512 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



ploy the youth and children of both sexes. 

 (School exhibitions are universally notorious 

 for drawing crowds. I would try them at the 

 fairs, in all the most approved and improving 

 ways. Interest and use the children, and you 

 draw the mothers of the land. Before these 

 obscenity and immorality will shrink abashed. 

 The people of this nation pay their money 

 more freely for education than for any other 

 good object. Were the agricultural societies 

 to distinctly encourage popular education, 

 would that not be another strong reason for 

 public patronage ? Should the prize fighters 

 fear that under such a regime the nation would 

 tend to effeminacy, and would prefer a dashot 

 the old Spartan sports? Then 1 would say 

 give us the common school complete ! In ap- 

 propriate corners mark off the school play- 

 grounds. Under proper police regulations let 

 there be foot-races, pitching of weights, 

 games of "cat," "baste," and "bullpen." 

 Let maidens romp on the sward, jumping the 

 rope, playing at "thread the needle," "lost 

 my glove yesterday," t&c, &c. In short, Mr. 

 Editor, I would have something to interest 

 and improve every civilized child and parent 

 in the land. I would have nothing to degrade 

 or brutalize. The horse-racers tell us that we 

 must encourage gambling and other immorali- 

 ties or give up the fairs, as the system is worn 

 out. I hurl in their teeth, bosh ! We have 

 not yet fairly started in these matters. We 

 have not yet copied even all the Old World 

 practices as much as we may, such as the sale 

 and exchange of animals and articles, the hir- 

 ing of farm help, &c. Our Yankee invention 

 has not been exercised at all to speak of, ex- 

 cept on the immoral side. It is time good 

 men were alive to this matter. 



All nations, both savage and civilized, have 

 their festivals, holidays, and public amuse- 

 ments. If good or innocent ones are not sus- 

 tained, barbarous ones will be, most assuredly. 

 Let us encourage those things which distin- 

 guish us from the savages, who so unworthily 

 occupied this great land before us, such as 

 public morality, popular intelligence, thrift, 

 and decency. 



Such spectacles and practices as tend to 

 brutality, barbarism, unthrift, and national 

 decay, should be avoided and comiemned. 

 John Davis. 



Box 50, Decatur, 111., Sept. 18, 1870. 



ABOUT BUNPLOWEKS. 



Sunflowers are now five feet high. I have 

 commenced to feed their leaves to my stock. 

 They are the best of all green feed for milch 

 cows. I expect to have leaves enough to feed 

 four cows and two horses, twice a day, until 

 the middle of November, from one acre of 

 ground. If it is too much trouble to pull the 

 leaves, the crop will do equally as well as 

 corn, sowed broadcast, growing a greater 

 weight per acre. Cattle will eat up leaves 



and stalks when three feet high and over. It 

 can be mowed with a scythe. 



It should be sown at different times, so as 

 to keep up a supply of feed through the sea- 

 son. It is not always that the largest seeds 

 produce the largest plants ; it is so with the 

 sunflower. The large white seeds do not pro- 

 duce as large plants, or as many leaves, as 

 those which are smaller and darker, with 

 black stripes. In my experience it is impossi- 

 ble to have it all one color. In the largest 

 sunflower which grows from ten to twelve feet 

 high, there are black and white, half white, 

 and striped. If you want green feed, don't 

 buy the large white seeds ; they are not half 

 the value for feed, and the seed is nearly one 

 q'larter lighter than the other kinds. — Cor, 

 Western Eural. 



MAINE BOARD OP AQBICULTUHE. 



This board has for several years held a two- 

 weeks' meeting in Augusta during the session 

 of the Legislature of the State. For the pur- 

 pose of more directly interesting farmers in 

 the discussions of agricultural subjects, and 

 with the hope of inducing them to participate 

 in these discussions, a session is now held in 

 some part of the State during the summer 

 season. "Last year this semi-annual session 

 was held at Orono, the location of the Agri- 

 cultural College of the State. This year the 

 board met in Foxcroft, the last of August. 

 The Maine Farmer remarks : — 



The faculty and students of the college at Orono 

 have been in attendance, the citizens of the place 

 generously giving them free entertainment during 

 their stay. The people in attendance have appar- 

 ently been interested in the meetings, but they 

 have been largely made up from those living in the 

 village. There was not a large number of farmers 

 — those it seems most desirable to reach — present, 

 and we think the meeting failed to draw out that 

 attendance from the towns about here that was 

 expected by those having the management of the 

 same. 



After an address of welcome by Mr. Chamber- 

 lain, and the usual preliminary exercises. Col. W. 

 Swett read a practical paper on the Cultivation of 

 Apples. This was followed by an essay on Road- 

 mwking and the Management of country roads. 



It advocated the abolishment of the present sys- 

 tem of district supervision, and intrusting the care 

 of the roads to a competent town committee, one 

 of whom, at least, should be a competent engineer. 



At the evening session on Tuesday, August 30, 

 papers were read by Mr. Thing on "Success in 

 Life," and by Mr. Norton on "Improvement of 

 Soil by Ploughing." 



The forenoon of Wednesday was occupied by 

 an instructive and carefully prepared paper on 

 Ploughs and Ploughing, by Mr. Gilbert of An- 

 droscoggin County. A discussion followed, in 

 which some lengthy and interesting remarks were 

 made by T. S. Gold, Secretary of the Board of 

 Agriculture of Connecticut. Mr. Lebroke's lecture 

 on Farm Law took' place in the afternoon, and con- 

 tained a brief summary of those points of law in 

 which farmers are most interested. In the even- 



