402 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



SEfr, 



Some handsome specimens of the CnERXY Cur- 

 rant have been exhibited at the rooms of the 

 Masa. Horticultural Society the present season, 

 but we are not suflBciently acquainted with its 

 merits to recommend it. Its appearance was very 

 fine. 



THE THRIFTLESS FARMER. 



The Fort Wayne Times gives the following life- 

 like portrait of a "thriftless fiirnier :" — 



The thriftless farmer, then, provides no shelter 

 for his cattle, during the inclemency of the win- 

 ter ; but permits them to stand shivering by the 

 . side of a fence, or lie in the snow, as best suits 

 them. 



He throws their fodder on the ground, or in the 

 mud, and not unfrequently in the highway ; by 

 which a large portion of it, and all the manure is 

 wasted. 



He grazes his meadows in fall and spring, by 

 which they are gradually exhausted and finally ru- 

 ined. 



His fences are old and poor — just such as to let 

 his neighbor's cattle break into his field, and teach 

 his own to be unruly, and spoil his crops. 



He neglects to keep the manure from around the 

 sills of his barn — if he has one — by which they 

 are prematurely rotted, and his barn destroyed. 1 



He tills, or skims over the surface of his land, 

 until it is exhausted ; but never thinks it worth ; 

 while to manure or clover it. For the first, he 

 has no time, for the last, he "is not able." | 



He has a place for nothing, and nothing in its 

 place. He consequently, wants a hoe or a rake 

 or a hammer, or an augur, but knows not where 

 to find them, and thus loses much time. 



He loiters away stormy days and evenings when 

 he should be repairing his utensils, or improving 

 his mind by reading useful books, or newspapers. 



He spends much time in town, at the corner of 

 the street, or in the "snake holes," complaining 

 of hard times," and goes home in the evening, 

 "pretty well tore.'" 



He has no shed for his fire wood — consequently 

 his wife is out of humor, and his meals out of sea- 

 son. 



He plants a few fruit trees, and his cattle forth- 

 with destroys them. He "has no luck in raising 

 fruit." 



One-half of the little he raises is destroyed by 

 his own or his neighbors' cattle. 



His plow, drag, and other implements, lie all 

 winter in the field where last used ; and just as he 

 is getting in a hurry, the next season, his plow 

 breaks, because it was not housed and properly 

 cared for. 



Somebody's hogs break in, and destroy his gar- 

 den, because he had not stopped a hole in the 

 fence, that he had been intending to stop for a 

 week. 



He is often in a great hurry, but will stop and 

 talk as long as he can find any one to talk with. 



He has, of course, little money ; and when he 

 must raise some to pay his taxes, &c., he raises it 

 at a great sacrifice, in some way or other, by pay 

 ing iin enormous shave, or by selling his scanty 

 crop when prices are low. 



He is a year behind, instead of being a year 

 ahead of his business — and always will be. 



When he pays a debt, it is at the end of an ex 

 ecution ; consequently, his credit is at a low ebb 



He buys entirely on credit, and merchants and 

 all others with whom he deals, charge him twice 

 or thrice the profit they charge prompt paymas- 

 ters, and are unwilling to sell him goods at" cost. 

 He has to beg and promise, and promise and beg, 

 to get them on any terms. The merchants dread 

 to see his wife eome into their stores, and thepo^ 

 woman feels depressed and degraded. 



The smoke begins to come out of his chimney 

 late of a winter's morning, while his cattle are 

 suffering for their morning's feed. 



Manure lies in heaps in his stable ; his horses 

 are rough and uncurried, and his harness trod un- 

 der their feet. 



His bars and gates are broken, his buildings 

 unpainted, and the boards and shingles falling off" 

 — he has no time to replace them, the glass is out 

 of the windows, and the holes stopped with rags 

 and old hats. 



He is a great borrower of his thrifty neighbor's 

 implements, but never returns the borrowed ar- 

 ticle, and when it is sent for, it can't be found. 



He is, in person, a great sloven, and never at- 

 tends public worship ; or if he does occasionally 

 do so, he comes sneaking in when the service is 

 half out. 



He neglects his accounts, and when his neigh- 

 bor calls to settle with him, has something else to 

 attend to. 



Take him all in all, he is a poor farmer, a poor 

 husband, a poor father, a poor neighbor, and a 

 poor Christian. 



For the New England Farmer. 



IMPROVEMENT AND HAYING. 



Messrs. Editors : — The twenty-fifth of July is 

 calculated by astronomers as the commencement 

 of "dog-days," and I suppose most farmers have 

 finished haying, and the gathering of English 

 grains ; but the old native meadow is yet to be 

 cut and secured in dog-day weather; 



When rain-drops lightly beat, 

 And the muggy winds do blow. 



The weather has been remarkably fine for hay- 

 ing in July, and I have cut and secured about for- 

 ty tons of upland English grass, without having 

 a single load of damaged hay. This mofhing I 

 finished cutting a meadow that has been reclaimed; 

 and gave a heavy crop of herdsgrass. 



A few seasons ago, August and September, I 

 thoroughly ditched, so as to drain the meadow, 

 taking the mud to the barn-yard, fi)r manure on 

 upland, and on the sides of the meadow spreading 

 gravel, and a coat of manure. The low pans we 

 bogged, seeded with herdsgrass and clover, and 

 have since manured. Now, on what was formerly 

 light meadow hay, is cut a heavy sward of English 

 herdsgrass. J. 



Fro7n the Elms. 



For the Neiv England Farmer. 



TO PREVENT BUGS FROM EATING 

 VINES. 



Mr. Editor : — I have found by experience that 

 bugs have a choice in what they eat ; they prefer 

 winter sqmshes to melons or cucumbers, and by 

 planting squashes among the melons, they will be 

 protected, the bugs preferring to commit their dep- 

 redations on the squashes. S. E. Hooker. 



Poultney, F^., 1853. " 



