1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



371 



I 



would be at a trifling cost, compared with the 

 value of the increased produce. It is so with a 

 great many other compounds that either enrich 

 or ruin the soil ; if the practical farmer under- 

 stood their nature, he and the whole country 

 would feel the benefit. But can he understand 

 them, and yet be industrious in the practice of 

 his profession ? We admit there is some diffi- 

 culty. A shrewd, common-sense, and pretty in- 

 telligent farmer, once said to an editor in our 

 hearing : '-You tell us we should know a great 

 deal, but we know nothing more for your telling 

 us that." He was right. The agricultural press 

 has been in fault. It has told the farmer that he 

 should know everything, but has it helped him to 

 know anything of the real science that underlies 

 his practice ? Certainly it has, and it has been 

 of immense benefit to the farming interest. But, 

 to our apprehension, it has not done the thing 

 right end first. It has not begun at the begin- 

 ning, and taught the rudiments of science, and 

 defined its terms, and made itself understood — 

 has not measured out its teachings to the wants 

 of men, who are not students of all day long, but 

 have to catch a little now and a little then, as op- 

 portunity occurs. We are resolved to reform in 

 this respect, and the farmer, or the farmer's boy, 

 or the farmer's wife or daughter, who will follow 

 us in these articles, shall not have occasion to say 

 that we have taught nothing practical, or within 

 their reach. Bear with us in one or two more of 

 these rudimentary articles (which we know are 

 dry,) as they are absolutely necessary to a just 

 understanding of what is to follow, and we will 

 be as practical as you wish, will use no jaw- 

 breaking terms that can possibly be avoided, and 

 will come with our chemistry into your every day 

 affairs, and it shall show you not only what sul- 

 phate of iron is, but why it sours the soil and 

 how you may sweeten it ; not that genial warmth 

 and gentle motion with free access of air makes 

 the "butter come," for you know that well enough, 

 but why it does ; nor that yeast makes the bread 

 rise, for you know that better than we, but why ; 

 and so of other things both pleasing and profit- 

 able for you to know, but which, hitherto, have 

 been known but to a few. — American Farmer's 

 Magazine. 



Hints to Farmers. — ^Do not discourage a 

 child by giving him a poor tool to use. It is 

 cheaper to use a good tool yourself, no matter 

 what the cost, than a poor one. Ditto for your 

 child. 



Money, like manure, to do much good must be 

 well spread. 



Always select the best seed of a crop you wish 

 to raise. "Whatsoever you sow that shall you 

 also reap." 



A solution of whale oil soap will destoy the nu- 

 merous irfsects that infest trees and shrubbery at 

 this season of the year. Dissolve the soap in 

 warm water, making "suds" of medium strength, 

 and sprinkle the leaves with a syringe. This spe- 

 cific is sure death to the caterpillar, miller, and 

 the army of ravagers that destroy the foliage. 

 Now is the time for its application. 



Systematic labor accompHshes far more than 

 that without plan or order, and with more ease 

 and success. 



THE OLD GARRET. 



Sarcastic people say that poets dwell in garrets, 

 and simple people believe it. And others, nei- 

 ther sarcastic nor simple, send them up aloft, 

 among the rubbish, just because they do not know 

 what to do with them down stairs and "among 

 folks," and so they class them under the head of 

 rubbish, and consign them to that grand recepta- 

 cle of dilapidated "have beens," and despised 

 "used-to-be's" — the old garret. 



The garret is to the other apartments of the 

 homestead what the adverb is to the pedagogue 

 in parsing ; everything they do not know how to 

 dispose of, is consigned to the list of adverbs. 

 And it is for this precise reason that we love gar- 

 rets ; because they do contain the relics of the 

 old and the past — souvenirs of other, and happi- 

 er, and simpler times. 



They have come to build houses now-a-day 

 without garrets. Impious innovation ! 



You man of bronze, and "bearded like the pard," 

 who would make people believe if you could, that 

 you never were "a toddling, wee thing," that you 

 never wore "a rifle-dress," jingled a rattle box 

 with infinite delight ; that you never had a moth- 

 er, and that she never became en old woman, and 

 wore caps and spectacles, and may be took snufi"; 

 go home once more, after all these years of ab- 

 sence, all booted and whiskered, and six feet high 

 as you are, and let us go up stairs together, into 

 the old-fashioned, spacious garret, that extends 

 from gable to gable with its narrow, oval win- 

 dows with a spider web of a sash, through which 

 steals "a dim, religious light," upon a museum 

 of things unnameable, that once figured below 

 stairs, but were long since crowded out by the 

 Vandal hand of these modern times. 



The loose boards of the floor rattle somewhat 

 as they used to do — don't they ? — when beneath 

 your little pattering feet they clattered aforetime, 

 when of a rainy afternoon, "mother," wearied 

 with many-tongued importunity, granted the "Let 

 us go up garret and play." And play ? Precious 

 little of play have you had since, we dare war- 

 rant, with your looks of dignity and dreams of 

 ambition. 



Here we are now in the midst of the garret. 

 The old barrel — shall we rummage it ? Old files 

 of newspapers, dusty, yellow, a little tattered t 

 'Tis the "Columbian Star." How familiar the 

 type looks ! Howit rem inds you of old times, 

 when you looked over the edge of the counter 

 with the "Letters or papers for father ?" And 

 these same Stars, just damp from the press, were 

 carried one by one to the fireside, and perused 

 and preserved as they ought to be. Stars ? 

 Damp ? Ah ! many a star has set since then, 

 and many a new-turfed heap grown damp with 

 rain that fell not from the clouds. 



Dive deeper into the barrel. There ! A bun- 

 dle — up it comes in a cloud of dust. Old Alma- 

 nacs, by all that is memorable ! Almanacs, thin- 

 leaved ledgers of time, going back to — let us see 

 how far : 184-, 183-, 182-,— before our time— 

 180-, when our mothers were children. And the 

 day-book — how blotted and bleared with many 

 records and many tears ! 



There, you have hit your head against that 

 beam. Time was when you run to and fro be- 

 neath it, but you are nearer to it now, by more 

 than the "altitude of a cbopine." That beam ia 



