1S61. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



li: 



than with any other stock. In order to do this, 

 they must be well housed and fed, and provided 

 with yards suited to hold and preserve their drop- 

 pings. One of the best things you can do is to 

 visit good, practical farmers, who are keeping 

 sheep, and learn their modes of practice. It will 

 be cheaper to spend five dollars in this way, than 

 to lose twenty-five by experimenting on a subject 

 with which you are not acquainted. 



DEEP PLOWING. 



Mr. Merriam, of Fitchburg, is reported to have 

 said at the late meeting of farmers at the State 

 House, that "he plowed his lands four feet deep 

 for Indian corn, using a Michigan plow." This 

 may be true — but I have no conception of it. Ho 

 may have said four inches deep — but this would 

 have been as wild the other way. I admire to 

 read those sayings and doings of practical men, 

 but I admire them most, when they give unmis- 

 takeable indications of common sense — and not 

 the contrary. P. 



January 12, 1861. 



RemapjvS. — We heard Mr. Merkiam's re- 

 marks, and suppose he &3.\A. fourteen iuches deep, 

 and not four feet. 



AUSTRALIAN OATS. 



I noticed in one of the last numbers of the 

 Farmer an inquiry for Australian oats. Allow 

 me to say that I have raised them for two years 

 past with good success, yielding about one-third 

 more to a bushel sowing than the old kind. The 

 straw is large and not liable to lodge. They are 

 worth here, pure and clean, 75 cents per bushel. 



Cabot, Vt., 1861. C. M. FisUER. 



Spiders. — A learned entomologist, who has 

 made a special study of the structure and habits 

 of spiders, states that there is not a single authen- 

 tic case on record of a person being killed, or se- 

 riously injured, by the bite of a spider; all the 

 stories about the fatal bite of the famous taren- 

 tula being simply fables. These insects are, how- 

 ever, exceedingly ferocious in their fights with 

 each other ; their duels invariably ending in the 

 death of one of the combatants. In some species, 

 the first step of the young as soon as they are 

 hatched is to eat up their mother. — Scientific 

 American. 



Muck Swamp — Uoxhunj, Vt. — We have exam- 

 ined, with some care, the specimens of muck 

 handed us from Roxbury, Vt. They are com- 

 posed of mixed substances, some of which would 

 be of great value both as absorbents and fertili- 

 zers. If the parcels handed us are now in the form 

 in which they were originally deposited, an ex- 

 amination of them will show that the strata com- 

 posing the mass are made up of substances quite 

 unlike each other. The hlach stratum is a mass 

 of highly decomposed vegetable matter, while 

 that of a slate color is very fine^ with little vege- 

 table fibre, and is a sort of mingling of calcareous 



and argillaceous, or clayey and chalky earth. Up- 

 on the application of vinegar to the muck there 

 was a slight efFervescence. This clayey substance 

 is less valuable than the former, and especially so 

 as an absorbent, as it has little absorbing power 

 compared with the black mass. Taken together, 

 however, the vegetable matter so greatly prevail- 

 ing, we should think the muck highly valuable on 

 a farm made up of sandy, or sandy loam, lands. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 THOUGHTS AND QUERIES. 



Mr. Editor : — In the last issue of the weekly 

 Farmer, for the year just closed, you expressed a 

 hope that young men would more generally con- 

 tribute articles for the columns of the Farmer — 

 your desire being to obtain their ideas, whether 

 or not they be couched in language plain or more 

 obscure ; it is this frankness which wins my con- 

 fidence, and impels me to attempt the untried 

 task. The means which farmers' sons have for 

 obtaining information of current events are us- 

 ually confined to the contents of the family alma- 

 nac or the local newspaper. 



The contributions of such would perhaps con- 

 tain original ideas, but might bo absurd or useless 

 ones. The limited access which I have had to the 

 sayings and writings of the public men of the 

 country, has made me observant of the expres- 

 sions of their high regard for the independent and 

 patriotic tillers of the soil, patronisingly terming 

 them the "incorruptible people," "the lords of the 

 soil," "the sovereigns in whom is vested the gov- 

 erning power," and so on ; displaying the beau- 

 ties of their vocation with such a prodigal use of 

 the poor Saxon as to create an unbelief in its sin- 

 cerity. 



If, indeed, it is such an ennobling occupation 

 as they describe it, why do they not engage their 

 powers in its labors ? Or are they even self-sac- 

 rificing and philanthropic ; such disinterestedness 

 must certainly be endurable if not commendable. 



Why does one of the leading journalists of the 

 country advise all young men who are anxious 

 to gain wealth, or honor and fame, to remain in the 

 country, upon the farms, rather than to seek their 

 fortunes in the city ? Had he received and 

 obeyed such instructions, possibly we might never 

 have been blessed with the teachings of the im- 

 mutably philosophic Greeley. 



No one will question the right, even if he does 

 the propriety, of farmers' sons cherishing aspira- 

 tions as high and noble as the sons of professional 

 men. Does not the farmer receive proportionately 

 less pecuniary reward for labor than the mechanic 

 or the professional man ? If this is so, wliy won- 

 der that the farmers' sons seek less laborious, and 

 better paying employment. Farming, no doubt, 

 is very agreeable employment to those who can 

 command a generous capital, requiring of them 

 very little or no physical labor ; also pleasant to 

 those who enlarge upon its beauties, its prosper- 

 ity and independence — but at the same time are 

 ignorant of the practical difi"erence between speak- 

 ing of, and performing its various appointments. 

 Ambition is an element of our natures, few of us 

 being exempt from it. Some are desfrous of ob- 



