300 



iNEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



ox Tlin ADVANTAGCS OF SYSTEM IS BUSINESS. 



I poor tilings, is on tlie top of a sort of a hamp- 

 BY THE F.DiTOR b.icked piece of ground, with a brook on one 



Dc Witt th.> -rnnd Prn.ioncr of Holland, was side, and the county road on the other. Every 

 for some years at the hoad of the Department ram carries the essence oi the manure into the 

 of St=^c. and shewed himself to be one of the road or the nil ; and every once in a while a 

 1st complete nnanciers the >,?e could boast of. ■ violent shower sweeps the premises, floats off 

 Beinsr a«ked how he 



could find time to accom- every straw, and leaves the whole at least as 



plish^all his adairs, his answer was, in substance, clean as h,s house floor ; and this Mr- &hama- 



[haths whole secret lay in " doincc one thing way calls „ea(/ar„n,^. .' If one undertakes to 



He did that first, which required Poiat out to Mr. S. the absurdity o such man- 



at a lime. 



lirst to be done, and completed one thing before 

 he began another. In that way he not only fin- 

 ished whatever he undertook, but generally 

 found leisure to compensate for the toils o( the 

 dav by social converse, and innocent pastimes 

 with his t'riends in the evening. 



Gen. Washington was attached to system in 

 business, and therefore generally successful in 

 whatever he attempted. It has been -aid that 

 he planned on his morning [)illow the course of 

 each day's proceeding; and very rarely devia- 

 ted from such course, unless compelled by the 

 occurrence of unforeseen, and nncontrolable 

 circumstances. A Tanner cannot do better than 

 to imitate the example of these great men. He 

 should, so far as is practicable, have his system 

 of operations — every thing proper to be done on 

 his farm and means of doing it, settled and de- 

 termined in his own mind a consider;il)le time 

 before hand. His fields should be numbered, 

 and a plan arranged, at least in his head, if not 



on paper, with regard to his crops, obtaining 

 and preparing seed, necessary ploughings, im- 

 plements, iic. itc. He should be able to give 

 a reason for every step he takes, and every 

 stroke he strikes, and so husband his strength 

 and resources, as not to lay out a cent's worth 

 of either without an assignable motive, which 

 is at least satisfactory to his own mind. We 

 would not, however, wish a man to be so big- 

 oted to any system or plan as not to alter it as 

 reason, observation and experience m.iy dictate. 

 There is some sense in the saying that " a wise 

 man sometimes changes his mind, but a fool 

 never does." What we would solicit is, that 

 every cultivator should form a plan for man- 

 aging his farm, which may serve as a general 

 oHtlinc for his proceeding, to be altered or fil- 

 led up as his circumstances, and increase of ag- 

 ricultural knowledge may dictate. We would, 

 at any rate, advise every farmer before he rises 

 in the nwrning to decide in the probable busi- 

 nos* of the day, and ho may as well with " his 

 heavy head,"" press his pillow, or " sit on his 

 liead.s' antipodes in bed" till noon, as rise ever 

 so early, and whirl about all the forenoon, like 

 n hen with her neck twisted, or a pigeoc with 

 its head nipped. 



Many a man labors hard, and remains poor 

 because " he does not know how to set himseli 

 to work." There's Mr. .Simon Shainaway, for 

 example, will turn olV work at a great rate, es- 

 pecially when he works by the job, but he re- 

 quires a guide or overseer as much as a horse 

 that is ploughing among corn needs somebody 

 to ride or lead him. He commonly works out 

 at day's work, but lias a small farm of his own, 

 in which he '■ carries on" so badly that he might 

 as well be asleep as undertake to cultivate it. 

 He has a sort of a barn or rather hovel, where 

 he keeps or more properly starves t»vo or three 

 miserable animals every winter ; and generally 

 has to work out, to procure fodder to keejp them 

 alive in the spring. His place for yarding the 



agement, he is sure to be saluted with a volley 

 of abuse against 6oo/c /(irmino- ; and '■^ gentlemen 

 farmers'''' who make manure in their closets, and 

 undertake to talk about " breeds of cattle,^'' when 

 they can hardly tell a steer from a heifer. 



This notable farmer, undertook to set out a 

 small orchard. The piece of ground from 

 which he was to make his fortune by making 

 cider, contained about an acre, of a soil natur- 

 ally .good, but it had become bound out as the 

 phrase is, that is to say, it was swarded with a 

 turf as tough as a side of soal leather. Mr. 

 Shamaway bought some apple trees from a 

 neighboring nursery, and gave his note payable 

 in work at hay time. By the bye, he was in a 

 great hurry (as he commonly is) when he set 

 about planting his orchard. He tore up the 

 young trees in the nursery, principally by the 

 aid of a strong arm and an old axe, cutting, 

 slashing, twisting, breaking and bruising all be- 

 fore him. He then carted the mutilated (mur- 

 dered I was going to say) plants to the place inten- 

 ded for an orchard, let them lay in the sun while 

 he dug little holes for them about 6 or inches 

 square, — crowded in the roots, torne, twisted, 

 doubled, crumpled up in a heap, left both tops 

 and bottoms pretty much without trimming, and 

 jammed, and stamped the earth about them as 

 hard as possible, so as to save the trouble of 

 supporting them by stakes — took no note of 

 the point of compass, but, as often as any way 

 placed the tree, so that the north part of it 

 fronted the south, which of course deranged 

 the whole economy of its vegetation. In this 

 way, he soon got through with his job, and felt 

 as proud, apparently, as Nebuchadnezzar, or 

 any other great conqueror, when he had pluck- 

 ed up a whole nation by the roots, and planted 

 a new colony with its harassed and halt-alive 

 population. The trees, iiowever, were soon 

 taken sick — most of them died — the rest never 

 flourished, and our notable mismanager lost his 

 time, his labor, his pay for the trees, and his 

 prospect of an orchard. No wonder then that 

 he not only sighed sorrowfully but groaned bit- 

 terly when obliged, the next hay time, to worl 

 (I forget how many days) to pay for his apple 

 trees, which proved worse than nothing to him.! 

 We have given the above as one specimen 

 out of fifty which might be mentioned, of Mr. 

 Shamaway's ill-directed activity, and often worse 

 than useless labors. He is, however, a man ot 

 sc'icnce, in kis way ; and knows as much as the 

 common run of magistrates, who used to hang 

 old women for witches. He makes the Moon 

 his chief counsellor, and watches all her mo- 

 tions with as much solicitude as if his all de- 

 pended on her waxing and waning. The Signs 

 in the almanac are also very important matters 

 with this great calculator. His seeds must be 

 planted in such a time in the moon, or they will 

 all run to stalk and vine ; his hogs must be kill- 

 ed when the moon is on the increase, or his 

 pork will decrease unconscionably when boiled ; 



his bushes must be cut in the old of tlie moo 

 in August, when the sign is in the heart, becaos 

 when the sign is in the heart, the bushes w: 

 lay it to heart if their heads are cut off. H 

 will undertake nothing new on Friday, becaui 

 that is an unlucky doy, and his wife would ( 

 more think of churning or making soap on Fi 

 dav, than she wonld (good woman) of dancii 

 hornpipes on Sunday. When he sees the ne 

 moon over his left shoulder, it is " a sarta 

 sign," he says " something or 'nother is a goii „ fji 

 to happen ; I minded it that lime when the o jjl) 

 sow got into the later-yard, the old cow brol ,] . 

 her leg in the pole-bridge, and Jemmy like : J, 

 died of the measles." He thus lives in contini ^o 

 al apprehension, watching the moon— his oni i,,;, 

 counsellor, — and poring over signs in the aim i „ 

 nac — which compose his whole agricultural I L 

 — gathering his harvest of misfortunes b( ..g, 



live 



^ 







lepe' 



ID II 



fore hand, and suffering as much or more froi 

 apprehension than from the sad realities of lifi 

 This man has some system, to be sure, but it i 

 founded on things which have no foundation 

 and what little knowledge he possesses is lik 

 the glimmering of a jack-o-lantern which point 

 out and faintly illuminates the road to ruin. 



IflOl 



From the National (Vermont) Standard. 

 LEGAL INTELLIGENCE. 

 The adjourned session of the Supreme Couii 

 in this county closed on the 5lh inst. The laudi 

 able exertions of our present judges to conlrac 

 the course of litigation, and clear the docket c 

 long standing suits, has finally succeeded. Sev 

 eral adjudications of considerable consequeno 

 have been made. We shall lake the liberty t 

 notice the case of Hagar vs. Woodbridge, as c 

 pre-eminent importance. This was an actioi 

 commenced for the taking of stage horses, &c 

 which the plaintiff claimed under an absolut 

 and unconditional bill of sale from Campbell 

 the original proprietor This sale was acknowl 

 edged to be founded upon a fair and valuabl 

 consideration. The possession of the property 

 was considered as unchanged, although Camp 

 bell continued to run the horses upon the lin« 

 under a lease of the same, executed simultane 

 ously with the bill of sale, by which a certain 

 rent per annum was stipulated to be paid to the 

 plaintiff. The defendant claimed the property 

 by virtue of the levy of an execution against 

 said Campbell subsequent to the sale above 

 mentioned. The case was argued on the pari 

 of the plaintiff at length, and with great legal 

 ability. But the Court decided under all the 

 circumstances that the sale to the plaintiff was 

 fraudulent and void. They occupied the grounds 

 taken in the case of Edwards vs. Harbin, decide 

 td in England, and Hamilton vs. Russel, decid- 

 ed by the Supr«^me Court of the United States, 

 and recognized the broad principle that every 

 bill of sale of personal chattels which are sus- 

 ceptible of immediate delivery unaccompanied 

 by possession, was per sc fraudulent against cred- 

 itors, and that no proof of valuable consideration 

 passing from the vendee could change the legal 

 character of the transaction. They observed 

 that the principle they had adopted afforded a 

 defiaite and necessary rule to detect deceit in the 

 transfer of personal chattels, and that to limit its 

 operations by an inrestigation of the circumstan- 

 ces of each particular case would constitute a 

 felo ie se, and destroy its utility altogether. This 

 decision was not howeyer unanimous. 



