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DEVOTED TO AGRICDXTUHS AWD ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. XII. 



BOSTON, NOVEMBER, 1860. 



NO. 11. 



NOURSE, EATON & TOLMAN, Proprietors. cnvrrnvr Tivmvmr T-nTTOT? FRED'K IIOLBROOK, ) Ai 



Office.... 34 Merchants' Row. SIMON BROWN, EDITOR. HEXRY F. FRENCH^ \ E 



ssociate 

 Editors. 



CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER. 



"The wild November comes at last, 

 Beneath a veil of rain." 



oyember, last and 

 dreariest of the 

 autumn months ; 

 few welcome thy 

 return with plea- 

 -i':r)Sure: few mourn, 

 -, even, v,'hen thy de- 

 parting footsteps 

 leave us to the 

 mercy of winter, 

 :; absolute and un- 

 doubted. To all inevi- 

 table things, a man can 

 make up his mind. When 

 the sun lies upon the hills 

 and the bells are jingling 

 I ttirough the streets, we cease 

 to dream of summer, and 



g^^g^l bend our energies to the great science 

 -S^i^l of keeping warm; but, hardly have we 

 settled down to the conviction that the 

 warm weather is all over, and that henceforth our 

 pleasures are limited to in-doors, when a day 

 dawns upon us so bright, so fair, that it is the 

 very counterfeit of summer, and we wonder that 

 the leaves do not mistake the season, and burst 

 forth again in all the freshness of new life. A 

 soft veil is thrown over the landscape, a hazy 

 light, which makes a picture, a vision of the 

 most common scenes. 



There is a large, square field, and in that field a 

 horse is grazing. There is another field adjoin- 

 ing, where three cows and a flock of sheep pro- 

 cure a scanty living among the rocks and dry 

 blueberry bushes. A flock of crows flies over 

 toward the pine woods that lie beyond. Nothing, 

 in point of fact, could be more common-placC) 

 yet, through the soft haze of this November af- 



ternoon, how rich, how glorious is the picture. 

 The bony old horse, whose ribs you have often 

 counted with heartfelt sympathy, is a much-abused 

 cart-horse no longer ; he is one of Landseer's 

 finest productions thrown upon the glowing can- 

 vas. And his neighbors in the next pasture have 

 arranged themselves as with a special eye to ar- 

 tistic grouping. Even the crows overhead do not 

 suggest the idea of a defunct animal down in the 

 woods ; no, they are part of the beautiful land- 

 scape view of which the distant mountains are the 

 background, and the sun, the "skylight." The air,, 

 not, indeed, now fragant with flowers, but itself a;^ 

 mild, all-pervading influence, lulls you to the very.; 

 borders of sleep and forgetfalness, and you think 

 "how delightful is November." But in the night, 

 the Avind goes round to the north-east, and you 

 wake the next morning, and find a wild rain driv- 

 ing over your landscape, your gallant steed' of 

 yesterday looks pitifully out of his stable win- 

 dow, a very raw-boned beast indeed. Your cows 

 have disappeared — washed out, it would seem, by 

 the flood, and the sheep have found a miserable 

 shelter under a tumble-down shed. O, the dreari- 

 ness of November ! There is no satisfaction to be 

 had out-of-doors, so you look within, for that do- 

 mestic happiness which is supposed by some to 

 be "the only bliss that has survived the fall !" 



But over the family group it is fit we draw a 

 veil, lest we should seem to be personal in our 

 remarks. There are blithe spirits which defy even 

 the depressing influences of an autumnal storm, " 

 but it might be a question whether there is not in 

 such temperaments a want of sympathy with na- 

 ture in any of her moods, a corresponding insen- 

 sibility to the joyous sunlight, and the thousand 

 charms of a beautiful day. But though we will, 

 in courtesy, imagine the faces and the tempers of 

 your household to be as unclouded in November 

 as in June, we cannot conscientiously extend the 

 same measure of courtesy to your house. A house 

 in the country, standnig by itself, can scarcely be 



