The Illinois Farmer 



VOL. YI. 



SPRINGFIELD, MAY 1861. 



XO. 5. 



May. 



The seasons are wheeling their rapid 

 course, and May, with her coronal of vernal 

 flora is again here to make glad the hearts 

 of all — what a promise of plenty it gives to 

 the careful cultivator — what joy to the in- 

 valid who breathes the aroma of flowers^ 

 and looks out upon the green carpet that 

 forms the rich setting of field and lawn. 

 Is there any farmer so sordid, so lost to all 

 love of the beautiful, that he does not en- 

 joy the opening beauties of the floral king- 

 dom, and rejoice in the deep green of the 

 vernal verdure. 



Summer, with all its wealth of leaves, 

 full grown and waving in the noon day sun, 

 is not more beautiful than when May is ex- 

 panding them, to float out upon the morning 

 air, full robed and gorgeous with the rich 

 pencilings that nature with her wonderous 

 art imprints upon the petals that harbinger 

 the embryo fruit; does he see other than 

 dollars and cents waving amid the opening 

 leaves of tlie apple, the peach, the cherry, 

 or the pear ? do the spires of the tillering 

 grain give him ought of pleasure than the 

 contemplation of the heaping measure that 

 their ripened spikelets may fill again and 

 again ? Is there nothing in the roseate 

 hues of. health, of bounding, joyous child- 

 hood, as tiny hands ravish the plants of the 

 beautiful, wherewith to deck the parlor with 

 the greetings of springs ? It cannot be 

 possible that such a man tills the teeming 

 soil of the prairies ; that he would willingly 

 neglect the planting of flowers wherewith 

 to make his home a perpetual spring. And 

 yet, too often the modest request of wife 



and children for flower seed and plants is in 

 this busy season permitted to pass unheeded, 

 and they must plod on amid the waving 

 leaves and rustling grain, yet thousands of 

 homes attest the unpleasant truth that, dur- 

 ing this busy season when the fields are 

 vocal with the glad song of the birds, and 

 the air laden with the aroma of the flaunting 

 flowers, that the time to plant for summer 

 and autumn is passed in dreamy forgetful- 

 ness of our duty. 



We would rouse up this class, and tell 

 them, though too late for many, very many 

 plants that are too much advanced, there 

 are others that can be set, while, for seed, 

 now is just the time. Shall we have the 

 flowers ? We leave it for your answer. 



— Two young men undertook to see which 

 possessed the greatest internal capacity, and to 

 test the matter agreed to „eat raw clams, each 

 to eat until he could hold no more. The victor 

 ate 160; the vanquished hero, gagging at the 

 149 th, when he gave up the contest, remarking 

 that he could eat more, but ^'did not want to 

 make a hog of himself!'''' 



The boy who undertook to suck an egg plant, 

 and was choked by the yolk, has recovered. 



If Noah revisited this earth, he would most 

 probably take up his abode at Newark. 



— Punch says, Yankees are "licensed whit- 

 tlers." 



— Punch says that if ladies will wear hoops, 

 they necessarily make themselves butts. 



Mrs. Partington says there isn't enough of 

 the spirit of seventy-six left to fill up a fluid , 

 lamp. 



The most direct method of determining horse 

 power — Stand behind and tickle his hind legs 

 with a brier. 



