70 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Feb. 



The microscope is a wonderful instrument ; but 

 while it reveals many important facts, it also pre- 

 sents those whieh are unimportant and trifling. 

 It creates mountains out of verj- small mole-hills, 

 makes monsters of mites, (myriads of which could 

 not dust the surface of a diamond.) and frightens 

 the epicure with thousands of sea-serpents in his 

 oyster-water ! Human beings may have well been 

 denied by nature this infinitesimal vision. 



"Say, why's not man a microscopic eye .' 

 For this plain reason, man is not a fly." 



But waiving all this, the practical question is, 

 have we a remedy for the potato disease ? Mr. 

 Reed says he has, and it is patented, and rights 

 to use it are for sale. Yet the committee of Con- 

 gress were not convinced of this, for they cau- 

 tiously say, "and if, as Mr. Reed asserts, he has 

 found an infallible remedy," &c. But they were 

 only judging of the presence and effects of in- 

 sects, for which no patent could be expected. The 

 patent was granted for the remedy, and Mv. Reed 

 says it is successful with him. But why is it that 

 cultivators know so little about this preventive ? 

 Why is it that nobody but the patentee can with 

 certainty raise sound potatoes ? Have not far- 

 mers faith enough to purchase the remedy, or do 

 they have the remedy and disease both ? If I were 

 Mr. Reed, I would not discuss the cause, even 

 with an angel ; but I would show skeptical human 

 beings that I could give them sound potatoes, and 

 would prove that my patent right was really what 

 I claimed for it, even if I supplied a hundred 

 farmers gratuitously. In New England we know 

 nothing of it, and how many years longer will 

 Mr. Reed reiterate that he holds the one thing 

 needful for successful potato culture ? Even the 

 gentleman's "immediate neighbors of Waltham, 

 Mass.," to whom he appealed nine years ago for 

 proof of the efficacy of his remedy, are not, as I 

 nave heard, eminently conspicuous above others 

 for their sound potatoes ! Further proof of the 

 remedy is what is due to the patentee and to the 

 public ; and when he (or any one else with his 

 remedy,) can grow a field of sound Chenango po- 

 tatoes, and give evidence of it, year after year, 

 letting them remain in the hill from May till the 

 first of October, he will have gone far to show to 

 the world that his theory is based upon facts. 



West Medford, Dec, 1860. D. w. L. 



INGENUITY OF THE SPIDER. 



Let me put a spider in a lady's hand. She is 

 aghast. She shrieks. The nasty, ugly thing. 

 Madam, the spider is perhaps shocked at your 

 Brussels lace, and although you may be the most 

 exquisite painter living, the spider has a right to 

 laugh at your coarse daubs as she runs over them. 

 Just show me your crochet-work when you shriek 

 at her. "Have you spent half your days," the 

 spider, if she be spiteful, may remark : "Have 

 you spent half your days upon this clumsy anti- 

 massar and ottoman cover .•* If I were big enough 

 I might with reason drop you, and cry out at you. 

 Let me spend a day with you and bring ray work. 

 I have four little bags of thread — such little bags ! 

 In every bag there are about 4,000 holes — such 

 little holes ! Out of each hole a thread runs, and 

 all the threads I spin together as they run ; and 

 then they make but one thread of the web I weave. 



I have a member of my family who is no bigger 

 than a grain of sand." 



Imagine what a slender web she makes, and of 

 that, too, each thread is made of 4,000 or 5,000 

 threads that have pass; d out of her four bags 

 through 4.000 or 5,000 little holes. Would you 

 drop her, too, crying out about your delicacy ? A 

 pretty thing for you to plume yourselves on your 

 delicacy, and scream at us. 



For tlie New England Farmer. 

 ENEMIES OP FARMERS. 



In the town from which I write, the people are 

 mostly farmers. My first impression, upon my 

 first visit to the town, was one of surprise that so 

 valuable land should be estimated of so little 

 value, and that there should be so many poor 

 among the people. I began to inquire, What are 

 the causes of this lack of prosperity ? What are 

 the great enemies of the farmer ? 



My first inquiry was relative to the healthful- 

 ness of the locality. This resulted in a full con- 

 viction that the locality was decidedly favorable 

 to health and longevity. 



Is there any absence of market-privileges ? 

 There are few towns in New England very much 

 more accommodated in this respect. It is near 

 cities and targe villages, and only a few miles 

 from the railroad running from Portland to Bos- 

 ton. That is sufficient market accommodation. 



What have the habits of the community to an- 

 swer for in the account ? The better portion of 

 the people are industrious, economical and order- 

 ly. There are many men who habitually and 

 practically despise the legal restrictions on the 

 sale of intoxicating liquors. Here is, perhaps, 

 one of the outlets which drain away wealth, and 

 make men poor, and the manure-heaps scarce. 

 Drunkenness is a deadly enemy to farmers and to 

 farms. The cost and loss consequent upon the 

 habit of drinking is not less than some dollars 

 each for every man, woman and child in the 

 community. And where is the community com- 

 pensated for all this ? Echo answers, where ? 

 Neither bloated faces nor sunken eyes are indi- 

 cations of agricultural efficiency. Then, again, 

 another great enemy to New England farms and 

 farmers is tobacco. Bite it, or burn it, or blow 

 it, it will never pay the cost. Many a man eats 

 enough of the nasty stuff, yearly, to pay the cost 

 of bringing up a boy, or well towards it. Isn't 

 that economy at a great rate ? Farmers may as 

 well afford to hunt and eat bed-bugs, as they can 

 tobacco plugs. Dollars, again, for each man, 

 woman, and child, is spent yearly in the commu- 

 nity for plugs and polluted mastication-mills. 

 "Farming won't pay !" See what rivers of rum 

 have drowned those poor fellows who fell into 

 the current ; and what Senecas of spittle have is- 

 sued from mouths that a whole month's winter- 

 airing could not make sweet of smelling ! To- 

 bacco is a great enemy of the farmer, especially 

 where a hired man goes on to the hay-mow with 

 a lighted pipe ! or when the match that lighted a 

 cigar is thrown all a-blaze into the straw. It is 

 a wonderful age of improvement ! 



"There's many a mill" to grind up farmers, as 

 well as to grind their grain, but none of the men 

 have any need to hop into the hopper. It seems 



