J. in. 



A N D G A R D E N E R ' S J O UR N A L. 



159 



on is nobler ihnu enjoynienl: hecouee the inburcr 

 renter mill more worthy of honor thnn ihc idler. 

 . cnll upon ibose whom I oddress, to eland up for 



nobdity uf labor. It ie Heaven's great ordinance 

 hvimnn improvement. Let not the great ordinance 

 broken down. 



Whia do 1 Fay 1 It is broken down, and it bos been 

 'ken d«»\vn for oges. Let ii then be built up ncnin 

 icre, if nny \vhere> on those thorcs of anew world, 

 a new civdizaliun. But how, it may be nsked, it^ 

 noUen down ? Do not men toil, it may be enid ? 

 ' \ do inde.'d toil; but they loo gene*-ally do it be- 



■ they niu3t. 

 Wiiuy submit to it as, in some sort, a degroding ne- 

 \-, and they dofliie notluncr on earth so ir.neh as 

 escape from it. Tiiey fttUii the great law of Inbor 

 ;he letter, but brcnk it in the spirit. To some field 

 [labor, nientul or manual, eveiy idler should hasten 

 n chosen, covered iicld of improvement. 

 U'U 80 he is not compelled to do under our imperfect 

 ihV.niion. On the cunirory he eita down, and folds 



hands nnd blesses himseliin idleness. This way 

 .hinking is the heritnge of tke cbiised and unjust 

 dal system, under which serfs labored ond gontle- 

 n spent their lives in lighting and feasting. It is 

 le that this opprobrium of toil were done nwny. 

 Ashamed to toil nri thou ? At^bamed of thy dingy 

 rkehop ond dust labor field; ot thy hard hnnd ecar- 

 1 with service, more honorable thnn that of war; of 



soiled and weatherslaincd garment, on which mo- 

 r nature has enibordered mist, sun and rain, fire 

 1 steam, — her own heraldic honors ! Asbanied of 

 se tokens and titles, ond envious of the flaunting 

 ^23 of imbecile idleness and vanity ? It is a treo- 



lo nature — it is impiety to heaven — it is breaking 

 iven's great ordiniuiec, Toil, I repent, toil, either 

 the brain, of llic heart, of the hand — it is the only 

 e manhood, the only true nobility. 



' My b'ly what are you doing there with that gim- 

 \" said 1 the other morning to a flaxen haired ur- 

 i, who was laboring away with all his might at a 



e of board before htm. ** Trying to make an on 



hole!" was his reply, without raising his eyes or 

 pending his operations. 



Precisely the business of at least two-thirdg of the 

 Id, in this ble-need year of our Lord 1840, is this 

 Ling augur holes with a gimlet;" 1 said to myself, 



walked musingly onward. 

 Icre is young A. who has just escaped from tbe 

 k's desk behind the counter. He sports his mus- 

 lioes, wears his hoir long; has acquired the power 

 >eing shaved; carries a rattan; drinks champaign 

 ;n he can command an X to purcliase a bottle, and 

 t a friend to a dinner; talks large of the price cur- 

 :, fall of western stocks, and profits of banking; 

 ids in his boots two inches taller than Astor or Ap- 

 on; and speaks of foreign exchanges as would 

 hchild or Biddle. ±le thinks he is a great man, 

 in all others know he is only maldng augur holes 

 1 a gimlet. 



Jr. B. is a rabid politican. He has labored hard at 

 cuses, at w^rd and town meeting, has talked of the 

 r people till the words flow parrot like from his lips, 



has done n full share of the dirty work of party 

 years. Office has been the lure held out to lead 



onwards, ond which bos made him neglect his, 

 nes3, spend his time in hunting up recruits, dril- 

 the refractory, and qualifying himself for bar- 

 n argument and stump oratory. He con settle the 

 ira of the nation in a trice; diplomacy has no intri- 

 L-3 for birn; he has shaken hands with the preei- 

 t, ond is a great mnn. He will soon be used up, 



cast aside; and will then see, as others now do, 

 . he is chasing a jock o'iantern, that he is making 

 ur holes with a gimlet. 



!'here is Miss C. who is really a pretty girl, and 

 ) might become a w^oman a man of sense would be 

 ud of Now, the apes the ton in nil things; reads 

 iiing novels, goes to the opera, admires Cele&te's 

 ?ing, and has nearly ceased to blush at the most in- 

 citt nudity, lounges on sofas, glories in her idlene-s, 

 ps her bed til! noon, coquets wiili male animals as 

 linine a^ herself, imagines that she is a belle, for- 

 9 that her father was a cooper, lisps of high life, 



plebium presumption, and is in a fair way to ruin 



elf. All this conies of her belief that an augur 



can be made by a gimlet. 

 I'Ir. D., whom I have just passed, may be put down 

 I distinguished profeesDrof the gimlet. He was a 

 ner. His father left him a fine farm free of in- 

 nbrance; but speculation became rife, fortunes 

 re made in a twinkhng, and D. fancied '* one thing 

 ;ld be done ne well as annther." So he sold his 



farm, ami bouj^bt nild Inndn in ibeprnincs, nnci corner 

 lots in lithoiiropbcd cities; and litguii lo drdim ol 

 wealth v/nrtliy of *' golden Iiul." Woik he could 

 not; it had bnd<lfnly Lecomc too degrading. Who 

 coidd think of tilling or being contented with a hun- 

 dred acres of land, when thonsnnda of acres in the 

 broad west were waiting for occupants or owners. D, 

 was not the man to do it, and he operated to the ex 

 tent of his nuiano. At last the Innd bubble broke; li- 

 thographed cities were discovered to be mere bogs; 

 and prairie farms, though the basis of exbaustless 

 wealth, worthless, unlef-s rcnderetl productive by lo- 

 bor. But D's beautiful J'arm is gone, and us he is now 

 preparing on compulsion to become a pioneer in tbe 

 west, he feels that it is difficult making ougur holes 

 With a gindel. 



Mr. K. is the representative of quite a closs. He 

 had bis attention awakened to the subject of religion, 

 and obtained new views of its importance and his own 

 obligations. Believing, what cannot be difcpuiod, that 

 love to God ond good will to man, is the only true 

 true source of happiness, and feeling, ne evjcry benev- 

 olent mind must, a desire for the welfare of bis race, 

 he felt himself called to declare these truths to the 

 world; and foreaking his Inpstone, his anvil, or his 

 plough, become without delay an expounder of the 

 scriptures, a self-delegated instructor of mankind. — 

 He forgot that the age of miracles had ceased; and that 

 the obility to teach imi^t now be acquired by the slow 

 but necetsary process of human learning. He begins 

 to have misgivings that he has miefiken hiscall; and 

 will probably discover,^vhen too late to rectify the er- 

 ror, that he has spent the best half of his life in trying 

 to make auger holes with a gimlet. OBSERVER. — 

 Alb. Culticator. 



Popular Errors. 



Messrs. Editors — On the Slst page of the cur- 

 rent volume of the Cultivator, I have noticed a few of 

 the popular or common errors, and intimated that I 

 might poseibly re<;ur lo the oubject at some other time. 

 The theme is a fruitful one, and might be made to em- 

 brace a variety of topics. 1 propose, however, to 

 touch only those that are brought to bear directly or 

 indirectly on ogriculture; and firtt, farming in the 



1110071. 



The moon has given rise to abundance of euperRti- 

 tious observances, and from the very earlie£t age, has 

 been supposed to exercise a great influence over the 

 earth and men. Many of these superstitions have 

 been exploded, while others etill retain no inconsider- 

 able hold on the public mind, and are tiie pregnant 

 source of error. On no point is this more percepti- 

 ble than in that of farming. That the moon can pro- 

 duce any susceptible infiuence on crops, or deserves 

 the slightest regard in their sowing or planting, is a 

 notion belonging to the eame ages as astrology and 

 witchcraft; and like these beliefs, should ere this have 

 ceased to exist. The celebrated Arrogo collected from 

 various sources all the well authenticated (acts relating 

 to the influence of the moon on agriculture and the 

 weather, and came to the conclusion, "that there 

 was no reason whatever to coniirm the common no- 

 tion that changes of weather attended changes of tlie 

 moon, or that this luminary has any perceptible efl'ect, 

 or is in tbe least worthy of notice in condvcting tbe 

 processes oi agriculture." Some of the old suporeti- 

 tions or notions on this subjecj, may, however, be 

 worthy of notice here. 



Tusser says, in hia " 500 points of Husbandry," — 



" Sow peason and I:e.in3 in tlie wane of the incon, 

 Who soweth them sooner, he snweth too soon ; 

 Thnt tliey with the plnncl may rise, 

 And flourish v.'itli hearing most plentiful wise.'' 



But though such was the general feeling, there 

 were some enlightened and intelligent enough to per- 

 ceive the absurdity of such notions, and expose these 

 errors. Thus Werenfels in 1743, in^^an Essay on Su- 

 perstition, says: — 



** The superstitious man will not commit his seed 

 to the eorth when the stui, but when the moon re 

 quirci it. He will not have his hair cut when the 

 moon is in Leo, lest his locks should stare like a lion's 

 mano; or when in Aries, lest they should cuil like a 

 ram's horn." 



I would sny to tho farmer, don't trouble yourself a- 

 bout the moon. See that your land is in fine tilth, 

 well manured and drained; your seed frefeh. and fiee 

 from foul matters; and when you are ready, eo\v, 

 without consulting the moon or the almanac. If all 

 is right in other respects, the moon, no matter what 

 may be its position, will not hurt you or your crop; 

 and if your land is but half prepared or tilled, rely on 



the moon ns much as you please, and _\oa hove no 

 right to vx\ ect a crt-p, 



Anoiher common error is that relating to the 

 " 6ij;nH." Soir.cbody among the ancients, tor conve 

 nientc take, divided the stars into contlellationp, na 

 mcd liom their foncilul reeemblnnce to the objects, 

 Leo, llrsus, A'iuilu, Pitccs, Tmirus, Saggilnrius, 

 cVc. iVc. In its annual revolution, the eun pnisea 

 through a dozen of ihece constcllotions or signs of tho 

 zodiac; and by denrecs these pigns were supposed to 

 exert a magical inilucnec on the several parts of tho 

 humonbody; ond we all remember seeii^ in onrold 

 almanacs, the man mounted on the ^obcfls a state of 

 nudity, liuit the place and elVeet of tbe feigns could not 

 be mietnkrn. 'J'liis popular error infiuenccefl man- 

 kind wonderfidly, and though commuiT ecnte hoe in 

 most cases displaced the )»«?(. the Sfg??sttill retain their 

 ascendancy over the ccuuluct of niultiiiides. * 



There ore many men at the present -OffC, fo far "be- 

 hind the times, that if they liave a tooib to pull, a w'.n 

 to open, a pig or tolf to cartrate, a patch ol thistles to 

 mow, a bunch of while birches or ecrub oaks to cut 

 down, or a doge of physic to swallow, the chopt^ ^f- 

 ^ignn must be cont^ulted, and their connection with 

 the body, or the i.loiit, ascertained before any thing 

 can be done. The full believer in signs, would aa 

 soon swallow a dote of poison as phytic, when ihe 

 feign was in Taurus, as that animal chews the cud; 

 and in that state of the eigne, tbe cathartic would as- 

 suredly prove an emitic, or in other words, follow the 

 course of the cud. Weeds or trees must be cut whr a 

 the sign is in the heart, that the whole may perielT to- 

 gether; for if tbe t:gn was in Pisces or the feet, we 

 suppose when cut down only the extremities of tho 

 plant-could be persuaded to perish; tnd m'o be to the 

 unlucky calf or colt that happened to undergo castra- 

 tion when the sign indicated the forbidden region; his 

 fate wcs sealed beyond the possibility of mistoke. If 

 yon £cc at the piesent time, a mon's fences buried in 

 briars, his iields overrun with bushes ond thistles; 

 half a dozen of uncoeirated pigs ond colts lunning a- 

 bout, OB if to perpetuate, by in and in breeding, all the 

 defects of their races; and hie orchards ond woodlands 

 neither trimmed or pruned, that mon may be eet down 

 OS a believer in signs, one who govenvs his farming 

 by the moon, and who vv, 11 in all probobility, reop 

 ^uch harvest, and experience s'lch refculte, as so ir- 

 rational ami unphilosophical a course indicates. — Alb 

 CaUicator. M. S. D. 



Wo ma S3. 



The right education of this sex is of the utmost 

 importonce to human lii'e. There is nothing that ia 

 more desirable for the common good of all the world, 

 Since, 08 mothers and mietret-ses of families, they have 

 for some time the core of the education of their child- 

 ren of both eexes, they are intrusted with that which 

 is of the greatest coneequence to human life. 



As the hcoith and etrenglh, or weakness of cur bo- 

 dies, is \c\Y much owing to their methods of treating 

 ua when we were young ; so the soundness or tolly 

 of our minds is not le-^s owing to their first lempeia 

 and ways of thinking, which we eagerly received from 

 the love, lendernecs, authority and constant conversa- 

 tion of our mothers. 



As we call our first lansuage our mother tongue, so 

 we may as justly coll our brstlempeis mother-tempers; 

 and perhaps it may be found more easy to forget the 

 language than to part entirely with those tempers we 

 learned in the nursery. 



It is therefore t.) l.'C lamented tho*. the eex on whom 

 to much depends, who ha\e the first foiming of our 

 bodies ond minds, are not only educated in pride, but 

 in the silliest and most contemptible part of it. 



Girls are indulged in great vanity, end mankind 

 seem to consider them in no other view than as so 

 many painted idols, who are to allure and gratify their 

 passions. — Lailijs Booh. 



Ucmedy for Snint in Wheat. — About the time of 

 sowing, the wheat intended for seed should fiitt be 

 thoroughly washed, ond then rolled in lime. Aslheie 

 IS a liability of its heating after it is rolled, it thou'd 

 be spiead over a surface large enough to give tbe air 

 free access to the grain, which will prevent such a re- 

 sult. It should be remembered that when the wheat 

 is once smutt'^d, it is apt to be infected with smut in af- 

 ter crops; consequently the process I have mentioned, 

 ought to be pursued liar three or four years in suc- 

 cession. John McConnell, Esq., of Chemung co., 

 N. y., has adopted the obove remedy with entire sue* 

 cess, for several years; ami wilt be bappv to give any 

 information on the subject, if called upon at his farm^ 

 near Foirpori, Chemung co.j New York. — Amcrirnv, 

 Farvtns' Companion "• 



