THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[June, 



who runs can scarcely fail to read their un- 

 mistakable cause in the excessive use of over- 

 fatted meats, always so abundant and so free- 

 ly used in eur vifinter months. . Scarcely less 

 injurious to human health is in the use of 

 dairy products obtained from over-fed and 

 closely confined cows. Especially, should no 

 fermented food find favor with the dairyman. 

 Ensilage or fermented green cornstalks just 

 now coming into fashion, should be as unhesi- 

 tatingly avoided as the refuse fermented grain 

 of a brewing house. In proportion as it fer- 

 ments it losses its nutritive power, and must 

 have the same unhealthy stimulating influ- 

 ence on cows that beer and other fermented 

 liquors have on men. More than three- 

 tourths of the inhabitants of the earth subsist 

 chiefly on vegetable food. Other things being 

 equal human mortality is greatest where an 

 animal flesh diet is most largely used. Much 

 experience has shown that the use of a diet of 

 animal flesh, so far from being a necessity, is 

 a positive injury. Still, where, as in this coun- 

 try, the flesh-eating habit has been so long 

 and firmly fixed as to render it a second na- 

 ture not easily changed, it may be well for us 

 to look around and see something cannot be 

 done to modify or lessen its influence for evil. 

 To this end our agricultural societies should 

 cease by premium or diploma, to encourage 

 the over-fatting of animals. The highest 

 prizes should be awarded to farmers exhibit- 

 ing well formed stock and yet not fed into un- 

 natural and diseased conditions. 



If in addition to this, swine flesh could be 

 made as contraband iu our markets as horse 

 flesh now is, our present death-rate could not 

 fail to be reduced to one-half of what it now 

 appears. 



The death-rate in summer is always less 

 than that of winter. But it might be still 

 further reduced by a total abstinence from 

 the use of fresh meat during the hot months. 

 The fresh veal and beef supplied in the mar- 

 kets and by butcher wagons, are exceedingly 

 objectionable. In the moist, warm weather 

 of August and September they are always 

 more or less advanced toward a state of putre- 

 faction before they can be assimilated 

 by the digestive process. Diarrhoea, cholera 

 and dysentery are the legitimate and almost 

 inevitable result of such a diet. Substitute a 

 liberal use of the ripe fruits of the season and 

 all will be well. Or, if animal flesh must be 

 eaten let it be only in the form of dried beef 

 or venison. 



Even as a matter of cosmetics the use of a 

 gross animal flesh diet is inadmissible. All 

 experience shows that such a mode a subsis- 

 tence ntterly incompatible with a develop- 

 . ment of the higher types of beauty. 

 " Daniel ate pulse by choice, example rare, 

 Hcaveu bleet the youth and iSade him fresh and 

 fair." 

 In conclusion let me ad/l a word of warning 

 against the use of poisons as remedial agents. 

 As a rule, with scarcely a conceivable excep- 

 tion, anything that makes a well person sick 

 will make a sick person sicker. Therefore, if 

 sick people could be protected by law, as they 

 have a right to be, from those licensed poison- 

 ers, ignorantly called doctors, half the chronic 

 diseases and one-fourth of the present death- 

 rate would immediately vanish from the land. 

 It is the htaling power of nature that restores 



the sick to health. It is self-evident that this 

 healing power can only be hindered by poisons. 

 The most dangerous of quacks is he, who, 

 under cover of law, pretends to assist nature 

 by poisoning her. It is tnie, patients cio 

 sometimes recover after having taken poison 

 as medicine ; but it is only when nature's 

 healing power is sufficiently strong to achieve 

 a victory over both the disease and the 

 poisons.— J. Willianis Thome. 



THE "YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER." 

 We continue to receive occasional inquiries 

 concerning the "year in ^hich there was no 

 summer." Some per.sons appear to have a 

 wrong idea as to the time. It was the year 

 1816. It has been called the year ' without a 

 summer," for there was a sharp frost in every 

 month. There are old farmers still living in 

 Connecticut who remember it well. It was 

 known as the "year without a summer." The 

 farmers used to refer to it as "eighteen hun- 

 dred and starve to death." January was 

 mild, as was also February, with the exception 

 of a few days. The greater part of March 

 was cold and boisterous. April opened warm, 

 but grew cold as it advanced, ending with 

 snow and ice and winter cold. In May ice 

 formed half-an-inch thick, buds and flowers 

 were frozen and corn killed. Frost, ice and 

 snow were common in June. Almost every 

 green thing was killed and the fruit was nearly 

 all destroyed. Snow fell to the depth of three 

 inches in New York and Massachusetts and 

 ten in Mahie. July was accompanied with 

 frost and ice. On the 5th ice was formed of 

 the thifkness of window glass in New York, 

 New England and Pennsylvania and corn 

 was nearly all destroyed in certain sections. 

 In August ice formed half-an-inch thick. A 

 cold northwest wind prevailed all summer. 



Corn was so frozen that a great deal was 

 cut down and dried for fodder. Very little 

 ripened in New England, even here in Con- 

 necticut, and scarcely any in the Middle 

 States. Farmers were obliged to pay $4 or 

 $5 a bushel for corn of 1815, for seed for the 

 next Spring's planting. The two weeks in 

 September were mild, the rest of the month 

 Was cold, with frost, and ice formed a quarter 

 of an inch thick. October was more than 

 usually cold, with frost and ice. November 

 was cold and blustering, with snow enough 

 for sleighing. December was quite mild and 

 comfortable. 



THE FARM LABORER. 



Many farmers, especially those somewhat 

 advanced in years, contend that the time was 

 when there was no difficulty in getting hands 

 to work whenever they were needed ; but of 

 latter years this has not been the case. Men, 

 they say, needing work would sooner go round 

 as tramps, and hang about cities with nothing 

 to do, than to go out to the country to our 

 farms, where they are needed, and do an 

 honest day's work. AVe hardly think that 

 things are as bad as this. There never was 

 any difiSculty in getting permanent hands, nor 

 is there much now. The trouble is to get 

 men for a few weeks only, as temporary or 

 extra help; and in this there always was 

 trouble and there always will be. 



Men are pretty much all alike. They have 

 friends, acquaintances and associations, and 



the temptation to keep near them is natural 

 and strong. They may not have work noio, 

 and there may be work fifty or one hundred 

 miles miles away, but surely something will 

 turn up near home, among so many looking 

 out for them, and they let probable chance go 

 by. Then it costs money to go to these distant 

 places, and they have nothing to spare for the 

 chance. 



It is not unreasonable that men should 

 think in this way. And then there is the 

 natural indisposition of men to take in and 

 board total strangers for a short lime, even 

 when work is pushing to be done ; and it is 

 no uncommon thing for persons to refuse ap- 

 plicants work when they really need them, 

 because they do not like their looks. Many a 

 man has actually started off from the towns 

 to the country for work, which he has been 

 told is plenty there, only to find day after day 

 of disappointment, and to discover in the end 

 that it was much easier to beg than to find 

 work. We have indeed no doubt that in 

 many cases the great tramp brigade has been 

 recruited by men who, failing to find work, 

 reduced to beggary by the chapter of acci- 

 dents, have taken to this as a regular profes- 

 sion. Once reduced to this, lazy habits of 

 course set in, and then the tramp wants food 

 and money, and anything else tlmu work. 



We fear these things will always be, and 

 the only remedy is the increase of chances of 

 steady work. Our farm-life is rather de- 

 ficient in thiS respect, and perhaps more so 

 since the introduction of so much labor- 

 saving machinery. If it could be so ordered 

 that there would always be employment at 

 every season in the year for men living about 

 farms, so that they could always be at hand — 

 men whom one knows and can trust — there 

 would be very little cry for extra help. We 

 suppose farming will never come to this, but 

 it might be brought nearer to it in many cases 

 than it is now. — Gernidntoton Telegraph. 



WHAT A TENANT MAY REMOVE, 

 Tenants of an imjiroving disposition are 

 often deterred from making their homes as 

 comfortable as they could desuc and are able 

 to make tRem for fear of benefiting their 

 landlords or successors more than themselves. 

 Painting, papering and repairing of the house 

 and improvements of the grounds are obvi- 

 ously of a permanent nature and cannot bene- 

 fit any one but the occupant of the premises. 

 Should a tenant see fit to incur expense for 

 these things he can claiui no recompense, if, 

 at the expiration of the lease, he is unwilling 

 or unable to renew it. There are, however, 

 many improvements that formerly would have 

 been held to inure to the benefit of the land- 

 lord, but which more modern decisions permit 

 the tenant to take up and carry away with his 

 other household good. 



The old law and judicial construction fa- 

 vored land and land owners, and everything 

 that was directly or constructively attached 

 to the soil was held to belong to the owner of 

 the fee and not removable by the tenant 

 though placed there by him solely for his own 

 convenience. Although the law has been 

 little changed in this respect the views of 

 judges have been practically reversed. The 

 tendency of all recent decisions is to allow a 

 tenant to remove everything removable which 



