376 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Aug. 



compact soil is the result ; while saturated with 

 water it can never decompose. 



Besides being but slightly decomposed, the soil 

 of our swamps contain.^ an acid that must be re- 

 moved before plants will thrive in it ; this explains 

 why lime and ashes are used with so much advan- 

 tage upon such lands ; they destroy the acidity, 

 besides helping to decompose the mud. By re- 

 moving the water both these results are attained, 

 and to a much greater depth ; decomposition com- 

 mences at once, and by it the acid is destroyed. 



If a farmer possess more land than he can cul- 

 tivate well, and has irrigated meadows, it is often 

 best to keep them as such, at least till he can find 

 no other land as capable of being improved. Ir- 

 rigated meadow lands are of great advantage to 

 farmers when kept as such ; they are as never 

 failing springs, from which he can draw the where- 

 withal to keep the rest of his farm from wearing 

 out. Hay can be taken from them, year after 

 year, without impoverishing them. Let us see 

 what keeps up this fertility. Let us see how it is 

 that the farmer is able thus continually to draw 

 from this bank without sometimes making a de- 

 posit. 



There is a stream running through it made up 

 by a number of smaller streams. During a heavy 

 rain every acre of our upland is washed, more or 

 less ; the muddy water, laden with those things 

 which make plants grow, finds its Avay down into 

 the stream, and as the stream is high, and crook- 

 ed and narrow in some places, winding from this 

 side of the meadow to that, the water, hurrying 

 along, is dashed out upon the meadows at every 

 turn ; in spreading out it becomes comparatively 

 quiet, and here the mud and water part company ; 

 the mud settles upon the soil, while the water con- 

 tinues upon its journey to the ocean. In this way 

 our meadows are kept fertile ; and in fertilizing 

 the upland they but pay a debt they owe to them. 



In straightening these crooked streams, I think 

 the farmer is sometimes guilty of a little too much 

 engineering. Through the straight, wide ditch 

 that Mr. Thrifty has engineered, the water rushes 

 without turning to the right or left, and the next 

 neighbor down stream gets the benefit of the de- 

 posit that would otherwise have been left upon his 

 own meadow. If a farmer has not enough other 

 land to cultivate, and washes to dry his meadow, 

 then straighten the stream, by all means, but not 

 otherwise. 



But the strongest defence an engineer can plan 

 for the farmer must be built within himself, and 

 by himself alone. The only sure protection against 

 want, the true guaranty of success in farming, that 

 which covers all that has been said upon the point, 

 is, that the farmer enter into the business with en- 

 ergy. Not satisfied with plodding on in the old 

 path, however good it may be, followed by his fa- 

 ther and grandfother before him, without looking to 

 the right or left for improvements ; not satisfied 

 with confining his literary pui'suits to the reading 

 of the farmer's almanac, or an old newspaper bor- 

 rowed of a neighbor ; not satisfied with half a 

 crop, year after year, upon land that is capable of 

 bearing a full one ; he profits by the experience 

 of others, as found in the numerous books and 

 papers now published upon agriculture. He meets 

 with other farmers at farmers' clubs, and in this 

 way receives the benefit of the experiments ac- 

 complished in the various sections of country, or 



upon the different farms in the vicinity. These 

 experiments may not be applicable to his land, 

 but by considering them carefully, he acquires a 

 knoAvledge of agriculture that cannot, in the end, 

 fail to make farming with him a success. 



A farmer's business is the cultivation of the 

 soil, yet I see no reason why he may not also cul- 

 tivate his mind. I see no reason why he may not 

 spend his leisure time in study. No business of- 

 fers better chances for the study of the natural 

 sciences, and no one offers a richer reward than is 

 offered to the farmer, if he study them and put 

 the knowledge he thus attains into practice. The 

 reason the farmer has discovered no new benefit 

 from chemistry, is, that he has not studied it him- 

 self ; he is satisfied with what is told him by some 

 professor entirely ignorant of the practice of farm- 

 ing, and he generally finds his advice and direc- 

 tions entirely impracticable. Study and practice 

 must go together in order to ensure success. 



The time is not far distant, I believe, when this 

 will be better seen and believed by the farmer 

 than it now is, and agriculture become, in reality, 

 what it now claims to be, a science. 



May the Concord Farmers' Club take a bold 

 lead in this direction. 



A LOOK AT THE CITY HORSES. 



Though not especially given to fast nags, we 

 like horses, and always take pains to see them 

 where they are collected in considerable numbers, 

 in order to observe their treatment, ascertain 

 their qualities, cost of keeping, and whatever else 

 that appertains to them of an interesting nature. 



With these views, we recently accepted an in- 

 vitation from Col. Ezra Forristall, the inde- 

 fatigable and accomplished Siiperirdendent of 

 Heallli for the city of Boston, to look at the city 

 horses, and the stables in which they are kept. 

 Our first call was at the stable on Grove Street. 

 Some forty horses are kept here, and under a 

 system that would command the admiration of 

 any person, whether he knew the difference be- 

 tween a horse-stall and a hog-pen, or not. Every 

 stall has its number, with a corresponding one for 

 the horse Avhich is to occupy it, and for the har- 

 ness he wears. The building is of brick, is long 

 and sufficiently wide to afford two rows of stalls 

 the entire length, with a space some ten feet wide 

 between the heads of the horses. The stalls are 

 principally of iron, the feeding boxes entirely so, 

 and everything about them is scrupulously clean. 

 We were there at noon of a hot day, yet the hors- 

 es suffered no annoyance from flies, and stood as 

 quietly as in the midst of a winter day. Every 

 part of the building is kept clean, — so that noth- 

 ing is left to offend any sense. All the depart- 

 ments of the establishment, the rooms where har- 

 nesses are cleaned, where the street brooms are 

 made, and Avhere carts and carriages are washed, — 

 presented the same neat and orderly appearance 

 that the stable itself does. 



