76 



NEW ENGLAND FARINIER. 



Fee. 



should make of our gratitude and sense of obliga- 

 tion. Practical demonstrations, we say, for sure- 

 ly we should be unworthy and self-condemned, if 

 we did not practically demonstrate our desire to 

 do the things that would please so good a Father 

 — so bountiful a Benefactor. 



With much satisfaction, also, we read the hints 

 which the editor has given to his readers in rela- 

 tion to the opportunity which is presented to the 

 former in December and the other winter months, 

 for cultivating his mind, and storing it with use- 

 ful knowledge. May his words fall here and there 

 on good soil, and arouse an ambition to become, 

 every year, wiser and better. By whomsoever 

 this ambition is cherished, the golden moments, as 

 they pass, will be impi-oved, and the result of well- 

 dii'ected study and striving will be, that he shall 

 become not only a nobler man, but also a better 

 farmer, for neither muscle, power, nor any other 

 power, is of so much use to one who has to manage 

 so complicated and many-sided a business as farm- 

 ing, as the highest, strongest power of all — Mind- 

 Power. 



Undekduaining, parje 540. — Of late years 

 there have been so many proofs of the value of 

 underdraining published in this journal, as well as 

 in other agi'icultural periodicals, as ought to be 

 sufficient to stir up all cultivators of the soil — even 

 old fogies, and those who follow established rou- 

 tine — to inform themselves as thoroughly as pos- 

 sible as to this method of improving their lands. 

 No improvement will more certainly pay, when 

 judiciously done. 



A NEW Cart Body, page 548. — If there be 

 among the subscribers to this journal, or among 

 those who borrow it of their more intelligent 

 neighbors, any one who is an old fogy or a blind 

 routinist and follower of the fashions that have 

 come down to us from our grandfathers, he will 

 find in this article a hint which might convert him 

 from the error of his ways, and a lesson as to the 

 value of making use of his own faculties, Avhich 

 might make him more of a man, and less a blind, 

 unthinking follower of the fashions of a past gen- 

 eration. There are many other things about a 

 good many farms, as well as cart bodies, which 

 might be improved by a little head-work. 



Bean Meal for Pigs, page 554. — If the state- 

 ment here made as to the superior value of beans for 

 fattening hogs should induce any one to think, in- 

 quire, inform himself farther, and, finally, to make 

 experiments in the feeding of beans and bean- 

 meal to other animals as well as to pigs, he will 

 very certainly be led to adopt the practice of feed- 

 ing them far more extensively than is at present 

 customary among farmers. If such a one should 

 make researches among the agricultural periodi- 

 cals for a few years back, he would find that some 

 of the more enterprising of his farmer-brethren in 

 different parts of the country have been experi- 

 menting with beans and bean-meal as food for va- 

 rious kinds of stock, and have found the results so 

 beneficial as to encourage them to persevere. As 

 one among the many testimonies which he might 

 find of this kind, the following may be given as a 

 specimen : R. II. Brown informs the editor of the 

 Genesee Farmer that he has fed his cows early in 

 the spring, with three pints each per day of Indian 

 corn and white beans, ground together in equal 

 parts, and that he never liad his cows do so well 



on any other food. The cows gave a large quan- 

 tity of milk, and the calves were the finest he ever 

 raised. He says he shall sell no more beans, but 

 feed them to his coavs. To this we can only add, at 

 present, the testimony of an English farmer who 

 keeps a hundred cows, and who says in the Oar- 

 dener^s Chronicle, that after having tried various 

 methods and various sorts of grain, he decidedly 

 prefers bean-meal both for quantity and quality of 

 milk and butter. Ground with oats or corn, they 

 have also been fed to cattle, hogs, horses and 

 poultry. We tnist more trials will be made and 

 reported. Try, one and all. More Anon. 



Por the New England Farmer. 

 AT TWILIGHT. 



BY JOHS CALTIS GITCHELL. 



The woods are dark, yet the low west 



The hidden sun is lighting still, 



And shnrp against the sky, the hill 

 Stands, with its jagged rocky crest. 



A fat sleek throng, down the green street 

 The herds come, driven to the yard, 

 Stopping at times, to crop the sward, 



O'er which they pass with noisy feet. 



The herd-boy loitering along, 



Tosses his cap high in the air 



To let the breeze play with liis hair, 

 Ilumming tlie while, a men-y song. 



The farm-house door is open wide, 

 And just within, the farmer stands. 

 With ruddy face and sun-brown hands, 



■Uliiltt his fair wife leans by his side. 



By the vined-jwrch the grandsire sits. 

 Watching t)ie children at their plays: 

 And thoughts of fargone, childhood's days, 



Of shade and sheen, through his mind flits. 



It is a scene, where the release 



From sweating toil, makes it more flair : 

 And all the dim surrounding air 

 Soems hung about with clouds of peace. 

 Boacaieen, N. II., ISCl. 



BA"W HIDE. 



How few persons know the value of raw-hide. 

 It seems almost strange to see them sell all of 

 their "deacon" skins for the small sum of tliirty or 

 forty cents. Take a strip of well-tanned raAV-hide 

 an inch wide, and a horse can hardly break it by 

 pulling back — two of them he cannot break any 

 way. Cut into narrow strips and shave the hair 

 ofi' with a sharp knife, to use for bag strings ; the 

 strings will outlast two sets of bags. Farmers 

 know how perplexing it is to lend bags and have 

 them retunied minus strings. It will outlast hoop 

 iron (common) in any shape, and is stronger. It 

 is good to wrap around a broken tliill — better than 

 iron. Two sets of raw-hide halters will last a man's 

 life-time — if he don't live too long. In some 

 places the Spaniards use raw-liide log chains to 

 work catde with, cut into narrow strips and twist- 

 ed together hawser fasliion. It can be tanned so 

 it will be soft and pliable hke harness leather. 



Every man cherishes in Iris heart some object, 

 some shrine at which his adoration is paid unknown 

 to his fellow-mortals. 



