TOii. xvm. NO. aa. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER, 



191 



)m the potash of the ley, as it passes downward, 

 aviiig it in a comparatively pure and caustic state. 

 order to prevent failure, therefore, this should 

 nays be done. In order to ascertain if ley con-- 

 ins carbonic acid, pour a few drops of sulphuric 

 nitric acid into u wine glass of the ley, wlien, if 

 contains much, a violent effervescence (or boil- 

 g up of bubbles) w'.ll instantly take place, owing 

 tlie escape of the carbonic acid. The carbonic 

 id may be removed from the ley and render it fit 

 r soap making, by boiling the ley with quick 

 ne. 



Tf the ley be strong, if It be rendered caustic, 

 d if there be a sufficient quantity of tolerably 

 an fat, there can be little danger of success — 

 16 proportions should be about thirty pounds of 

 ;to eight or ten gallons of ley. 

 Hard Soap consists of soda instead of potash, 

 ited with fat; and is commonly made by adding 

 mmon salt (wliich consists of muriatic acid and 

 da,) to well made soft soap while it is yet boil- 

 '. The soda of the salt unites with tlie fat, and 

 ■ms hard soap, while the potash unites with the 

 iriatic acid of the salt and separates by falling to 

 } bottom of the vessel. Different degrees of 

 rdness in soap are obtained by using potash and 

 la, at the same time in different proportions. — 

 ;nce grease from salt meat has a tendency to in- 

 ;ase the hardness of soap, unless the salt be pre- 

 )usly removed by boiling in water. 

 Soap of tallow is made in England, and largely 

 the United States, and is the best in common 

 3 ; when scented with oil of caraway seeds and 

 3t into a mould, it is used for the toilette, and is 

 lied Windsor soap. Other toilette soaps are 

 ide with butter, hog's lard, or with almond, nut 

 palm oil. Sometimes fish oil is used for coarse 

 ips, as well as linseed oil ; and rosin is often ad- 

 d to give a yellow color and odor. The follow- 

 r proportions (by weight) have been given for a 

 od yellow S( ap ; tallow twentyfive, oil four and 

 lalf, rosin seven, barilla, (soda) eighteen, settlings 

 waste ley, evaporated and calcined, ten, and 

 Im oil one-half part. 



Soaps are colored blue by indigo, yellow by tu- 

 ;ric, &,c. ; and marble or veined soaps are niade 

 us : to the soap just separated from the spent ley, 

 w ley is added, and then copperas dissolved in 

 Iter ; red oxide of iron (or colcothar,) mixed with 

 iter is stirred in it by manual dexterity, and is so 

 ixed as to produce the peculiar appearance. — 

 enesee Farmer. 



Happy Condition or the New England Fak- 

 er. — The condition of a community situated as 

 e the great mass of agriculturists in New Eng- 

 nd, is more desirable than that of any other class 

 'men within my knowledge. If it do not attach 

 en and women to this life — if it do not make them 

 . happy as to increase the love of life beyond the 

 je of sorrow, toil and pain — it isa condition which 

 le "tall, the wise and reverend head" may envy, 

 iving within their own means, on the fruits of tlieir 

 wa labor — enjoying abundance of the best pro- 

 ttcts of the ground and the first fatlings of the 

 ocks ; the appetite sharpened and sweetened ; the 

 luscular powers strengthened ; the mind made 

 igorous and active by labor; their dependence 

 jlely on the goodness of God ; their prudence hav- 

 ig looked forward even to the destruction of a 

 rop with a providence to supply its place : with 

 bundant leisure for all healthy recrealion and all 

 eedful rest; with no worldly cares and vexations 



encroaching on the rellcction which aids the better 

 judgment; in thc-midst of those social and domes.- 

 tic relations which throw a charm about life — which 

 give to moral suasion its greatest force, and whicli 

 rear the tender thought to the ripe vigor of its high- 

 est usefulness, — how can we conceive any state of 

 imperfect, erring, dependent man more truly envia- 

 ble than that of the industrious, laboring, prolific 

 farmers of New England, who live according to 

 the best lights of their own experience ? The mer- 

 chant fails nine times in ten before a fortune is 

 gained — the speculator ninotynine times in a hun- 

 dred: the mechanic and the lawyer gain only while 

 tlick work is going on : the wages of the priest, 

 like those of the common laborer, stop when he no 

 longer works : the physician adds to his income no 

 oftener than he visits tlie sick: the salary man, if 

 he saves at all, saves only a specific sum: — the 

 farmer, more sure of success than either, in nine ca- 

 ses out of ten, certain of ultimate prosperity, lays 

 his head upon his pillow with the reflection that 

 wliile he sleeps his crops are increasing to maturi- 

 ty and his flocks and herds growing in size and 

 strength. — Gov. Hill's Address at Keene. 



Man's necessity his greatest temporal 

 BLESSING. — For her physical and moral progression, 

 for her increased means and wealth, and the excel- 

 lent habits of her population, New England is not 

 less indebted to the roughness and sterility of her 

 soil than to the obstinate morals and unremitting 

 perseverance of her original proprietors. * * The 

 oreat blessing of New England has been her hard 

 soil, her ditBculty of producing abundant products 

 from the earth, and the necessity to labor which hhs 

 pervaded almost every rank and class of her popu- 

 lation. If a part, say one-half, could have done 

 the work necessary to support all, then might wo 

 see at this moment a race of different color, with 

 marks of inferiority, doing what is now done by 

 nearly the whole supeiior class combined: then 

 might ive witness one class of our population phys- 

 ically and morally enervated — another class to the 

 lowest pitch degraded. Slavery existed in New 

 England before the existence of those blessed free 

 institutions which were purchased at the expense 

 of the blood of freemen. A race was here as " hew- 

 ers of wood and drawers of water" — a black race in 

 slavery, scattered remnants of which in some parts 

 remain: and to no single cause so much as to the 

 necessity that all should work to gain a competence 

 from the ground, is it due that free white labor, dif- 

 fusing the blessings of health and abundance, is 

 the almost exclusive labor of this portion of the 

 United States. 



VVe cannot always have that exact state of things 

 which all could wish. For wise and beneficent 

 purposes, the Almighty has placed us in a state of 

 trial and uncertainty. The fruits of well directed 

 labor are sometimes smitten — the struggles of hard 

 laiior are sombtimes crowned with utter want ot 

 success. The privations and the sufferings of the 

 first New England settlers were far beyond the pri- 

 vations and sufferings of those who are now settling 

 the new territories of the South and West. The 

 progress of thgse first settlers was much slower and 

 more tedious — the dangers and horrors of savage 

 warfare were much more appalling — the destitu- 

 tion of the common necessaries and comforts of 

 life was more intense and more general. If the 

 savage tomahawk now and then does the work of 

 sudden murder upon our extreme frontier, the op- 

 portunity of protection or escape to those who re- 



main is soon presented. To. the settlers of New 

 England lor the first lumdrcd and filly years, not 

 only the frequent terrors of repeated barbarian mur- 

 ders in the worst shape were realized, but a heart- 

 less, hopeless, never-ending foar of secret attack 

 and massacre became the great passion, swallowing 

 up and marring almost every species of enjoyment. 

 Our fathers, doomed to procure sustenance by 

 the severest sweat of the face, the charged musket 

 was taken to the field for defence. With every 

 precaution, the watchful and prayerful pioneer, 

 while cutting down the forest or tilling or gather- 

 ing the fruits of the ground, was frequently shot 

 down in the field by the Indian lurking unseen iu 

 some adjacent swamp or covert: the brains of chil- 

 dren were dashed out in the presence of trembling 

 mothers, torn and hurried into captivity ere the 

 bleeding victims had ceased to struggle. The ac- 

 cumulated horrors of want and famine and pesti- 

 lence, were but a mitigation Of the greater horrors 

 and dread of savage warfare. Within my own re- 

 collection, aged men and women lived among our 

 ancestors, who, from their remembrance of these . 

 horrors, described their own condition with their 

 elders, concerned for themselves as well as for their 

 protection, in language and gestures with colors 

 that no hieroglyphic or written or printed statement 

 ever can equal. — Ibid. 



Bknefits of root cultivation. — The culture 

 of root crops for the rearing of swine and for win- 

 ter feeding of cattle I believe to be a great .object 

 to most farmers. The mangel wurtzel, the.; sugar 

 beet, the connnon beet, the carrot and perhaps the 

 parsnip may be raised on ground that will produce 

 a good crop of corn: the ruta baga may be raised 

 on a lighter soil and with less manure than tlie oth- 

 er crops. In proportion to the quantity produced 

 with the same labor, I am inclined to give the pre- 

 ference to the ruta baga. That ci-op may be rais- 

 ed with about as little labor as a crop of potatoes 

 upon the same ground. If the season be fortunate, 

 six and eight hundred and sometimes a thousand 

 bushels to the acre are produced : a thousand bush- 

 els weighing twentyfive tons, dealt out to a stock 

 of cattle, will be equal in value to at least ten tons 

 of the best hay. It is a mistake to suppose that 

 the ruta baga spoils either the meat or the milk of 

 the creature fed upon it. This mistake originated 

 in the fact famili.ar to many practical farmers, that 

 the turning of fat cattle and cows into fresh feed, 

 where turnips, cabbages, and onions have been rais- 

 ed and cleared out, leaving tops and leaves, will 

 make them liable when slaughtered or milked, to 

 leave the meat or the milk tainted with the taste 

 and flavor of the articles upon which tliey have fed. 



Milch cows fed daily on rrita baga once a day, 

 will communicate no taste to the milk ; and if there 

 be any doubt about fat cattle, the leaving off the 

 ruta baga one week and substituting corn or other 

 feed, will leave their meat in as good flavor and 

 quality as if they had'fed exclusively on corn. I 

 prefer late sowing of ruta baga, say as late as the 

 10th of June, to an earlier day : this root grows best 

 in cool weather, and by late sowing it much better 

 escapes the turnip fly and destroying grubs, and 

 has the advantage of a vigorous growth late in the 

 fall until severe fro^ts shall render it a matter of 

 prudence to gather them. Beets of the various 

 kinds, and carrots, to such as do not admire ruta 

 baga, may be made well to supply their place. Fed 

 with either, winter milked cows may be made to 

 give double the quantity of that most necessary and 



