382 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



AvG. 



if instructed in some useful trade or employment 

 six months in the year. According to retrospec- 

 tive observation, I am convinced that six months 

 schooling in the year is better than twelve, for 

 the majority of children. They become disgusted 

 at being driven to school daily, and after a while 

 lose their interest for study, which becomes a 

 drudgery, and grow idle, and would rather do 

 any thing than go to school. But circumstances 

 alter cases ; out of two evils we ought to select 

 the least. In cities and villages, where children 

 have nothing to do but perplex their parents, or 

 expose their lives in rambling the streets, con- 

 finement to the school-house may prove the lesser 

 evil. Children have an intense desire for action, 

 •which will result in good or evil. "As the twig 

 is bent, the tree is inclined." 



I have often thought of the great disproportion 

 between the natural life of man, and the years 

 spent to acquire a fashionable education. Our 

 young men spend something like nine or ten years 

 (after attending district schools,) to qualify them- 

 selves for the several professions, at great ex- 

 pense of money and deterioration of physical en- 

 ergy. These nine years consume the most impor- 

 tant period during the life of man. A great pro- 

 portion of professional men find themselves in 

 the neighborhood of 25 or 30 years of age, before 

 they have gone through all the formalities de- 

 manded by custom to qualify them for the desk, 

 bar or saddle-bags. In this protracted course of 

 study, or sedentary inaction, the physical powers 

 must suffer, and the mental of course must sym- 

 pathize with them, and many a man has com- 

 menced his profession with a shattered constitu- 

 tion. Intellects that cannot be scoured up in less 

 time than nine years to fit a man for a profession, 

 would be better adapted to some other calling. 



In the latter part of the last century, the clergy 

 in this vicinity were strong, muscular men ; they 

 could build stone wall and preach a sermon three- 

 fourths of an hour long, or, till every member of 

 the assembly were ready and happy to chime in the 

 Amen. More of them had served their country 

 in the war of the revolution than went to Europe 

 to regain lost health. Some of them would work 

 on the "Parsonage" three days in a week, and 

 give us two stentorian sermons on the Sabbath 

 not easily forgotton. These men were not of the 

 locomotive kind, but lived and sympathized with 

 their parishioners, in prosperity and adversity. 



Silas Brown. 



North Wilmington, July, 1861. 



Begin Small. — Such is the advice of the Cali- 

 fornia Culiurist to those who are going into the 

 sheep-raising business in that State. After men- 

 tioning an instance of individual success, in 

 which the money invested in a small way was 

 doubled in six months, including the shearing 

 season, of course, other instances are spoken of 

 as follows : 



We have met with capitalists who have invest- 

 ed largely in sheep, some of them buying their 

 five, ten or twenty thousand head at tlie com- 

 mencement, thinking they could make it pay, in 

 accordance with the extraordinary increase known 

 to attend this valuable animal in California. 



Most of these persons, thus purchasing largely, 

 have failed to meet their anticipations, and in no 

 long time, have been found selling off their large 

 Hocks in small parcels, as they could best find 

 purchasers. This exactly demonstrates what has 

 long been an admitted principle of business, that 

 if you would achieve eminent success, it must have 

 its commencement from small beginnings ; be- 

 cause, in the small business of an enterprise, one 

 becomes thoroughly acquainted with all those 

 minute details which qualify for the successful 

 management of those of increasing dimensions. 



THE TIME TO CUT TIMBEB. 



Messrs. Editors : — In a recent number of the 

 Scientific American, under the head of "Useful 

 Information about Timber," I find a statement in 

 direct opposition to the theory received among 

 wood-cutters, in regard to the best time for fell- 

 ing timber. It is there stated that this is when 

 the wood contains the least sap, in whatever part 

 of the year this may take place. The result of 

 my observation is, that the month of August ia 

 the best period to cut timber for mechanical pur- 

 poses, just when the leaf is fall, or has attained 

 its growth, at which time the tree has certainly 

 the greatest amount of sap in it. I have found 

 that the timber cut at this period is perfectly sol- 

 id, sap-wood, and all, and that it is also free 

 from worms. Timber cut upon the same ground 

 during other months of the year is quite porous, 

 and has the sap wood entirely eaten off, when un- 

 dergoing the same process in drying. I was led 

 to believe that the abundance of sap in August 

 closed the pores of the wood and solidified the 

 timber. If my philosophy is wrong, there are 

 quite a number of your patrons in this place in- 

 terested in the subject, and who wish to hear 

 more about it. Thomas Harper. 



Alleghany City, Pa., Jan., 1859. 



There seems to be a misapprehension of the 

 idea expressed on page 154 of the present volume 

 of the Scientijic American, in regard to the best 

 period for cutting timber. It is there stated that 

 in New England, August is held to be the best 

 month of the year, as at that period the sap is 

 exhausted in forming the leaves, and the new 

 wood and the trunk are then much drier. This 

 language is in accordance with the opinions of 

 our correspondent. In reference to the term least 

 sap, perhaps the matter would be rendered more 

 clear to have said the least free sap. In the month 

 of August, according to our correspondent, the 

 sap becomes solid, and fills up all the pores of the 

 wood, consequently it is not free — not exactly 

 sap at that period. In other States, further south, 

 July is the month most favorable for cutting tim- 

 ber. — Scientijic American. 



True Colors. — The Ohio Cultivator, in notic- 

 ing the election of a president of an "institution 

 at College Hill" called Farmer's College, advises 

 the managers to complete the work of reform, by 

 abolishing the cheat of a false name, and placing 

 it before the public in its appropriate sphere, as a 

 first rate Classical and Literary Institute. 



