466 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



will bring in some money, upon which a tii^ht 

 "purse string" will be needed. All important to 

 them are prudence, economy, industry and forti- 

 tude. 



For this part of the country, I know of no place 

 better for a man with small capital than a farm 

 near some large manufacturing town, large enough 

 to keep a cow or two, a horse and pig, and leave 

 enough land, say from three to five acres, for fruit 

 and vegetables. 



An elderly, tough horse, to cost say $50 to $75, 

 will do to begin with ; a good native cow, at about 

 the !«ame price, will furnish much of the food for 

 the family, and $5 worth of young pigs make a 

 good machine for turning sour milk and table 

 scraps into pork for the winter, and converting 

 weeds and waste fruit into manure for next crop. 



Each year I would buy a moderate quantity of 

 good, well tested fruit trees, bushes and vines — no 

 tancy or higb priced ones — making your plan for 

 the entire frxiit patch before setting the first tree. 

 Between these may be cultivated low-growing, 

 small leaved vegetables or strawberry plants. For 

 fruit you must wait patiently two or three years ; 

 meantime cultivating good annual crops of vege- 

 tables for market. 



In the vicinity of large factory towns such as we 

 have in Worcester county, I have great faith in 

 the profitableness of early crops of onions, turnips 

 and beets ; great pains being taken and reasonable 

 outlay to get them early and of quickest growth. 



The vicinity of large seaboard cities, like New 

 York and Boston, is to be avoided by the young 

 farmer of small means. Lands theie are high 

 priced. Old, shrewd and experienced gardeners 

 are abundant, and the products of distant States 

 received by steamer, compete with home products. 

 Prices in interior towns average considerably 

 higher, and in fact much of their supplies come 

 second-hand from seaboard cities. 



I will, in another letter, give a sketch of the re- 

 sult of my first year as a beginner at farming. 



Worcester County, Mass., Aug. 6, 1870. Ex. 



Remakks. — We must take exceptions to the re- 

 mark of our correspondent as to childlessness 

 being a desirable condition for a family that pro- 

 poses to engage in farming. The fact that the farm 

 is favorable to the rearing and training of children 

 is, in our opinion, the strongest possible argument 

 in favor of farming that can be urged upon all 

 families who are not smitten by the curse of God 

 or their own criminal acts. Especially on such a 

 farm as that proposed by "Ex," children may be 

 regarded as blessings, even on the lowest financial 

 plane of view. Here their little fingers may assist 

 in a great variety of work, and habits of industry 

 may be established of far greater value to them 

 than the inheritance of a portion of the fortunes 

 occasionally accumulated by men in other profes- 

 sions and pursuits. 



Contrast the prospects of the young man brought 

 up to idleness, habits of "liberal" expenditure, and 

 the expectation of thousands he never earned and 

 does not know how to take care of, with those of 

 one who, from his earliest recollection, has had a 

 practical knowledge of what every dollar in his 

 pocket costs, and who has been trained and fitted 

 to rely on himself! Which needs our sympathy 

 and our pity ? Which will make the man, and 

 which the fellow ? 



Above all others, the farm is the place for a 

 family with children of both sexes. For a child- 



less family, one place is about as good as another. 

 Its course will soon be run. It is an outcast, at 

 war with nature, and unfit for the green fields and 

 the productive soil. Let such meet the oblivion 

 they court amid the brick walls of the city, which 

 but for fresh blood from the country farm would 

 soon be not only childless but manless and woman- 

 less. 



HORSES IN VERMONT. 



Wishing to buy a few horses about sixteen 

 hands high, and weighing ten to eleven hundred 

 pounds, I recently visited Windsor County, Vt., 

 and v/as surprised and discouraged by the style 

 and sizes of the horses of that section. Their 

 M'^rgan horses, as they are called, are from 14 to 

 14^ hands high, with plenty of ringbones on their 

 feet, the result of in-and-in breeding, and of using 

 unsound mares, &c. It appears clear to me that 

 farmers would find it for their interest to raise a 

 better class of horses. If they do not do so, buy- 

 ers of course will look elsewhere for good horses. 



August, 1870. H. 



Remarks. — Whatever may be the facts in re- 

 gard to the size and soundness of the present 

 generation of horses in Vermont, we suppose no 

 one will doubt that in Vermont, as well as in other 

 States, there has been a marked improvement in 

 speed within the past thirty or forty years. Ac- 

 cording to Porter's Spirit of the Times, a bet of 

 one thousand dollars was made, in 1818, that no 

 horse could be produced that could trot a mile in 

 three minutes. Now an agricultural horse trot at 

 a county fair at this pace would hardly deserve a 

 "premium." What connection this gain in speed 

 has with the loss in size alluded to by our corre- 

 spondent and admitted by horse breeders, is a 

 question for the consideration of those who would 

 trace cause to effect. 



ABOUT DITCHING. 



I cannot agree with you in your instruction to 

 John L. James, of Maine, in regard to running 

 down the hill in the direction of tue general slope, 

 that IS, so as to fall more than two or three inches 

 to the rod. I would run my ditches crosswise, 

 commencing near the top of the wet land, three or 

 four feet deep, and if the land is springy, more 

 below may be needed, but none commenced near- 

 er than the level of the bottom of the one above. 



It' the water from the drains run down the hill 

 steeper than a fall of two or three inches to a rod 

 in length, it is apt to wash, and then the stones 

 will get out of place and settle ; then dirt is apt to 

 get in and fill it up. I use cedar poles in the bot- 

 tom of the ditch, about two inches apart, then 

 cover with stone and cedar bark. Do not use 

 straw, for mice will cut it and clog the ditch. 



But different kinds of land may require differ- 

 ent kinds of ditches. If there is much water in 

 the ditch, and it must run down where it is steep, 

 I would protect the bottom with two planks, 

 spiked together like an eave-spout. The straighter 

 the water runs in the bottom of the ditch the bet- 

 ter ; I mean not having it run from one side to 

 the other of the ditch. It will be less liable to 

 wash or clog. I would not recommend having 

 the ditch more than one foot wide at the bottom. 



A. L. GiLLis. 



South Danville, Vt., August, 1870. 



Remarks. — Our reason for recommending drains 

 to run up and down the slope, instead of cross- 



