78 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Feb. 



accumulating wealth, none in making home beau- 

 tiful and tasteful to the eye ; but the failure has 

 been wlicre it is must fatal, in training the heart 

 and directing the footsteps of childhood. There 

 may have been lavish expenditure to gratify fash- 

 ion and perverted taste, but little care to devehipe 

 the intellect and train the heart. There may have 

 been great expense to teach children to sing, to 

 play and dance well, but none to make them use- 

 ful, virtuous and happy. Hence the failure, and 

 the need of warning. There is tendency in these 

 days of wealth and luxury among our farmers, to 

 imitate the ostentation of fashionable city life. 

 We wage no war against rehnement. We are not 

 averse to the elegancies of life ; but to train up 

 our daughters only to shine in the parlor, to play 

 the guitar and speak correctly tlie French accent, 

 and our sons to despise the honest toil of the hus- 

 bandman, to feel that they must aspire to a pro- 

 fession, if they would become men; tliis is a sin 

 not to pass unrebuked. Our fothers, who laid the 

 foundation of ournation's greatness, were the hum- 

 ble tillers of the soil ; and many who have plowed 

 the field and sowed the seed, have risen to guide 

 the affairs of state, to hqld converse with the muse, 

 or to sweep with a Milton's hand tlie harp strings. 

 Our mothers, whose names and heroic deeds are 

 immortal, cultivated the domestic virtues, plied 

 the loom and tlie needle, and made tlie garments 

 of the men whose names are associated with tlie 

 heroism of the past. We must look still to far 

 mcrs' wives, who are blessed with children, foi 

 the men of strong frames, of iron nerves and he 

 roic hearts, to accomplish our nation's destiny 

 Let them not be recreant to their high trust, 'if 

 they flill, to whom shall we look for the men, and 

 the women, that shall be worthy to steady the 

 ark of God, and train the coming generation for 

 usefulness in the blessedness in heaven. — Anoni/- 

 mous. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 ON BARNS. 



Simon Brown, Esq. : — Dear Sir,— -You will please 

 apply one of the enclosed $2, to the payment of 

 one copy of the Nciv England Farmer for one year 

 commencing January, 18-53 ; and the remaining 

 one to arrearages ; and consider me a permanent 

 subscriber while I live, &c. 



And here let me ask another favor. Will you 

 be kind enougli to describe or refer me to the 

 most approved barn for winter feeding 20 or 25 

 head of fat cattle or milch cows, as the case may 

 be?_ Having in view a sufficient cellar room for 

 storing roots enough for one feed per day for five 

 ruontlis ; cheapness and durability of construc- 

 tion, convenience and economy in storing and feed- 

 ing ; health and comfort of the animals, and last, 

 the making and saving of manure. Location for 

 the barn is level land on the west bank of the 

 Ohio river. J. II. Collins. 



Locust Lawn, New Albany, Indiana., \ 

 Dec. 16, 1852. <, 



Remarks. — Our corrc.-ipondent will find a plan 

 of a barn on page 272 of the Montlily Farmer for 

 1852, which we consider as perfect in its arrange- 

 ments as any we have ever seen. The description 

 is full and easily understood, and comliines about 

 all the conveniences we can suggest. If your 



ground is level, make half the depth of your cel- 

 1 ir below the surface, using wbat is thrown out to- 

 wards wharfing up the drive ways and cellar wall. 

 Have your cellar eight or nine feet deep, and ar- 

 range your leantos and horse stalls so as to gather 

 all the droppings under one end of the barn, leav- 

 ing the other end of the cellar for roots, imple- 

 ments, barrels, lumber, &c. This arrangement 

 will leave the hay over the root cellar, and of 

 course mostly away from the vapors of the ma- 

 nure. By an examination of the engraving, and 

 a careful perusal of the remarks attached to it, 

 you will readily study out the best mode of con- 

 structing a barn. 



For the IS&w Ens^land Farmtr. 



BIRDS OF NSW ENGLAND. 

 THEIR PAST AND PRESENT HISTORY. .. .No. 1. 



BY S. P. FOWLER. 



There v/aa but very little correct knowledge up- 

 on the subject of ornithology previous to the ap- 

 pearance of the great work of Alexander Wil- 

 S(m, which was fii'st published in September, 1808. 

 It is true that Catesby, Jefferson, William Bar- 

 tram, and Dr. Barton in the southern portion of 

 our union, had written upon ornithology, but 

 some of these works were expensive, particularly 

 that of Catesby, and were seldom seen; Jefferson, 

 who copied from Catesby and Edwai-ds, furnished 

 us with nothing but a catalogue. Mr. Bartram, 

 who was more complete in his history of our birds, 

 described in his travels through North and South 

 Carolina in 1791, two hundred and fifteen sjjecies, 

 and Dr. Barton, in his fragmentary Natural His- 

 tory of Pennsylvania, has furnished us some infor- 

 mation upon this subject. In New England, Dr. 

 Belknap in his history of New Hampshire, and 

 Dr. Williams in his history of Vermont, have each 

 enumerated a few of our birds ; the former being 

 published in 1792, and the latter in 1794. But 

 most of the knowledge of the natural history of 

 our country previous to the nineteenth century, 

 was to be found only in scattered portions, written 

 chiefly by travellers, journalists and civil histori- 

 ans, who possessed very little taste for the study 

 of the natural sciences. The descriptions of our 

 animal and vegetable productions, by some of the 

 early writers, are mere fibles, and are laughable 

 and ludicrous to us, in the extreme. One of the 

 earliest works on the natural history of New Eng- 

 land, was written by John Josselyn Gent, and pub- 

 lished in London in 1G72. It was a book not much 

 larger than the New England primer, and fur- 

 nished with plates, and entitled "New England 

 Rarities." This compared with Audubon's splen- 

 did work on the "Birds of America," shews to the 

 student in natural history, a greater contrast, than 

 he had supposed this country, with all its march 

 of improvement, could ever have furnished. We 

 will now quote from the writings of several au- 

 thors, who wrote upon the subject of our natural 

 history in early times, and, who probably believed 

 that what they had written was veritable truth, 

 and not to be gainsayed. Our first quotation is 

 from the New England Rarities, where the au- 

 thor is describing nothing more or less than our 

 bull frog, and the reader cannot fail to notice, 

 there is not one word of truth in his whole de- 



