1883.J 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



119 



useful, wherever our lot may be cast. My 

 own observation and experience convinces 

 me tliat the truest liappiuess, tlie nearest to a 

 perfect lionie life, can be had on tlie farm. 



Life in a great city may be elegant, bril- 

 liant, fascinating, but it is artificial ; life on 

 the farm may be humble, simple, common- 

 place — it is natural. It lias been wisely said, 

 " the sura of liuman haiipincss is made up of 

 little things. " Eminently does this proverb 

 apply to the life of the farmer. 



When one travels through our agricultural 

 country, and passes farm after farm, where 

 the house is a box, devoid of art or beauty, 

 or even the simplest attempt at conirliness ; 

 where the barn is but a tumble-down hovel ; 

 where fences are thrown together as barri- 

 cades against invading animals only ; where 

 no trees, or shrubs, or i)lauts break the 

 monotony of tlie home surroundings ; where 

 the labor of farming is drudgery and daily 

 toil only, no wonder that the children, when 

 grown to advanced youth, come to despise 

 tliem, and look forward ts the time when they 

 can forever turn their backs upon them. 



I would say to every farmer, for humanity's 

 sake, for the sake of your own happiness, for 

 tlie sake of the happiness and regard of your 

 children and those around you, make your 

 home pleasant, attractive, homelike ! Don't 

 say you have not the time, nor the means ; 

 you have both. When you are returning 

 from your backwoods in spring or autumn, 

 how much time will it take for you to pull up 

 a pretty sapling, such as you will pass hun- 

 dreds of, carry it in your hand to your house ? 

 and how many minutes, while the good wife 

 is preparing your dinner or your supper, will 

 it take you to plant it where its growth will 

 beautify your home ? 



Your forests and fields abound in flowering 

 plants and shrubs, which every year you cut 

 down when you cultivate the ground. It is no 

 more expensive for you to carry one in your 

 hand when you go home than to carry it to 

 the pile you intend to burn. 



It costs but the thrust of the spade to make 

 a hole to receive it ; it costs nothing to make 

 it grow ; it is only transplanted, and grows as 

 well in the home yard as in the back lot ; it 

 will become a thing of beauty. Try it, and 

 my word for it, you will not stop at the first 

 trial. 



When you are cutting timber to fence about 

 your garden plat or about your house and 

 barn, it will cost you no more time to select 

 a few pieces, separate them from the others, 

 for some rustic beauty or odity, if you please, 

 and construct them into a rustic arbor about 

 your house, which, when constructed, will 

 present something of pictureque beauty, than 

 to throw them all together in the clumsy 

 manner in which too many farm fences are 

 built. When you build your house, your barn, 

 your hen-house or pig-pen, it will cost no more 

 material, very little more labor, only a little 

 artistic taste to build a pretty rustic cottage 

 structure, instead of the siiuare, uncouth, box- 

 like affair, too commonly seen as country 

 homes. 



A willow riding-stick has many a time 

 been stuck in the ground when the rider dis- 

 mounted from liis horse, taken root, and 

 grown to a magnificent tree. A hedge-row 

 of blackberry or raspberry bushes will as 



effectually "slop the cattle" as an unsiglitly 

 liedge of dead tree-branches. 



The American forests are full of wild vine.s, 

 which, if transplanted, will overrun gate- 

 posts, rough fences, out-buildings ; the trans- 

 planting may cost ten minutes of easy labor. 

 In the cities thou.sands of dollars are expend- 

 ed in accomplishing the growtli of vines, 

 which would cost the farmer a few liouns 

 labor only each year. 



Five years ago the writer planted with his 

 own hands in the city of Washington four 

 trees — two maples, two elms. They cost per- 

 haps two dollars. They are now tlic pride of 

 his home and the delight of liis friends. Any 

 farmer could do the same without cost, but 

 with the same results. 



Plant trees, plants, vines ; plants shrubs 

 and llowers. Your mother or wife or sister 

 will cultivate tlicm. All women love llowers. 

 Your friends and neighbors will admire them ; 

 your children and your neighbor's children 

 will grow up under and around them, will 

 love them as a part of the home, will love you 

 because you planted them, will love each 

 other because love begets love. Every beau- 

 tiful thing about your horns will create a beau- 

 tiful thought and purify the soul of one of 

 God's beautiful creatures. — H. N. Howard. 



MANUFACTURE OF AGRICULTURAL 

 MACHINES IN RUSSIA. 



Herewith I have the honor to transmit a 

 translation of an article on the manufacture 

 of agricultural machines and implements in 

 Russia which recently appeared in tlie Russian 

 Review : 



The article is interesting as showing the 

 condition of an industry wiiose development 

 in this country cannot be a matter of iudill'er- 

 ence to the United States. It is the aim and 

 hope of the Russian manufacturer to supply 

 the wants of the Russian people with Russian- 

 made goods, and however laudable this effort 

 is, years must elapse before complete success 

 attends it. 



The whole paper shows the primitive char- 

 acter, not only of this industry— which has to 

 contend against a strong foreign competition, 

 a lack of capital and skilled laborers, an un- 

 favorable money market, and a limited de- 

 mand—but also of agricultural pursuits in 

 general. 



It is in this century a strange spectacle to 

 find an almost exclusively agricultural coun- 

 try, possessing over SU,OUO,000 inhabitants, 

 consuming annually not more than |:i,OrK3,0(IO 

 worth of agricultural implements. But such 

 are the existing conditions that is hardly pos- 

 sible for matters to be different, and, all 

 things considered, it is a matter for surprise 

 that the progress made should be great aa it 

 is. 



During the period of serfdom a superabun- 

 dance of rich soil and laborers induced a care- 

 less and wasteful system of agriculture whose 

 baneful intluence is still felt among tlie peasant 

 classes. 



The reorganization of these classes is a pro- 

 blem which the government has long been 

 seeking to solve, one of a nature so complex 

 as to present infinite diiHcuUies and thus far 

 to elude anything like a satisfactory solution. 



If an ultra simplicity and the restriction of 

 all wants to articlea of the merest necessity 



were indicative of the iwrfection attained by 

 a nation, then Russia is indeed a Utopia, for 

 among civili/.cd nations it would be ditlicult 

 to find a people with greater simplicity and 

 fewer wants than the Russian peasant classes. 



But this very absence of all wants is one of 

 the greatest obstacles to the develoiiment of 

 manulUelnring industries, and in my opinion 

 lui'cludes the liope of the great indii.strlal pro- 

 gress until the people have been educated to 

 have other wants than those whicli the pos- 

 session of a sheepskin coat, top boots, and a 

 few yards of coarse cotton clotli can sjitisfy. 



The dearth of money, when so great tliat 

 an iussociation mu.st be formed to enable a 

 peasant to purcha,se a S:JO plow, must also 

 obstruct the industrial progress of the nation. 



Tlic managing director of one of the largest 

 iron foundries in Soutli Rus.sia writes as fol- 

 lows : 



We employ from 'M) to SOO hands, and 

 used to make horse and steam thrashing ma- 

 chines, portable engines, fire-engines, plow.s, 

 etc., as long as we had iron free of duty, but 

 since this privilege was taken from us, Janu- 

 ary 1, issl, we and all our neighlKirs were 

 compelled to abandon this branch of industry. 

 Hands arc fardearer here.than abroad, or even 

 in .St. Petersburg, and small agricultural ma- 

 chinery from abroad enters free of duty, 

 there is no possibility of competing. In reap- 

 ing and mowing machines we do a good busi- 

 ness with America, importing from 800 to 

 1,0U0 mac-bines yearly. I cultivate mostly 

 the Jolinslon harvester. As to iiorlahlc en- 

 gines and thrashing-machines, I prefer the 

 English make— Clayton and Shuttleworth. 

 They are far dearer than the American ones, 

 but also stronger and more solid. 



This letter corroborates the statement of 

 the inclosed report, and shows that high-class 

 machines cannot be produced as yet in 

 Russia. They are almost exclusively import- 

 ed, and I have no doubt but that the Ameri- 

 can manufacturers could increase tlieir share 

 of this import by studying the wants of this 

 country, and by the establishment of local 

 agencies. — Edyar StanUm, ConsulrGeneral. 



BREEDING HORSES. 



It is a well established fact that many of the 

 acipiired diseiises to which horses are subject 

 afterwards becomes hereditary and descend 

 from p^irent to orogeny. Crubs, spavins, 

 ringbones, heaves and the long list of defects 

 to which every horse is liable from improper 

 and hard usage, often become constitutional 

 and inherent in the blood of dams, and their 

 progeny are liable to become inoculated in 

 the germ to the most distant posterity. 



To the miserable practice of breeding from 

 mares which too often come into the category 

 of " those unfit for work, hence will do to 

 breed from," is due in part the existence of 

 the vast numl>er of unsound lionses which are 

 to be found on nearly every farm, and which 

 are heard wheezing i.nd coughing at Ihe 

 hitching posts about the corner groceries. I 

 am well aware that to the care and usage to 

 which horse-flesh is subjected may be attribu- 

 ted much of the unsoundness and ungainly 

 movements possessed by the average equine 

 of our time. The remedy for this lies right 

 in our own hands. The road to improvement 

 in this matter is direct and lies straight be- 

 fore us. 



The market demand is for good-sized and 

 " good-stepping" horses. I don't mean by 



