844 



NEW ENGLAND FAHMER. 



July 



them, to bring all (Avhat the Yankees call) the sur- 

 roundings of that season before you. Many little 

 tilings come up again, which you know quite well 

 you never would have thought of again, but for 

 your glance at those words, and still which you 

 feel you would be sorry to have forgotten. There 

 must be a richness about the life of a person who 

 keeps a diary, unknown to other men. And a 

 million more little links and ties must bind him 

 to the members of his family circle, and to all 

 among whom he lives. Life, to him, looking back, 

 is not a bare line, stringing together his ])ersonal 

 identity ; it is surrounded, intertwined, entangled 

 with thousands and thousands of sHght incidents, 

 which give it beauty, kindhness, reality. Some 

 folks' life is like an oak walking-stick, straight and 

 varnished; useful, but hard and bare. Other 

 men's life (and such may yours and mine, kindly 

 reader, ever be,) is like that oak when it was not 

 a stick, but a branch, and waved, leaf-enveloped, 

 and with lots of little twigs growing out of it, up- 

 on the summer tree, and yet more precious than 

 the power of the diary to call up again a host of 

 little circumstances and facts, is its power to bring 

 back the indescribable, but keenly-felt atmosphere 

 of those departed days. The old time comes over 

 you. It is not merely a collection, an aggregate 

 of facts, that comes back ; it is something far more 

 excellent than that — it is the soul of days long 

 ago; it is the clear Auld lang-syne itself! The 

 perfume of hawthorn hedges is there ; the breath 

 of breezes that fanned our gray hair when it made 

 sunny curls, often smoothed down by the hands 

 that are gone ; the siuishine on the grass Avhere 

 these old fingers made daisy-chains ; and snatches 

 of music, compared with which anything you hear 

 at the opera, is extremely poor. Therefore, keep 

 your diary, ray friend. — London Magazine. 



The Fifth Commandment — A Boy's An- 

 swer. — An old schoolmaster said one day to a 

 minister, who had come to examine the school, "I 

 believe the children know the Catechism word for 

 word." But do they understand it.'* that is the 

 question," said the minister. The schoolmaster 

 only bowed respectfully, and the examination be- 

 gan. A little boy had repeated the fifth com- 

 mandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother," 

 and he was desired to explain it. Instead of try- 

 ing to do so, the little boy, with his face covered 

 with blushes, said, almost in a whisper, "Yester- 

 day I showed some strange gentlemen over the 

 mountain. The sharp stones cut my feet, and the 

 gentlemen saw they were bleeding, and they gave 

 me some money to buy me shoes. I gave it to 

 my mother, for she had no shoes either, and I 

 thought I could go barefooted better than she 



THE CATTLE MARKETS FOR JUNE. 



The following is a summary of the reports for the four weeks 

 ending June 19, 1S62 : 



NUMBER AT MARKET. 



Cattle. Sheep. VeaJs. Stictes. Fat Hogs. 



May 29 1037 2073 SOO 1942 400 



June 5 1140 3021 400 1400 500 



June 12 1134 2593 700 2200 1400 



June 19 14S1 3109 500 1000 1500 



4792 11,396 1900 6542 3S00 

 Tliere have also been at market some 2500 young pigs. 

 PRICES. 



May 29. June 5. June 12. June 19. 



Beef cattle, ^ ft. 5Jg7 oJfiT 6 ^7^ 5J.37 



Sheep, wool on, live wt.. .5 (fi 6 6 lijO 5 (fi6 



Sheep, clipped, live wt.... 4 (S4;^ 4 (a4J 4 ©4? 3jj@4i 



Swine, stores, wholesale.. 3j '75 2>},nbh 3 (a4j 3'r'''T42 



" " retiiil 5 (gGi ik^^Q' 4?,*/6 4.1a6 



Spnngpics 11 Silih S'gll C^'ag 7 (g8| 



Live fat hogs 33g4|" 3|*j4i 3ijg4 3.iS3| 



Dvessedhogs 5 (g5^ 5 «5^ 4^,55^ 4ia5 



Veal calves, each $3^6 $356 $4 (&6 $4 (g6 



Remarks. — Of the whole number of cattle above reported, 

 3212 were from the West, mostly from Illinois, while only 1580 

 were from the North. Of the 11,396 sheep, 1776 were from the 

 West, and 9620 from the North. From which it appears that 

 during these four weeks the Western farmers have furnished the 

 great cattle market of New England with about two-thirds of all 

 the beeves on sale, and something like one-sixth of the whole 

 number of sheep. The average quality of beeves has been good. 



Up to June 12, there was but little change in the price of beef, 

 although a gradual improvement might have been perceptible, 

 but at that time there was an advance of full }.ic ^ lb. in prices, 

 and something probably in the allowance for shrinkage, so that 

 tlie market for that week may be considered as the best for the 

 season, perhaps for the year. A larger supply the next week 

 brought prices Ijack again, so that at the close of the four weeks 

 they are very nearly the same as at the beginning. 



The sheep market has been very quiet during the last month, 

 the supply being just about equal to the demand. Lambs have 

 gradually declined in prices. The quality of old sheep was 

 hardly as good the last week as the first, but there has been but 

 little change in prices. 



Relative Value of Substances for Pro- 

 ducing Milk. — Several French and German 

 chemists estimate the relative value of several 

 kinds of food for milch cows according to the fol- 

 lowing table : 



That 100 pounds of good hay are worth — 

 200 pounds potatoes. 

 460 " beetroot, with the leaves. 

 3o0 " Siberian cabbage. 

 250 " beetroot, without the leaves. 

 250 " carrots. 

 80 " hay, clover, Spanish trefoil or vetches. 

 50 " oil-cake, or colza. 

 250 " pea straw and vetches. 

 300 " barley or oat straw. 

 400 " rye or wheat straw. 

 25 " peas, beans, or vetch-seed. 

 50 " oats. 



