50 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Feb. 



and thrive best in small flocks. The farmer of 

 small means will find that with good care, fifteen 

 of these sheep will produce as large an income as 

 one hundred of the common kind, and a much 

 larger jirofit. 



As ornaments to the grounds of gentlemen of 

 w'ealth and taste, this variety of sheep is unrivalled. 

 They have no taste for roving, never escape from 

 their enclosure, are quiet and harmless among the 

 shrubbery and trees, gentle and even affectionate 

 and grateful among children. Their great square 

 forms and fleeces of snowy whiteness are sugges- 

 tive of comfort and good cheer, and their broad 

 countenances beam with a quiet contentment and 

 freedom from anxiety, which a wise man might 

 well envy. 



To many, the humble occupations and quiet 

 pleasures of rural life appear insipid, but for my- 

 self, I glory in the sentiment which the great bard 

 of nature has placed in the mouth of his shepherd — 

 "I am a true laborer ; I earn that I eat, I get that 

 I wear, I owe no man hate, envy no man's happi- 

 ness, glad of other men's good, content with my 

 harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my 

 ewes graze, and my lambs play." 



For the New England Farmer. 



HEALTH-.-VINEGAR— WOOD FISES AND 

 COOKING. 



Mr. Editor : — Health is one of the greatest 

 boons that we are permitted to enjoy, but not one 

 healthy person, hardly, can be found in ten. Why 

 is it? is often asked. I know not how to answer 

 unless I say it is produced by disregard of na- 

 ture's laws. Those laws are not always infringed 

 with our eyes wide open, but we are deceived. 

 Take, for instance, the article of vinegar, which 

 finds a place upon our tables. Nine-tenths of 

 that used is a deleterious article, made up, for the 

 most part, of sulphuric acid. Every one knows 

 the danger of using that; but notwithstanding, 

 we every day take more or less into our systems. 

 Now, whilst God has seen fit to give us a large 

 crop of fruit, why not squeeze out some of the ap- 

 ple juice and make some pure cider vinegar? 

 Too much trouble ; cheaper to buy, is the re- 

 sponse. I say that money is no object, in com- 

 parison to health. It is not your own health, on- 

 ly, but that of your offspring is at stake. Pure 

 cider vinegar will not exceed twelve cents per gal- 

 lon, whilst those other kinds manufactured do not 

 exceed two cents. The manufacturer, therefore, 

 can make a good profit, and sell to the dealer for 

 less than the farmer can ; but like most cheap 

 things, it is dearer in the end. 



I enter to have a chat of an evening with my 

 brother farmer, but it is not as of olden time. In 

 the place of the usual open wood fire, I find a 

 close coal or wood stove. How is this, I said to 

 him, that the stove has taken the place of the 

 open fire ? It costs too much to see the firelight. 

 He forgets that the air which has been spoilt by 

 the stove begets disease, and the doctor's bill add- 

 ed, will exceed the paltry savings. Now I live to 

 enjoy that which God has seen fit to place before 

 me. It is a pleasure for me to sit down at the 

 fireside, to watch the flickering of the blaze, to 

 inhale the air unburnt, to see the mouldering em- 

 bers drop away and return to ashes, to eat the 

 h6t rolls which come thoroughly cooked from in 



front of the blazing pile. Those of us who for a 

 season may be absent amongst "piles of build- 

 ings," when we return to our homesteads and 

 partake of that celebrated dish, baked beans, can 

 well attest their superiority to those cooked in 

 modern ways. I find that those farmers who top- 

 dress their fields in the autumn, gather large crops 

 of hay the next season, and the fruit-grower who 

 looks and manures around his trees, finds no va- 

 cant spaces in his fruit bins. The farmer whose 

 hog-pen is well filled with muck, chaS" and refuse 

 hay, finds his land producing first rate crops. 

 Cape Elizabeth, Dec., 1862. s. P. M. 



HABITS OP THE BEAVER. 



The law of industry among the working beavers 

 is Avell attested to by hunters. Their dams or 

 houses are built anew or remodelled every fall, 

 and in a way to suit the height of the water during 

 the succeeding winter or spring. The object of 

 the dam seems to regulate the height of the water 

 at their houses, where they have two or three 

 berths at different heights, where they sleep dry, 

 but with their tails in the water, thus being warn- 

 ed of any change in the ]ise or fall of the water. 

 Some houses stand six feet at least above the sur- 

 face of the meadow covered with mud, and in the 

 form of a round coal pit, but so intei'sected with 

 sticks of wood as to be strong, and the weight of 

 three or four men makes no impression upon it. 



A "full family," as hunters call them, consists 

 of the parental pair and the males of the next gen- 

 eration, with their mates. When the tribe get 

 lai'ge they colonize. Some time in the fall, all the 

 single ones of both sexes congregate from consid- 

 erable distances, at the deepest lake in tlie vicini- 

 ty where they choose their mates ; how ceremoni- 

 ous the nuptials we cannot say ; then they all go 

 home, the female following her mate, and all go 

 to work, first putting the house and dam in order 

 for winter, then laying in their stock of wood, the 

 bark of which is their winter food. They go up 

 the streams some three miles for their wood, and 

 float it down to their houses and then in some 

 mysterious way make it lie in a pile at the bottom 

 of the pond, outside of the house, where they 

 may take it at any time in the winter for use. It 

 is said that no human hands can disturb that 

 without its rising and remaining a-float till the 

 beavers have the handling of it. 



But we do not feel quite sure what is fact and 

 what is conjecture respecting the beaver, whose 

 works are so much in the night and deep under 

 water. The fixU of the year is a busy time with 

 them, and it is interesting to see their new dams 

 in process of building, as we sometimes find them 

 across large boating streams ; and not unfrequent- 

 ly boatmen and river drivers tear away their dams 

 and get a good head of water for their use. They 

 usually build at the outlet of natural ponds, and 

 sometimes they flow large lakes and long pieces 

 of dead water, but are always moving and recon- 

 structing. How they keep their teeth in order 

 for so much eating, when the best steel would 

 wear out, is a mystery. 



Two winters ago some lumbermen encamped 

 near one of their ponds. One afternoon, they 

 felled a tree across a lumber road, and before 

 morning it was cut up by the beavers and hand- 

 somely piled out of the road. — Aroostook Pioneei: 



