the pursuits 

 of agriculture, to con over in his memory the 

 moral developed in our text — to recollect that, 

 " where the e;/e of the mastey is icnnling, ruin and 

 disorder will inevitubly he the ennscquence." We 

 care not what may be the constituent elements of 

 a farmer or planfer's force, we say that if the 

 master omits to give to his operations personal 

 observation and inspection, from day to day, that 

 his interests will be neglected, and that though 

 ruin may not come at once, siill come it will, as 

 the necessary consequence of his own neglect. 

 Upon a large estate, where many hands are daily 

 engaged, we hazard nothing in affirming, that the 

 master's fyc is more than the- equivalent of twen- 

 ty-five per cent, of his entire force. It is not suf- 

 ficient to success, that the master may |)lan the 

 various operations on his place ; he must see that 

 they be faithfully executed; that what he directs 

 to be done, shall not only be done, but done well, 

 and at the proper lime. In none of the avoca- 

 tions of life, is time more precious than in that of 

 the husbandman. A few days delay in doing a 

 thing may prove fatal, or impose twice the 

 amount of labor upon his haiuls and his beasts 

 of burthen. So important is it, that every thing 

 connected with the business of fariifing, should 

 be done timely, that the delay of only a few 

 days, frequently increases the cost of labor more 

 than a hundred per cent.; nor is this the worst 

 feature to be found in procrastination; the Biic- 

 ce.ss of the crop may be thereby jeoparded ; the 

 prospects and comforts of a liuuily ruined, and 

 the peace and quiet of its protector destroyed. 

 Such being the contingent evils arising out of 

 neglect, surely every reader to whom we address 

 ourselves,will see the propriety of these remarks, 

 and conclude with us. that he must rely upon his 

 own et/e, if he desires to prevent those inroads of 

 " ruin and disorder" upon his own estate, which 

 have so often brought desolation upon the hopes 

 and homes of his acquaintance. 



The Russian Serf, 



The following is extracted from a lecture de- 

 livered by Mr. Dallas, late minister to Russia. It 

 pictures to the life the characters of the Russian 

 serf Of them, there are no less than forty mill- 

 ions, twenty of whom belonir to the Emperor 

 Nicholas: 



"Imagine a human being covered, we cannot 

 say clothed, in undressed sheijpskins, the wool 

 turned inward, that which slioiiKI be a coat re- 

 sembling a loose gown — having no collar, and a 

 cape lapped/.over by a piece of rope or other ma- 

 terials, as a belt around the waist. His neck is 

 uncovered, red, rough, and lii'.rd, his beard long, 

 matteil, and coarse, his moustache hanging down 

 luid covering his mouth. He wears a bell shape 

 cap of woolen stufl^ trimmed with dirty fur, and 

 shoes either |iieces of hnni wood scooped out, or 

 a kind of sock or pebled iiliable bark — he has 

 hung at his back a sort of axe or hatchet, anc 

 his exterior is altogether harsh, soiled, or dirty 

 mill repulsive. 



"A man thus characterised and habited, sud 

 denly appearing in our streets, or in any part of 

 the couiury, would awaken at once alarm and 

 ])ity, as some escaped wanderer from the cells of 

 hinaey or crime. In the moral and mental quali- 

 ties of the Russian serf there are mingled traits 

 of good and evil. He is mild and amiable, hut 

 imbecile and servile. To the iMofoundest igno- 

 rance and vilest superstition, he unites a Chinese 

 imitation, quick. less, and uii ehject reverential 

 faith in the dogmas of his clmreh. He crosses 

 himself at every flash of li!;litning, and faces 

 death fearlessly under i)ricstly promise of para- 

 dise. Be endures without complaint the most 



frightful extreme of physical exposure and pri- 

 vation. He is content with a block of wood or 

 stone for a pillow, a plank for his couch, and 

 some black bread and onions for his daily meal. 

 Like our western savage he yields at e\eiv op- 

 portunity to allurements of intoxicaling dunks. 

 In the presence of power he falls prostrate in the 

 dust, propitiating safety or kindness from his su- 

 periors, in the most disgusting servility. Yet, 

 notwithstanding the rigor of his destiny, he is 

 utterly unconscious that there exists hajipier or 

 fairer regions on the earth ; be loves his country 

 with enthusiastic and unbounded ardor, and when 

 fighting his lialtles abroad he is almost a willing 

 victim to tlie enemy, in the confident belief that 

 after death, but before he takes his final flight to 

 heaven, he is suflered to visit for three da\ s his 

 native cottage." 



So0ND Remarks. — Here are a few scraps of 

 wisdom quaintly expressed. 



The reviewers give long extracts from bad 

 books; they ought rather to be like churches 

 which receive not the dead but oidy their monu- 

 ments. 



We give to great men the tribute of our praise 

 when the grave shuts them up from hearing it; 

 we take off our hats to them after they have 

 gone by. 



We have abandoned the simplicity of the 

 ancient Greeks; men will no longer lave in 

 the limpid stream — they must have mineral 

 baths. 



A book, to last, must not only he witty, but 

 concise; meat, to be kept, must not only be salt- 

 ed, but compressed. 



We hang upon Time a bell, as we do upon an. 

 imals, that we m.ny know its moveinent.s. 



Youth, especially female youth, gives a poetic 

 tinge — a .softened coloring to its sorrows: thus 

 the sea, when the morning sun shines upon it, is 

 covered, even in the storm, with rainbows. — .V. 

 O. Pic. 



Criticisiw. — A correspondent of the New York 

 Commercial Advertiser, in criticising the pictures 

 in an exhibition, lauds several, and then adds : 

 "25. Portrait of a Lady— R. A. Paulding— Good 

 background!" Alas! how many, both of ladies 

 and gentlemen, are there, whose only title to i 

 tice is their backgroimd ! Nothing inthemselv 

 nothing in mind or body to warrant the conlidei 

 in which they stand before the world, taking ili 

 place among the respectable and excellent in 

 ciety ; nothing in their plans or achievements to 

 warrant any assumption or position — all depend- 

 ent upon some backgrourul of accidental or in- 

 herited vvealthjorthe favor of some wealthy friend, 

 or the influence of some accidental profession. — 

 It is the palace against which he leans; it is the 

 robe that gathers in majestic folds at his back ; it 

 is the pledged hostility to others, of thos,; tiiat 

 support him ; it is the (anility of i)olitical change 

 or the accomodation of political creed ; it is the art 

 which ineserves the exercise of flashy talents for 

 popular exhibition, but never displays in private 

 the cant of poitular doctrine, or the fiorward cham- 

 pionship of well-received opinion.s. All these, 

 and a thousand other means, are contrived to 

 good background to men of little personal wei 

 and to insure to them a position almost enviable 

 with those who do not pause, or luno not the 

 power to see that the goodness of the background 

 makes the prominent figure only the more ridic 

 ulous. .\nd the very commendations built on 

 such "f!;roiinds'' are, in reality, the keenest i 

 sure with minds capable of ap|)recialing the force 

 of strictures, and able fo discriminate helvv-een 

 direct deserved prai.se, and the qualified com 

 mendatiou that looks to some extraneous reflec 

 tive ohjecl— United Slates Gazelle. 



The grovelling ambition of some is satisfied 

 with a kind of negative superiority, v.'hich is ac- 

 quired by lowering its superior instead of el 

 ling itself. It has had the surprising sagacity to 

 discover, that a standing shrub is taller tliii 

 prostrate oak. 



The sacreil rights of mankind are not to be 

 rummaged for in any old jiarchments and musty 

 records. They are written as with a sunbeam 

 the whole volume of human nature, by the hai 

 of the Divinity itself; and they can never be 

 erased or ob«cured by mortal power. 



FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



CONCORD, N. H. JLUNliaO, 1342. 



Two graud Improvements in New Hampshire. 



The Farmer's Monthly Visitor has been pub- 

 lished forty-two months, or three years and u 

 half. In tiiat time we have good reason to be- 

 lieve this cheap little paper has done more for 

 the improvement of the Granite State alone 

 than all that has been originated by politicians 

 in all the political newspapers of the State. We 

 will mention two jminis, hi either of which the 

 imjietus it lias given to improvement may have 

 been of all the value we claim for it. 



1. Reclamation and improvement of swamp lands. 

 There is scarcely a town or even a neighborhood 

 in which the Visitor has been taken where the 

 cleaning and draining of low swamp and bog 

 lauds has not been commenced. Hundreds and 

 thousands of acres are already under way : at 

 an expense of from ton to fifty dollars the acre 

 this swamp land is made to pay the annual in- 

 terest of from one to two hundred dollars. 

 Taking a swamp where the w.-iler rests upon 

 and at no very great distance below the surlace 

 to the destruction of all useful vegetation, full of 

 stumps and roots which this water will preserve 

 sound for ages ; and the expense and labor of 

 improving such a spot appear truly formidable. 

 Taken hold of in the right method, the labor of 

 improvement will turn out far less than it ap- 

 pears to be. The large and appalling stumps 

 whose roots extend far upon the surface come 

 out much easier than the stumps upon the high- 

 lands which cover less surface but run into the 

 ground much deeper. In swamp ground where 

 no rocks are in the way the upper soil is always 

 soft and easy to be turned up with the plough or 

 the sharpened breaking-up hoe. 



The swamps adjacent to hard wood highland.^ 

 olmost invariably contain a rich black and deep 

 soil near the surface. Such grounds are com- 

 monly in a position to ho effectually drained, he- 

 cause there is a rapid iiassage where the stream 

 falls off below them. This kind of swamp ground 

 is not as flat and extensive t\M that which is com- 

 mon near the heights of land where the waters 

 part, or nearer to the ocean where there is much 

 low land preserving a long level with the sea. 

 The swamps among the hills of from one to a 

 hundred acres, which were the beds of former 

 ponds whose waters have broken through and 

 been drained off, are the most valuable. Gene- 

 rally they may be effectually drained by digging 

 to no very great distance ; and with a black veg- 

 etable mouTd eighteen inches in depth and up- 

 wards, these swamps, when cleared and drained, 

 will present a fertility more lasting and equally 

 productive as the very best prairie bottom lands 

 so filmed in the western country. 



Many of these low meadows cleared when 

 the country was first settled without draining, at 

 first productive in wild grasses, have been mowed 

 many years, iiroducing less and less of fresh 

 green hay that is hardly as valuable as rye straw 

 mulled in the fields either to hiake manure or to 

 feed cattle. These old meadows with one ex- 

 tensive drain encircling them near the edge cut- 

 ting ofl" the cold springs, and communicating at 

 difierent jioints with the larger open ditch or 

 brook, near the centre which carries the water 

 away from the swamp, may be made to produce 

 not only grass, but will be found excellent for 

 the cultivation of potatoes and even corn. Where 

 half a ton of the wild hay now grows, from two 

 to three tons of herdsgias.s, clover and redtop 

 hay may be made to grow. If the natural ground 

 he too black, cold and heavy, loads of gravel or 

 sand carted upon it will he as valuable as so 

 much manure. A slight covering of warm com- 

 post will perform wonders on this ground. 



The reclamation of swamp lands may be made 

 of double value. The first family of Shakers at 

 Canterbury have a swamp of some sixty acres at 

 the foot of the hill on the west of the road which 

 runs through their village ; and we are informed 

 that their best potatoes this year are growing up- 

 on that swamp. This ground was so much sat- 

 urated with Wiiterin its natural state that it yield- 

 ed little or nothing. It has been ditched", and 

 the material, the mud taken fi-om these ditches, 

 hai been made of equal value to so much stable 

 manure] In their leisure time one of the breth- 



