VOL. xvm. NO. s. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



65 



be friable and porous: according as it is dry, tlie 

 soil should be adhesive and rotenlivo. 



The most productive soil is tliat which is so con- 

 stituted as to maintain such a degree of moisture in 

 very dry and in very wet seasons, only to give a 

 healthy supply of it to the plants. Such a soil 

 gives to plants the means of fi.xing their roots deep 

 to support them during the period of their growth, 

 and allows them to ramify in every direction in 

 search of nourishment where they may easily ab- 

 stract the elements of vegetable life, without being 

 injured by a redundant or a deficient supply of 

 moisture, during any period of their growth. A 

 constant supply of air and water is necessary to 

 make and keep the soil permanently productive ; 

 when the soil is easily made and kept friable, it 

 will also have the power of absorbing, retaining, 

 and decomposing the water, the air, and the organ- 

 ic matter, which may be in its composition, by in- 

 sensible fermentation ; and give up a constant sup- 

 ply of the results of this decomposition for the 

 growth of plants, either at seed time when they are 

 merely vegetating, in summer wlien they are grow- 

 ing with the greatest hi.xuriance, and in autumn, 

 when they are ripening their seeds for harvest. — 

 Morton on Soils. 



From the Franklin Farmer. 



A LAZY FARMER. 



It does not require much discrimination to know 

 a lazy farmer ; nor is it absolutely necessary to 

 witness the personal habits of this peculiar variety 

 of bipeds, in order to bestow upon him the title by 

 which hf! is designated as above, on the authority 

 of observing naturalists. "By their tslV{TS ye 

 shall know them," is as applicable to farmers as to 

 any class of saints or sinners. A glance of the 

 eye on a farm is enough to enable you to decide, 

 and most correctly too, whether a lazy or industri- 

 ous man lives there. If a lazy man, you will know 

 it by the first objects presented to view; and you 

 may look in vain to find any thing on the farm to 

 counteract the first impression. Dilapidated hou- 

 ses — fences low and without stakes, surrounded by 

 bushes, briers and weeds — rails thrown off and 

 holes stopped with chunks — no gates, no draw bars, 

 no fruit but blackberries — bad crops — the soil of the 

 farm washed into the unstopped gullies, and the 

 yellow bald spots on every slope making your eyes 

 ache — poor, burry sheep and poorer cattle — in 

 short, farm, houses, man, wife, children, servants, 

 all present tlie same doleful and degrading aspect. 

 And yet these fellows, wherever found, have a hun- 

 dred e.xcuses for their abominable laziness. 



There are many such farmers ; but Thomas 



skin. The present Cleanfield, who is the subject 

 of these remarks, is bettor known by the name of 

 " Uncle To:n." Ask mnn, woman or child, "who 

 ives at the big brier patch ?" and the answer will 

 be, " Uncle Tom ;" and it has come to be a prov- 

 erb among his neighbors, when they see a farm 

 beset with blackberries to say " Uncle Tom lives 

 here." If you should ask what kind of man ho is, 

 you will have for iinswer — a lazy, trifling, good-for- 

 nothing, good hearted sort of a fellow. 



Uncle Tom, like the rest of his kindred spirits, 

 will give a thousand excuses for his laziness, and 

 so promptly too that it would seem this petit lying 

 was the only thing he had ever studied. He had 

 seta day, (yes, fifty days,) to repair his fence, but 

 the briers were so thick he could not get at it un- 

 til they were cut down, which, if he was spared he 

 would cut down next month. Next month passe* 

 away and the briers are still standing, and why .' 

 "My neighbor Lunary tells rr:e I had better wait 

 for the dark of the moon in August, and they will 

 then die right out." The moon again and again 

 disappears, and again and again revisits our hemis 

 phere ; and a hundred times since has she shone 

 upon our antipodes to our exclusion, and for Thus. 

 Cloanfield's benefit, had he availed liimself of the 

 time; but the briers are still standing and there 

 they tOill stand, until the moon shall be everlast- 

 ingly dark to Uncle Tom. What excuse now .^ 

 " Why, to tell you the truth of the business, I was 

 so busy about my corn, that to undertake the briers 

 I was afraid I should lose my crop." Whether or 

 not he has that confidence in Lunary which he 

 pretends, is rather a matter of doubt; but be it as 

 it may, Lunary's theory, although not practised by 

 Uncle Tom, (for the best reasons, the time never 

 finding him ready to operate,) is nevertheless re- 

 garded by him in the strongest light for excuse 

 making. "Had my potatoes been planted in the 

 dark of the moon in June instead of the light of 

 the moon in May, Lunary says, they would have 

 been as big as pumpkins, whereas as it is, they are 

 no bigger than hickory nuts; and you hf;ve no 

 doubt noticed on my farm, some rails bent up like 

 a bow, and a great many rotten ones : Lunary says 

 the bent rails were split in the new moon and the 

 fence was laid in the decrease : which in the first 

 instance accounts for their bending, and in the next, 

 for their rotting." 



Last summer. Uncle Tom's neighbors took pos- 

 session of his blackberry patch, or rather field, and 

 on one occasion, when the multitude had gathered 

 together, he was seen among them with a rather 

 sullen countenance ; not because his neighbors 

 were taking his fruit by the wholesale, for he was 

 nowise selfish, and though a lazy dog, he was not 



stingy of a little ground." This remark, coming 

 from the source it did, produced a roar of laughter 

 so loud and boisterous, that a large flock of part- 

 ridges took fright and were flushed from their cov- 

 ert. Uncle To[!i waj the first to speak, and being 

 encouraged by the success of his last sally of wit, 

 now renewed the onset with a degree of spirit and 

 energy that far surpassed any effort he hiid ever 

 before made, either mental or physical. "There J 

 he exclaimed, "if it was not for me, of what use 

 would be your guns, your dogs and your nets ; you 

 flock here in summer for fruit and in winter for 

 game, to feed the dainty stomachs of your town 

 gentry ; and when the creek is low, and the poor 

 fish have no chance to escape, you come down like 

 famished cranes, with your gigs and your seines, 

 and your dip-nets, skim-nets and drag-nets, until 

 you have nearly destroyed the sport of the angler." 

 Scarcely taking time to breathe — for be it known 

 that Uncle Tom was descanting on a theme more 

 interesting to him than any other in the affairs of 

 huma life, and that he is as fond of angling as ev- 

 er was Izak Walton, although destitute of his sci- 

 entific knowledge, for science and skill have as lit- 

 tle to do with his fishing as his farming; leaving 

 every thing to chance, his want of success he as- 

 cribed to the moon, to the wind or to the weather 

 — scarcely taking time to breathe, he continued — 

 " Twenty years ago, so soon as your minnow touch- 

 ed the water, a twenty inch bass would seize it 

 and you had nothing to do but take him from the 

 hook and cast out another minnow with the same 

 success ; but now, since your Muckletonians* have 

 come about, a man may fish all day and go home 

 at night without ever having a nibble." Delivered 

 of this speech, Uncle Tom felt lar.y in every bone 

 and muscle and forthwith departed, well satisfied 

 with himself and all the world, except the Muckle- 

 tonians, leaving his neighbors to enjoy his fruit 

 and to pity the errors of education and the habi- 

 tudes of early life which had ruined the usefulness 

 and respectability of a man of naturally good parts, 

 and transformed him into the indolent animal whose 

 cognomen is prefixed to this prefatory chapter of 

 his history. By your leave, Mr Editor, I mean at 

 my leisure, to give several more chapters on Uncle 

 Tom, in which, if I do not conduct him successfully 

 through this world of briers and thorns, I shall at 

 least hand hiip safely out of it, where I trust, he 

 will be no more annoyed by the impertinent jests 

 of his neighbors, and where, in the quiet and un- 

 disturbed enjoyment of his favorite sport of ang- 

 ling, which has beeu, by some pert co.xcomb, de- 

 scribed as " the management of a rod with a worm 

 at one end and a fool at the other," he may be se- 

 curely fenced from the intrusions of the Muckleto- 

 nians. B. S. 



