334 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



JtaT 



time and labor to the lender. Besides, it tries his 

 patience to be obliged to run over to neighbor 

 Slack's after the tools he lent him three months 

 ago, and after his arrival there, to be obliged to 

 wait two long hours, while neighbor Slack and his 

 boys are rummaging all over the farm to find the 

 tools which were thrown down in the very place 

 where they were last used. No person ought to 

 borrow what he does not intend promptly to re- 

 turn. For if lenders are obliged to run after their 

 own tools, every time they want to use them, they 

 virtually become slaves to the borrower. 



In money matters, they who lend money for the 

 accommodation of others are entitled to a prompt 

 return at a specified time, with interest thereon. 

 It is not right for a person to borrow money and 

 promise to pay what he knows is not in his pow- 

 er, and never will be. This is fraud, and in this 

 Avay many are ruined. It is wrong to make prom- 

 ises that cannot be performed, especially Avhen 

 there is no intention of performing them. Still, 

 where unexpected losses and disappointments take 

 place, allowances should be made. For there is 

 no fencing against misfortunes. But where a man 

 acts with fraudulent intentions, he ought to be 

 condemned. For many have been deceived and 

 ruined by fair promises and worthless securities, 

 when in fact the promisor had no intention of ful- 

 filling his engagements. 



The habit of borrowing and lending farm tools, 

 and other articles, where there is no great neces- 

 sity for it, and which a little prudent forethought 

 might prevent, is a very bad one, because it leads 

 to unpleasant results, and creates much ill feeling in 

 the neighborhood. It makes the lender a servant 

 to the borrower. Whenever he misses any of his 

 tools he is obliged to run over to neighbor Slack's, 

 or to neighbor Easy's, or to neighbor Doolittlc's, 

 and see if he can find them. He may have forgot- 

 ten to which of the three he lent them. And af- 

 ter spending the whole forenoon in pursuit of his 

 tools, he returns to his work with feelings better 

 imagined than described. No one would be un- 

 willing to lend any of the common articles in use, 

 if he could have a reasonable assurance that they 

 wovdd be promptly returned. But to be obliged 

 to run after them every time they are wanted, is 

 a great trial to one's patience. 



Warwick, diass., 18G2. John Goldsbuiiy. 



Remarks. — Excellent. If every farmer in New- 

 England would read the above, and be guided by 

 the reasonable and incontrovertible truths which 

 it lays down, there would be greater prosperity 

 and a less amount of anxious, unhappy feeling, all 

 over the land. 



DOG POWER. 



Dog power is coming into use in New York to 

 a large extent. Why it has not before been ap- 

 plied extensively all over the Avorkl, and those 

 huge mastiffs allowed to lie about in the sunshine, 

 and consume as much food as the children of a 

 ]50or man, passes comprehension. Tlie German 

 ash-mongers and rag-pickers are teaching people 

 wonderful lessons in the way of economizing pow- 

 er. Three stout dogs, harnessed to an ash-cart, 

 draw a load nearly equal to a horse. They work 

 with a will, and guided by a man — and often a 



woman — in the shafts, draw a load which no indi- 

 vidual, unaided, could master. It is wonderful to 

 see their strength, and remarkable docility and 

 teachableness. When the master stops, they in- 

 stantly rest, and at the slightest signal they 

 straighten out their traces. Only a kind word, 

 often a mere look, from the brute wdio so often 

 kicks them, they gratefully receive. More than 

 that, they recompense it with eager effort and won- 

 derful toil at the drag rope. 



THE TIDES. 



These phenomena have, in all ages, excited cu- 

 riosity, and in many instances they have produced 

 W'Onder at their extraordinary height and fury. 

 It is related of the soldiers of Alexander the Great, 

 who were natives of the Mediterranean shores, 

 that when they reached the confines of the Indian 

 Ocean, and saw its waters rolling up to a great 

 height, and then flowing back, twice every day, 

 they became alarmed, and attributed the phenom- 

 ena to a special intei'position of the deities of the 

 country which they had invaded. Various re- 

 markable theories have been advanced regarding 

 the tides. Many of these are so truly absurd that 

 it is hardly worth while to refer to them. Per- 

 sons find it difliicult to understand why the tides 

 are higher at one time than another, and why they 

 rise to the height of sixty feet in the Bay of Fun- 

 dy ; forty feet in the ports of Bristol, England, 

 and St. ^lalo, France, and only rise to a few feet 

 in height at New York and other places, while 

 they are scarcely perceptible in the Baltic and 

 other seas. Descartes was the first philosopher 

 who advanced the theory that the tides were due 

 to the influence of the moon, but Newton was the 

 fu-st who worked out the problem and discovered 

 the true cause. Descartes believed that the moon 

 acted on the waters of the ocean by pressure ; 

 Newton demonstrated that it acted on the ocean 

 by attraction ; that instead of pressing the waters 

 it rolled them up directly under it, and also at its 

 antipodes at the same time, thus producing the 

 two tides every day. The tides are attractions of 

 both the sun and moon. If the earth had no 

 moon, the attraction of the sun would produce two 

 tides every day, but their ebb and flow would take 

 place at the same hours, not varying as they do 

 now ; these tides would also be much smaller than 

 those of the moon. Although the mass of the 

 sun is tar greater than that of the moon, and 

 though attraction is in proportion to the mass, yet 

 it is also invorselv as the square of the distance. 

 As the sun, therefore, is four hundred times more 

 distant than the moon, the attraction of the waters 

 of the sea towards the sun is found to be about 

 three times less tlian those of the moon. There 

 are really two ocean tides, the lunar and solar, but 

 the latter is absorbed l)y the former, which is 

 wholly observable in respect to the time, the solar 

 only, as it influences the height of the tidal wave. 

 That caused by the moon is three times greater 

 than that of the sun, and it follows the moon's 

 motion around the eaj-th, rising and falling every 

 t\velve hours, and each succeeding tide later by 

 three-quarters of an hour than tlie preceding one, 

 exactly in accordance with the positions of the 

 moon, or, as it is commonly called, its rising and 

 setting. 



