T 



DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. XVI. 



BOSTON, APRIL, 1864. 



NO. 4. 



NOURSE, EATON & TOLMAN, Proprietors. 

 Office 102 Washington Street. 



SIMON BROWN, Editor. 



THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY" APRIL. 



"A flowery crown will I compose — 



I'll weave the Crocus, weave the Rose ; 



I'll weave Narcissus, newly wet, 



The Hyacinth and Violet ; 



The Myrtle shall supply me green, 



And Lilies laugh in light between ; 



That the rich tendrils of my beauty's hair 



May burst into their crowning flowers, and light the painted air." 



H E first day 

 of April! We 

 wonder how 

 it came to be 

 selected from 



°^>¥ f^i^OT the three 



hundred and 

 sixty-five 

 days in the 

 year, as a day 

 on which sen- 

 sib le people 

 might be priv- 

 ileged to make 

 fools of each 

 other ? This custom has never been very satisfac- 

 torily accounted for, but certain it is, that it dates 

 back many centuries, and prevails throughout 

 Europe as well as America. Did you ever spend 

 fifteen minutes in a vain attempt to light a pars- 

 nip instead of a candle ? Did you ever have a 

 plate of dough-nuts passed you, and while you 

 were tugging manfully to break one asunder, and 

 to conceal the severity of your efforts under the 

 mask of politeness, discover that it was stuffed 

 with cotton ? Did you ever receive a package 

 which you thought must contain a gold watch at 

 least, and find only an infinite series of brown pa- 

 per wrappers ? Then you know how such things 

 are done in New England. 



The following is a -jest of a different kind and 

 proves that its perpetrator, at least, was no fool. 

 It is related of Rabelais, who, wishing to go from 

 V«— --■" - '- T > ■•: • p«?.i v ; : f i ......,„„ ,„ 



pay his fare, filled some phial with "brick dust or 

 ashes, labeled them as containing poison for the 

 royal family of France, and put them where he 

 knew they would be discovered." The conse- 

 quence was he was carried to Paris as a traitor, 

 before the joke was found out ! It certainly was 

 an ingenious artifice for travelling at the public 

 expense, but might in some cases prove a danger- 

 ous one. 



Something similar to April Fool's Day is said 

 to exist in the East Indies. It is curious to trace 

 by indications of this sort, man's common broth- 

 erhood. At the first glance they may seem of no 

 particular importance, but take this single exam- 

 ple, and perhaps it illustratesjthe point all the bet- 

 ter for being a trifling one — for such a custom 

 certainly could arise out of no necessity of our 

 nature, nor is it likely to be a coincidence, it must, 

 therefore, have had a single origin, and have been 

 carried over the world by the descendants of its 

 originators — north, south, east and west. 



When we look up to the heavens of a starry 

 night, we see a constellation which everybody 

 knows by the name of the Great Bear. It cer- 

 tainly has little resemblance to that animal, and 

 we wonder by what (light of imagination the "wise 

 men of the East," ever fixed upon such a name 

 for it, but when we are told that American Indi- 

 ans and the earliest Arabs of Asia have called 

 that constellation the "Great Bear," what can we 

 infer, but that centuries and centuries ago, these 

 divers nations were all one people ? Equally 

 striking is the well known fact that various na- 

 tions have a record of the Deluge, answering 

 very well to the Mosaic account, and that our In- 

 dians have a tradition of the same. 



We should like to follow this train of thought 

 still farther, but our limits scarcely permit, and 

 we must leave it for each one to pursue it at his 

 leisure. 



April, named as some suppose from Aperire, 



