254 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Aug. 



J. N. Bagg, Corresponding Secretary of the Soci- 

 ety, at Springfield, Mass., the week prior to the 

 exhibition. Inquiries can also be made of C. L. 

 Flint, Boston, Mass., and Henry Clark, Poultney, 

 Vt., Secretaries of the Soci^y. For further par- 

 ticulars send for pamphlets or bulletins. 



President — George B. Loring, Salem, Mass. 

 Vice Presidents — Ezekiel Holmes, Winthrop. Me. ; 

 T. S. Gold, West Cornwall, Ct. ; Frederick Smyth, 

 Manchester, N. H. ; Amasa Sprague, Cranston, 

 R. I. ; David Kimball, Rutland, Vt. ; W. H. 

 Prince, Northampton, Mass. Superintendent of 

 Grounds — William Pynchon, Springfield, Mass. 

 Superintendent of Halls — James E. Russell, 

 Springfield, Mass. Secretaries-^Charlefi L. Flint, 

 Boston, Mass. ; Henry Clark, Poultney, Vt. Chief 

 Marshal — George Dwight, Springfield, Mass. 

 Treasurer — Thomas Sanders, Brookfield, Vt. Cor- 

 resjyonding Secretary — J. N. Bagg. 



CURIOUS FEATURES OF "WAK. 



War presents some curious features to our view. 

 It has drained our cities in large part of a redun- 

 dant, idle, diseased and degraded class ; these 

 either soon die or are killed oft". But there are 

 examples not a few where the activities of the 

 camp, its discipline and its experience, have made 

 invalids robust ; have imparted a higher moral 

 tone to some, and given character and energy to 

 others, who before were by common consent con- 

 sidered to be inane and worthless. 



When a man of a good common education and 

 some steadiness of character, goes to war and fair- 

 ly engages in battle, he is thereafter, until his dy- 

 ing day, more of a man than he ever was before. 

 No one of even common observation can have 

 failed to notice in the faces of returned veteran 

 regiments as they have marched along our streets, 

 a stereotyped cast of countenance, common to all ; 

 there is an imprint of sternness on every face ; 

 of determination, and an elevation of spirit, de- 

 spite of tattered garments and soiled clothing and 

 the dust and sweat of a long march ; as much as 

 to say, I have been fighting for my country, I have 

 imperiled my life to maintain her liberties and her 

 unity ; these are first things ; my mission is God- 

 like, to wit, to maintain liberty and the right for- 

 ever! Amen. 



When this war is ended, much of the scuff and 

 scum of society will have disappeared, and nine 

 out of ten of those who return from victorious bat- 

 tle-fields will make better, sterner, more manly 

 members of society than ever before. The most 

 of the great soldiers of history were men of sim- 

 ple tastes, quiet manners and of unassuming de- 

 portment. This is the tendency of war, to lop off 

 excrescences, to consolidate the character, to in- 

 ure to self-denial, to impart energy, determination 

 and self-reliance, and to mold the whole man 

 aright. This war will leave more men in the coun- 

 try than were found in it the day when Sumter 

 was fired at and fell. 



Official reports of European countries have 

 shown more boy-children are born in war than in 

 times of peace, and that although at the end of 

 the wars of the First Napoleon, it was rare to find 

 a Frenchman over five feet three, there was a re- 

 cuperation in the next age, and now the average 

 height of the men does notvary much from what it 

 was before the Directory. 



As soon as the war closes there will inevitably 



be a universal financial crash ; in five years there- 

 after the country will exhibit a degree of solid 

 prosperity and national power which can defy the 

 world besides ; an amount of cotton will be raised 

 annually, which will astonish all civilized nations. 

 Why ? 



War makes men ; determined, self-reliant men ; 

 such men have a degree of self-respect which idlers 

 never dreamed of; these characteristics will impel 

 them to labor ; to intelligent labor, to labor well 

 directed. Five years ago, many a planter had 

 from five hundred to five thousand acres of land, 

 of which a few hundred only were cultivated, the 

 remainder was held in reserve for children who 

 were growing up with the expectation of a fortune 

 and with the full calculation to live in ease and 

 luxury, to end in a life of idleness, intemperance, 

 and debauchery. Five years hence, there will be 

 ten households instead of one, to every thousand 

 acres ; there will be ten families instead of one to 

 be supplied with school-books, and libraries ; with 

 ^le ubiquitous newspaper ; the weekly journal and 

 the monthly magazine. Ten families will want a 

 sewing-machine, a piano, a reaper and a clothes- 

 wringer, where one does now. 'Ten neat cottages 

 will spring up, where was seen but five years since 

 a solitary planter's house, never papered, seldom 

 plastered, and always in a more or less unfinished 

 condition. Intelligence will not plant the teeming 

 soil with corn and potatoes at a price of twenty 

 doUai's an acre when it can raise a hundred dol- 

 lars' worth of cotton, and sometimes three hun- 

 dred dollars' worth, with less labor. 



That country is strongest, is most prosperous, 

 and can best defy all outside nations which is 

 marked off" into farms of forty, fifty, or an hundred 

 acres instead of embracing ten or twenty of these 

 in one partially tilled plantation. So that aside 

 from the mere question of slavery there will be 

 benefits arising from this war which will present 

 an encouraging front compared with the opposite 

 phases. 



The ravage of war as to human life is exagger- 

 ated in almost all minds, and is never so great as 

 it seems to be. Many of the soldiers who sicken 

 and die in hospitals would have sickened and died 

 at home ; while the proportion of all who die 

 from wounds is astonishingly small, and some of 

 these would have perished by accident had they 

 remained at home. 



It cannot be denied that war is always a curse ; 

 and can seldom, if ever, fail to be a sin ; but as in 

 the present state of human morals it will come 

 sooner or later, to the nationalities of the earth, it 

 is well to look at both sides calmly and dispas- 

 sionately, take an intelligent view of all its phases, 

 and endeavor to make the best of it. — Hall's Jour- 

 nal of Health. 



Galls ox the Backs of Horses. — It is s^d 

 that an ointment made of white lead and milk, 

 will greatly soothe and heal galls on horses, occa- 

 sioned, as they frequently are, by a harness that 

 does not fit, or from some other cause. In cases 

 of long standing, it will be necessarj' to repeat 

 the application daily for a week or more, gently 

 rubbing and stirring the blood about the injured 

 parts. Care must also be obseived not to cause 

 fresh irritation by riding or otherwise exciting the 

 wounds. 



