346 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



Aug. 



as some people say our colored brethren are not 



'^fitted" for freedom, although freedom is allowed 

 to be a very good thing. By a curious coincidence, 

 one of our good neighbors just passing along, re- 

 marks to another just proceeding to hang out her 

 clothes after a Monday's wash, "We are born to 

 labor." We did not hear what number two re- 

 plied, but she might have said, "It is well we are." 

 For how many men exempt from the necessity of 

 labor, Avould turn their attention to anything use- 

 ful or elevating ? Some few there are — poets, ar- 

 tists, sculptors — who, impelled by the inspiration 

 of genius, under any circumstances, would make 

 the world wiser, better, and more beautiful, and a 

 few more whom the necessity of earning their 

 daily bread has prevented from cultivating their 

 natural gifts — but to the majority of mankind. 

 Idleness is the Devil's harvest-time. 



By this means, he gathers in every year great 

 crops of young men, who might be useful in 

 their day and generation. Plenty of money and 

 plenty of time sends them reeling in the broad 

 ways so easy to enter, so difficult to return from. 

 Most men cannot even be left a great deal to the 

 company of their own thoughts. It makes hypo- 

 chondriacs and suicides. Good, active employ- 

 ment is the best state for man and woman in this 

 present existence — employment which has a defi- 

 nite object in view. Nothing so effectually sweeps 

 away those cobwebs, which are always obscuring 

 the vision with minds of a certain stamp. 



Which is the more likely to take cloudy views 

 of life, Bridget, singing over her pans and kettles 

 in the kitchen, or her mistress hemming a cam- 

 bric ruffle in the parlor ? Not Bridget ! 



These little every-day affairs help one to take a 

 healthy and practical view of life. For example, 

 there is no knowing to what flights of fancy one 

 might be led in musing over a summer landscape 

 like this, did not a field of "waving corn" and a 

 patch of tomatoes call home our wandering 

 thoughts to carnal matters, and then we sigh for 

 a double dose of dog-days, that these useful vege- 

 tables may have time to come to perfection. 

 What could be more aggravating than to see, as 

 we have for two years past, a fine bed of promis- 

 ing tomatoes lying pale and sickly, waiting in 

 vain for sun enough to ripen them, till the frost 

 came and blighted our hopes entirely ? But let us 

 trust that this month of August, eighteen hundred 

 and sixty, is going to do better things for us, — 

 that the fruits of the earth wiU be abundant 

 enough to make up for all that beef-steak of 

 which the cattle disease has deprived us, and as 

 Nature delights in compensations, we should not 

 be surprised if our hopes proved true prophets. 



Farmers, kill your Thistles. — Several years 

 since the writer purchased a farm, and the first 



year I sowed oats on a piece of ground which had 

 a crop of corn upon it the previous year, and was 

 greatly terrified to find one-fourth of an acre cov- 

 ered with a great growth of Canada thistle. The 

 succeeding year I had a stout crop of grass heavily 

 mixed with thistles. I mowed the grass about the 

 first of August, on a good, fair hay day, and ow- 

 ing to the appearance of rain for the next day, 

 I carted the hay into the barn on the very same 

 day. The next day was a heavy rainy day. The 

 result was that on the second year the thistles 

 had entirely disappeared and have never grown to 

 trouble me since, although I have since plowed 

 the same piece of land. — A Chesterfield Far- 

 mer, in N. H. Journal of Agriculture. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 HIGH TAXES, AND DESERTED FABMS. 



Messrs. Editors : — I do not agree with Mr. 

 Pinkham that farming is not a paying business, 

 but I do say that farmers cannot make a living in 

 this part of the State. Why ? Because our State 

 and County taxes have increased to such an enor- 

 mous rate that our best farmers are leaving their 

 farms, the buildings and fences are going to de- 

 cay, their once fertile fields are running to brush 

 and briers — are turned to pasturing, or are left 

 tenantless — and the once thrifty farmer is leaving 

 the State to go where taxation is not so burden- 

 some, in some neighboring State where there is 

 some economy used in the affairs of legislation. 

 Now it is a fact that over thirty of our best farms 

 have been left tenantless in the last ten years. 

 The farmer pays a larger tax, according to what 

 he is actually worth, than any other class of peo- 

 ple. What is this tax for ? It is to pay for an 

 indolent legislature, to sit twice a year, two 

 hours in a day for six or eight months in a year, 

 at three or four dollars per day, to legislate on 

 school aff'airs, or raising money to pay a board 

 of education, or a superintending school commit- 

 tee to take the educating of our scholars from 

 the hands of parents who are the best qualified to 

 see to the educating of their children themselves. 



It would not be so great an injury to the State 

 generally if the cattle disease should sweep over 

 it once in seven years, as it would for our legisla- 

 ture to sit one-half the year, or over, spending 

 time and money in raising the pay from $2 to $4 

 per day, and the pay of many of our State, county 

 and town officers, and all uncalled for by the peo- 

 ple. 



This is the general feeling of the farmers and 

 laboring classes that are left in this town, and I 

 hope that all newspaper editors who. are not 

 bought up by the Government of the State of 

 Massachusetts will declaim against it. 



Ashhunifiam, July 2, 1860. Republican. 



Remarks. — Our friend "Republican" sends us 

 his real name, but as he has a fancy to withhold it, 

 we assent. He must have written in "a fit of the 

 blues," or he has not investigated the matter upon 

 which he writes quite closely enough. While we 

 agree with him that we have too much legislation, 

 we cannot believe that our legislation or high tax- 

 es in this State are the cause of the deserted 



