1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



445 



ings of models of ancient art, and thus give a 

 higher expression of comfort to the household. 

 The puritanic taste of our forefathers, which was 

 content with the huge square houses, with the 

 largest half unfinished, still lingers with their 

 sons, though their daughters have nearly out- 

 grown it. 



Our purpose, however, was to speak of the 

 outward adorning of the house, or rather of what 

 may be called its dress. Trees and grass are al- 

 most as cheap as air, and yet they are the chief 

 ornaments of a country house. In general, flow- 

 ers should be cultivated in the garden, and not 

 in the yards around the house. It requires great 

 labor and care to keep even a small flower- 

 garden neat enough to be an ornament. Noth- 

 ing is so beautiful and grateful to the eyes, as a 

 well kept lawn, with scattered native trees upon 

 it. The beauty of a lawn consists in its being 

 even and constantly green. To be even, it need 

 not be level, but may be sloping or undulating 

 according to its position, but it should be graded 

 and kept, so that the grass may be mown close 

 to the ground. To be always green, the soil 

 must be deep, though it need not be very rich, 

 and above all, it must be cut so often as never to 

 run up into stalks, much less to head out. 



About five cuttings in a year will be found 

 suflicient in New England, and three of those will 

 be about twelve days apart in spring. If after 

 each cutting a roller be passed over it to press 

 down the little bunches caused by worms and in- 

 sects, and by frost, the grass may be cut much 

 closer and the effect will be better. Common red- 

 top with white clover are better than all other 

 grasses, in our opinion, for lawns. A little care 

 to remove at first, all witch-grass and weeds will 

 be necessary, and then a light top-dressing of 

 compost or ashes, once in three years, will keep 

 it green forever. 



A lawn thus kept, with here and there an elm 

 and rock maple, and, if there is room enough, an 

 occasional group of white pines or hemlocks, is 

 one of the most pleasing pictures in nature, and 

 if it be set in a frame of buckthorn or arbor vi- 

 tse, in the form of a hedge, the finish is complete. 

 The boys who have gone out from homes where 

 peace reigns within and harmony and grace 

 spread all around, bear in their memory a charm 

 which will keep them safe through many trials 

 and temptations, and which like a loadstone will 

 direct the steps homeward, when the occasion 

 which has called them away has ceased to exist. 



Cure for Potato Diskise. — The London 

 Times publishes a list of remedies for the potato 

 disease. The most efficacious is one discovered 

 by "C, of Hornsey," which consists in pressing 

 down the haulm thus : "He set his potatoes in 



a double row instead of single, the two rows oc- 

 cupying a foot in width, with a foot of vacant 

 space outside each row. They were planted on 

 the level, and hoed up at the usual time. Now 

 comes the important step : "When the haulm 

 had reached its full growth, about the 1st of July, 

 he turned it over right and left towards the vacant 

 spaces, by adding earth between the rows and 

 pressing down the haulm, so as to drive it from 

 the erect position, and allow the rain instead of 

 descending to the roots, to run off" upon the va- 

 cant space." Not one in a hundred perished. 



BARNS AND MANURE. 

 Extracts from an address delivered by C. L. 

 Flint, Esq., Secretary of the Massachusetts 

 State Board of Agriculture, at Springfield, at the 

 Hampshire County Show in 1860. 



The progress of farming has been comparative- 

 ly slow, and therefore men have hesitated to 

 trust to the "sure and firm-set earth," for the re- 

 turn of a proper per centage on capital invested 

 in farming enterprises. 



The corporation of a turnpike, or a branch 

 railroad, has had a larger credit than the farm, 

 among farmers themselves, and the first consider- 

 able sum that can be spared is invested in these, 

 rather than in real and permanent improvements 

 which would not fail to be more profitable in the 

 end, than any such stock to be found in the coun- 

 try. 



This distrust of the soil and the promise of a 

 beneficent Father has led to the pernicious im- 

 pression, that farming will not pay, and hence 

 many young men have sought other means of 

 support. They do not wish to slave themselves 

 for a life-time, they say, and get nothing for it at 

 last. But let such look around them for an an- 

 swer. They will see some rising to an honorable 

 competence, by industry and application to farm- 

 ing alone ; they will see farms freer from mort- 

 gages, and farmers enjoying the comforts and 

 luxuries of wealth, and educating their families 

 from the proceeds of their occupation alone. I 

 think a limited survey even will lead them to the 

 conclusion that farming will pay as well as any 

 other calling where the risks are so slight, if the 

 farm be properly and judiciously managed. 



It should be borne in mind that those who fail 

 in farming, are generally men who would fail ia 

 anything else. It is thriftless indolence alone 

 that need anticipate a failure, 



* * * There are in the State, (Mass.) more 

 than 75,000 barns. It is thought that five cords 

 of manure— of 102 4-5 bushels each — is a small 

 allowance for each of these barns, since, in many 

 towns and in some entire counties, the average is 

 considerably greater. But suppose it to be five 

 cords — or about seventeen loads of thirty bushels 

 each — this manure may be estimated at three 

 dollars a cord. In some counties from four to 

 six dollars can be obtained without much difficul- 

 ty, and that, too, where the purchaser is obliged 

 to haul it a distance of five or ten miles, as is 

 often the case. But putting the price at only 

 three dollars, and the number of barns at only 

 75,000, and the number of cords to each at only 

 five, all of which are thought to be small esti- 

 mates, the number of cords now made in the 



