1860. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMEH. 



263 



credit the assertion of Buffon ; they have been 

 altered by human care and industry from plants 

 to -which they now bear no resemblance. The ac- 

 rid and nauseating opium graveolens has been 

 transformed, by the magic of culture, into deli- 

 cious celery; and the colewort, a plant of diminu- 

 tive and scanty leaves, not exceeding half an 

 ounce in weight, has been improved into the suc- 

 culent cabbage, the leaves of which weigh many 

 pounds ! 



The potato, the introduction of which has add- 

 ed millions to our population, derives its origin 

 from a small, bitter root, indigenous in Chili and 

 Montevideo. Similar results have attended the 

 cultivation of other vegetables, fruits and flowers. 



By carefully studying the habits and modes of 

 nutrition and growth covered by the various pro- 

 ducts of the soil, and by selecting annually the 

 best, most perfectly developed and most produc- 

 tive products of the field and garden, we may, in 

 a very brief period, so modify and change them, 

 as almost to remove them from their respective 

 classes. The fine specimens of Indian corn wliich 

 we see at our agi'icultural exhibitions, have all 

 been improved in this way. The Brown and But- 

 ton corn, in their original developement, were not 

 perhaps more productive than other varieties, but 

 by carefully selecting the best ears, and continu- 

 ing the practice for several consecutive years, the 

 very habitudes and physical characteristics of the 

 vegetable seem to have been changed. "Wheat, also, 

 has been greatly ameliorated by the same process, 

 as have oats, and many of the culmiferous vegeta- 

 bles. But this improvement is merely local, 

 whereas it should be general, to produce its legiti- 

 mate eflects upon our agriculture. 



Number of Hens to Keep, and Time to Sell. 

 — A correspondent of the Illinois Prairie Farmer 

 says: "We have kept as many as one hundred 

 and fifty fowls, and fed them three pecks of 

 shelled corn daily. But our experience has been, 

 that we could get more than half as many eggs from 

 twenty-five fowls as we could from one hundred. 

 We have carried chicks the size of quails to mar- 

 ket, and found them ready sale at twenty-five 

 cents each. We might have fed them four months 

 longer, and found them dull sale at a dime apiece." 



Gakden Cress. — This is a favorite salad plant, 

 and, in this character, only the seminal plants are 

 used. It is very hardy and prolific, and may be 

 sowed once a week, from the opening of the 

 ground in spring until the close of the season. 

 Old rich garden soil is the most congenial to it, 

 but any lands of fine texture will, if properly pul- 

 verized and enriched with putrescent manure, 

 produce a good crop. 



J<'or the New England Farmer. 



THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY APRIL 

 NUMBER OP W. E. PARMER. 



Page 154. — Agricultural Education. — The ex- 

 tracts here given from Judge French's forthcom- 

 ing essay will make not a few of the readers of 

 this journal desii-e very earnestly that a few more 

 extracts may be furnished. Perhaps the editor 

 may be of the same opinion, and thus bo induced 

 to present to his readers another column or more 

 of extracts from what appears to be a carefully 

 considered, judicious, discriminating and instruc- 

 tive essay. All these excellent qualities are cer- 

 tainly quite evident in the last of the tluree ex- 

 tracts, commencing near foot of first column 

 of page 155, and which might very appropriately 

 have received for their caption. Collegiate and Ac- 

 ademical Education insufficient in two respects. 

 As means of general education, neither our colle- 

 ges nor our academies, as at present constituted 

 and conducted, will ever be of much service in the 

 way of fitting young men for the business of farm- 

 ing, or the more common employments of actual 

 life ; first, because they neither profess to do so, 

 nor are adapted to do it ; the time and attention 

 of the pupils in both kinds of institutions being 

 devoted almost exclusively to the study of the 

 dead languages and mathematics ; and secondly, 

 because their classes do not, "and as at present 

 arranged, never can include more than a small 

 portion of our young men." 



The extract headed Statistics, and the table of 

 average products per acre, ought to operate as a 

 stimulus to a better style of farming — one whose 

 average products will be less discreditable to us, 

 when brought at some future time into similar 

 comparison M'ith Scotland, &c., as is done in the 

 table constructed by Mr. French. The statistics 

 furnished in this table of average crojDs are made 

 the subject of some noteworthy remarks, by Mr. 

 R. S. Fay, on page 156 ; but we cannot quite 

 agree with him when he contends as reported, 

 that "the reason, the onhj reason, why we do not 

 equal the product of Scotland, is, that we do not 

 understand our business." This may be one rea- 

 son, but it is certainly not the only one, for thou- 

 sands of farmers, through the influence of slack- 

 ness, slovenliness, indolence and other causes, do 

 not do as well as they know how. Then, too, 

 there is a stimulus — the spur of necessity — which 

 drives the farmers in Scotland and England to do 

 their very utmost, both with head and hands, and 

 which operates scarcely at all in this country. 

 From the pi'oduce of their farms, the tenant farm- 

 ers of these countries have not merely to supply 

 the wants of their own families, but they have al- 

 so to spare enough to raise for their landlords a 

 rent, usually in cash, of from about $5 to $15 and 

 even $25 per acre. The American farmer knows 

 nothing, or but little, of this dire necessity, and 

 therefore does not strain every nerve, as his trans- 

 atlantic brethren are obliged to do. But though 

 the non-understanding of our business is not the 

 only cause of our comparatively small crops, it is 

 so to an extent which justifies all the eff'orts made, 

 or to be made, by individual or governmental en- 

 terprise, to make a better understanding of the 

 business of farming more common, and to induce 

 American farmers to bestir themselves. 



May Ave venture a suggestion to Judge French, 



