1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



67 



loved them in childhood and sighed for their re- 

 turn, have gone to that heavenly homestead, and 

 cannot return to welcome them. 

 . Not a day passes but I hear some of our me- 

 chanics express the wish that they had a farm, 

 but the obstacles to overcome, for them to accom- 

 plish their wish, are so great, that many of them 

 •will live and die in the positions they now occu- 

 py. Young man, take the advice of one who has 

 seen a good deal of human life, of its ups and 

 downs, and stick to the old farm, and cheer the old 

 folks by the health and strength of your manhood. 

 Stick to its quiet, virtuous and independent hard 

 work, dirty work, as fops and snobs may call it, 

 but which brings you good, honest, clean gold, 

 and a conscience void of offence towards God and 

 man. Stick by the old folks and the old farm, let 

 what will come, and my word for it, when you are 

 fifty years old, you will not need, but will give 

 the same advice to any young man who should 

 ask you. N, Q. T. 



King Oak Hill, 1860. 



For the New England Farmer. 



THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY THE N. E. 

 PAKMBB, DEC, 1860. 



Page 540. — Egyptian Corn — (Deceptive and 

 Offensive Advertisements.) — The thanks of the 

 readers of this journal, and of the farming fra- 

 ternity at large, are certainly due to those who 

 have given reports of their e.\perience with this 

 highly puffed humbug, as their natural repugnance 

 to make a disclosure of their "greenness,'' or too 

 great credulity, must have been overcome mainly 

 by a benevolent wish to save others from being 

 similarly imposed upon. The thanks of farmers 

 are also due to the editor for giving insertion to 

 a sufficient number of these disclosures and ex- 

 posures to serve the purpose of assuring even the 

 most credulous, that there can be no doubt but 

 that this highly puffed corn is nothing more nor 

 less than an iniquitous imposition — a veritable 

 humbug, extensively advertised to obtain the hard 

 earned money of farmers on false pretences. Both 

 parties, the reporters and the editor, have cer- 

 tainly conferred a benefit upon the agricultural 

 community by giving to the public these expo- 

 sures—a benefit which is not confined to the pre- 

 vention of further evil and imposition in this 

 particular case alone, but which, with the more 

 discriminating, at least, includes the prevention 

 of other similar impositions. Those who fail to 

 obtain from these exposures the portion of benefit 

 last referred to, or who are caught in the very 

 next trap baited for farmers, must belong to the 

 class of the simple ones whose fate, it seems, is 

 to "pass on," unbenefited by any warnings, and be 

 punished. All others will learn from such a case 

 as this, to be more cautious than heretofore in re- 

 gard to all advertisements of a similar nature ; 

 while publishers and conductors of the press may 

 take from it a hint of the need of the greatest 

 carefulness, if they would avoid misleading their 

 readers. 



We may take the present occasion of saying 

 that the rogues who practice upon, and profit by 

 the unsuspecting credulity of farmers, and others, 

 would not succeed so wonderfully as they seem 

 to do, were it not that thei-e appears to be an ut- 



ter disregard of principle on the part of the ma- 

 jority of paper publishers in regard to the inser- 

 tion of advertisements. Too many seem to ad- 

 mit into their advertising columns everything that 

 is offered to them, however objectionable on the 

 score of decency, or however plainly marked with 

 tokens of being intended to defraud and deceive 

 the unwary. The number of papers is but small, 

 we fear, from which all such advertisements are 

 strictly and invariably excluded. We long for 

 the arrival of the day when papers polluted by 

 indecent advertisements, as also those which ad- 

 mit advertisements which have any appearance 

 of being deceptive or fraudulent, will not be ad- 

 mitted into respectable families. The dawn of 

 that day is already come, for we know of a few 

 families who have discontinued papers, whose 

 publishers, after being admonished, or made aware 

 of the cause of oftence, persisted in polluting 

 their pages with such advertisements as we have 

 just named. Those editors and publishers who 

 keep their publications pure of all abominable 

 and rascally advertisements deserve especial hon- 

 or, and will, we trust, secure an ever increasing 

 appreciation and patronage. Such honor this 

 journal deserves, for we are truly very much grat- 

 ified in being able to say that we have never seen 

 in the columns of the Farmer any advertisement 

 calculated to offend the purest taste, or to mislead 

 the unwary. And be it remembered that this is 

 written several hundred miles from the office of 

 said paper, and by one to whom both editor and 

 publishers are, personally, entirely unknown, and 

 that, of course, our testimony is wholly unbi- 

 assed and unsought. Besides, its truthfulness 

 can be put to the test by any one so disposed, 

 though attentive and observant readers will be 

 ready at once to endorse and confirm it. 



Page 542. — Autumnal Shows. — The perversion 

 of our agricultural fairs grows worse and worse 

 every year, and threatens to put an end to their 

 usefulness. This would be a great evil, for the 

 usefulness of unperverted agricultural fairs in 

 stimulating to progress and improvement is so 

 evident as to be generally acknowledged. Can- 

 not the threatened evil be prevented ? Cannot 

 some ingenious Yankee devise an effectual mode 

 of prevention or of cure ? Until some such dis- 

 covery is made, the best thing, perhaps, that can 

 be done is to utter earnest protests, like this of 

 Mr. Pettee, or to lay on the lash of ridicule, as 

 has been pretty well done in the article quoted 

 from the Homestead, on page 575 of this num- 

 ber. 



Page 542. — Apples. — If the readers of this ar- 

 ticle, and of another on Baked Apples, on page 

 553, should give them the consideration which 

 they deserve, and should regulate the dietary ar- 

 rangements of their families in accordance with 

 the salutary truths therein contained, the benefits 

 resulting therefrom would be more, and greater 

 far than the mere diminution of doctors' bills, al- 

 luded to in the former of these articles, though 

 this of itself would amount, in some families, to 

 moi-e than the subscription price of this journal 

 for ten or a dozen years, or even a score of them. 



Page 546. — A Profitable Orass Farm. — We 

 presume that not a few of the readers of this ar- 

 ticle, as well as the present writer, would have 

 liked very much that the article had furnished 

 them with more information than it does as to 



