410 



NEW ENGLAND FABMER 



Sept. 



CAUSE OP HEALTH AND VTGOB. 

 The following from the Manchester (Eug.) Al- 

 liance News, describes the habits of a distin- 

 guished literary veteran, William Howitt, who has 

 maintained remarkable health and vigor, both of 

 mind and bodj' : 



I am temperate, because I have seen and felt 

 the good policy of it. As a literary man, if 1 had 

 fallen in with ordinary literary habits, I should 

 not have been sitting here to write about the ad- 

 vantages of temperance. If I had lived as a ma- 

 jority of literary men of this age, as "a man about 

 town :" if I had lived in town, and kept the usual 

 late hours, and passed evening after evening in 

 hot, crowded rooms, breathing the deadly poison 

 of physical effluvia, gas and air deprived of its 

 ozone ; if I had sat over the bottle at late suppers, 

 foolishly called dinners ; and, in short, had '•jolli- 

 fied," as my literary cotemporaries call it, I should 

 have been gone 30 years ago. 



As it is, I have seen numbers of literary men, 

 much younger than myself, dying off like rotten 

 sheep — some of them in their early youth, few of 

 them becoming old. They have acquired great 

 reputations ; for, if you take notice, they who col- 

 lect about the press, and jollify with one another, 

 and cry up one another as prodigies, are the men 

 who become most popular, and "verily they have 

 their reward." 



They reap much money and much temporary 

 fame, but at what price do they purchase it ? At 

 the cost of bodily, as well as mental comfort ; at 

 the cost of life itself. For my part, seeing the vic- 

 tims of "fast life" daily falling around me, I have 

 willingly abandoned the temporary advantages of 

 such a life, and preferred less popularity, less 

 gains ; the enjoyment of a sound mind in a sound 

 body ; the blessings of a quiet, domestic life, and 

 a more restricted, but not less enjoyable circle of 

 society. 



And now a word on work. Those who imagine 

 that I only wag a goose-quill, mistake a little. In 

 that department, indeed, I have perhaps done as 

 much work as any man living. Often in early 

 years, I labored assiduously sixteen hours a day. 

 I never omit walking three or four miles, or more, 

 in all weather. I work hard in my garden, and 

 rcould tire a tolerable man at that sort of thing. 

 J)uring my two years' travel in Australia, when 

 ;about 60, I walked, often under a burning sun of 

 120 or 130 degrees at noon, my twenty miles a 

 (day for days and weeks together ; worked at dig- 

 .ging gold in great heat, and against young, active 

 men, my twelve hours a day, sometimes standing 

 in a brook. I waded through rivers — for neither 

 man nor nature had made bridges — and let my 

 clothes dry upon my back ; washed my own linen, 

 and made and baked my own bread before I ate 

 ,it ; slept occasionally under the forest tree ; and 

 tlu'ough it all, was as hearty as a roach ! 



Linseed. — A gentleman who has lately re- 

 turned from the West reports that the crop of lin- 

 seed oil will be very large this year, probably 

 quadruple any previous year in Ohio, although in 

 the vicinity of St. Louis it will not be more than 

 double, for the reason that farmers could not pro- 

 cure seed enough to suj)ply their wants at plant- 

 ing time. The high price of linseed last spring, 



and the low price of corn, in consequence of the 

 rebellion cutting off the Southern markets, is the 

 cause of this great increase. The crop will be 

 ripe about July 20, and will come into market 

 about the 1 st of August. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



My Dear Sir : — It gave me much pleasure to 

 notice, in the Farmer of June 21, that Messrs. 

 Crosby & Nichols have just published a large edi- 

 tion of "Harris on Insects Injurious to Vegeta- 

 tion," and have put it so low as to place it among 

 the cheap jyublicatiotis, and bi-ing it within the 

 reach of every one. 



Insects, as every cultivator, whether of the field 

 or garden, the orchard or the flower-pot plant 

 standing on the window-stool, knows by sad ex- 

 perience, now constitute a serious di'awback on 

 general cultivation, and unless efficient remedies 

 are applied, they threaten still greater inroads 

 upon the progress of labor. In order to check 

 them, we must annihilate them, and to do this, 

 we must not only form an acquaintance with 

 their names, but the habits of their lives. This 

 calls, I am aware, on the close observation and 

 persevering laboi's of the farmer or gardener. 

 Book knowledge will not effect it without these. 

 Book knowledge, however, is an amazing good 

 help in directing the course of observation. By 

 treating upon the habits of its subjects, it exposes 

 their vulnerable points, and enables the student to 

 meet them more readily. 



INIany of our farmers are familiar with Dr. Har- 

 ris' "Report on Insects," published in 1841, and 

 can speak of its value as a practical scientific 

 work. I can attest its world-wide reputation ; 

 for that day, it stood without a pai'allel. But the 

 discoveries in the science, the appearance of in- 

 sects new to us, and general progress of tilings, 

 (this last consideration is a noble omen,) ere a 

 score of years had passed away, called for this new 

 and richly illustrated edition. In consequence of 

 the demise of the author, the preparation of the 

 work was placed in the hands of our excellent 

 Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, Mr. Flint, 

 who readily gathered around him the aid of such 

 men as Agassiz, LeConte, Uhler, Dr. Morris and 

 many others, who were abundantly able as well as 

 willing to add value to its pages from the stores 

 of their own lore. With such aids it may well be 

 supposed that the volume under consideration oc- 

 cupies the first position among works of the kind. 

 The illustrations, which are numerous, are very 

 life-like, so that a child may recognize in them, in 

 midwinter, the butterflies he chased, or the insects 

 that annoyed him in summer. 



No library can be complete without this book. 

 Every farmer who buys a copy will not only find 

 it a pleasant and instructive work, but a labor- 

 saving machine to aid him in getting rid of the 

 insect pests that do so much to blight his hopes 

 and ruin his labors every year. It is without 

 doubt the most perfect work of the kind before 

 the public. 



With agricultural societies it should hold a 

 prominent position. I know of no way in which 

 they could give more valuable or more acceptable 

 premiums, or advance the true objects of reward- 



