DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. V. 



BOSTON, JANUARY, 1853. 



NO. 1.- 



RAYNOLDS & NOITRSE, Proprietohs. 

 Office Quincy Hall. 



SIMON BROWN, Editor. 



FRED'K HOLBROOK. i Associate 

 HENRY F. FRENCH, \ Editors. 



THE NEW YEAR. 



Charles Lamb, in his volume of "£'Z/«," says, 

 "Every man hath two j^irthdays ; two days, at 

 least, in every year, which set him upon revolving 

 the lapse of time, as it effects his mortal duration. 

 The birth of a now year is of an interest too wide 

 to be pretermitted by king or cobbler. No one 

 ever regarded the First of January with indifference. 

 It is that fi-om which all date their time, and 

 count upon what is left." It is proper, then, to 

 make it a pausing place, from which to look at 

 events which have passed, as well as to summon 

 before us something of the probable future. Proper, 

 standing on this point and contemplating the por- 

 tion of our days that has mingled with the untold 

 years which have rolled away behind us, that the 

 heart should be touched, and awakened to new 

 emotions of gratitude. In the sombre December 

 afternoon, with barren fields, and leafless trees 

 around them, how many witness the setting sun, 

 with the mental exclamation, "Shall I behold thee 

 again, descending with the dying year!" or start 

 at the solemn peal of the bell as it rings out the 

 old year. Lamb says he never heard it "without a 

 gathering up of his mind to a concentration of all 

 the images that had been diffused over it for a past 

 twelve-month ; all he had done or suffered, per- 

 formed or neglected — in that regretted time." 



But the lapse of time, well employed, should be 

 no cause of regret. We hail the corn and fruit 

 harvests with joy ; they are no more of special ap- 

 pointment than that we ought to become ripe with 

 good deeds and fruits and be gathered home our- 

 selves. The sum of human duty is to act ivell our 

 part — this done, the lapse of years and the trial of 

 life should fall on the heart as the soft rain on the 

 flinty rock; it makes an impression, to be sure, 

 but so silent and gradual as to be almost imper- 

 ceptible. 



It is no idle uttering of the heart, when we say 

 that we wish all ".4. Happy New Year.^' If in 

 the association which has grown up between us, 



you have enjoyed the reading, as we have the 

 gathering, of these pages, the connection has been 

 a most happy one. You have constantly strength- 

 ened us by timely words of encouragement, by the 

 constant communication of your experiences, and 

 theories and deductions from them in your farm ope- 

 rations, and by the most liberal, substantial, and 

 prompt aid in the pecuniary affairs of the estab- 

 lishment. Your writings, many of them fresh from 

 the experiments of the fields, have given these 

 columns their chief value, and they must continue 

 to do so, or they will lose that directness and force 

 which they have already attained by your judicious 

 aid. But with more experience in the great art, 

 with a better knowledge of the wants of the farm- 

 ing community, we shall draw from our own stores 

 and the recorded wisdom of the fathers in the art, 

 with untiring apphcation. Not feeling strictly 

 confined to agricultural books, papers, or discus- 

 sions for illustrations, we shall feel justified in col- 

 lecting from the busy walks of commerce, the me- 

 chanic shops or laboratory of the chemist, such 

 helps as will elucidate the subjects before us. 

 Waifs from the wayside will be gathered in, wheth- 

 er straying from our own political or religious pa- 

 pers, or wafted across the Atlantic from the ex- 

 perienced flirmer in the old countries. 



Among the favorable changes which have taken 

 place in the estimation in which farming is held, 

 as an occupation, there is one of much importance, 

 and which is calculated to draw into it many ear- 

 nest and inquiring minds, and thus soon to pro- 

 duce distinguished men. It is, that Agriculture 

 now has a litei-ature. Some of the pleasantest 

 books that have been issued for a few years past 

 have been upon the subject of agriculture and its 

 kindred branches. The83 works have required 

 more patient research and investigation, and more 

 of the higher powers of the mind to produce them, 

 than almost any other kind of literature. They 

 certainly stand side by side with the best works orr' 

 astronomy and geology, and as far surpass in merit 



