138 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[April, 
basket will be more or less oval. Having ar- 
ranged the hoops, take the willow rods and 
weave them, as in figure 2. As the semi-circle 
enlarges, insert the ribs, bent as shown in figure 
3, and of such size and form as to regulate the 
shape or contour of the basket, as shown at d, 
d, figure 4. The splints, if well soaked, can be 
easily bent into any shape. "Weave willows 
among these ribs or hoops — it being simply 
done — out and in, out and in, until the semi- 
circle reaches down the side of the basket to 
about the dotted line (fig. 4). Then com- 
mence on the ends of the basket and weave wil- 
lows down the ends and along the bottom, as 
seen on the right hand end 
at e, (fig. 4,) putting in more 
of the ribs (fig. 3), if the work 
is large and consequently 
open. "When )'ou have the 
ends and sides well woven, 
the basket is finished, so far 
as strength is concerned. 
You can not pull it apart. 
But there will be gores or 
vacant spots left. Fill these 
Fig. 3 - up with weaving, and your 
basket is done.— It matters little where a wil- 
low ends, provided it does not end at the top 
without going round the upper hoop. The wet 
willow twigs will bend easily and take any 
form, and yet when dry they will be bard and 
stiff, and can not be unwoven. Push the sev- 
eral layers of willow close together and pull 
them tight, and they will hold very firmly. 
After the basket is dry, trim off all straggling 
ends with a sharp knife. A little practice, and 
perhaps the spoiling of a few baskets made with 
materials that are quite cheap, will enable you 
to make an article worth a dozen of what you 
Fig. 4. 
can buy. Do not give it up if you cannot make 
a neat job at first. A little care and patience, 
with a modium of practice, will set you all right. 
[Several kinds of willow may be employed. 
The common white and yellow willows answer 
very well, but the basket osiers are superior on 
account of the slenderness of the rods. The 
white willow rods are strong and pliable, but 
not so delicate and long. When peeled and 
bleached with the fumes of burning sulphur, 
very beautiful work may be produced. Rods 
for basket making are best cut in the autumn, 
for the good of the stock, but may be cut for 
use at anytime after they are sufficiently grown, 
and before they branch in the spring. — Ed.] 
Investing in the Farm. 
Leonard D. Cliff, of Carmel, Putnam Co., 
one of the best farmers New York has ever 
produced, was wont to say of his own course 
in life: " I have pursued a different policy from 
farmers generally. Some of them have skinned 
their farms, brought up their children in igno- 
rance, given little or nothing in charity, and 
have reached old age with barren farms, un- 
cultured children, and narrow views of life, but 
they have cash in bank ! On the contrarj', my 
surplus earnings have gone to enrich my farm, 
until it is callable of yielding an abundant sup- 
port; my children have been educated, and now 
occupy respectable positions in society. I have 
felt it a privilege to give in charity; my tablehas 
been bountifully supplied, and my house open 
to the stranger. All this I have, but not money 
in bank ; and I am satisfied with my choice." 
He went to his rest on the 9th of September 
last, at the age of 73 — patriot, sage, counsellor 
and friend, leaving his beautiful homestead and 
his good works as his fitting monument. This 
farm was the work of his lifetime, and we wish 
to commend to our readers that sound policy 
which made his one of the model farms of the 
Empire State. It took the premium in 1855 
as one of the best grazing farms, and the report 
of the Visting Committee may be found in the 
Transactions of the State Ag. Soc.for that year. 
He reprobated that policy of skinning the 
soil which, we are sorry to say, has been the 
prevailing style of husbandry even in the North 
and East, and which is still the worst feature 
of farming all over the country. Men have 
no faith in the capacity of the soil to reward 
them for the labor and money they expend upon 
it. They get a good crop of grain or roots 
from the land, and instead of investing the 
proceeds in more manure, more improvements 
or more stock, they invest in more land or more 
bank stock. Many a man has pursued this 
course with his farm until its fertility has been 
almost exhausted. He has transferred all its 
fatness to the bank, and it will not now sustain 
ten animals so well as it would fifty, fifty years 
ago. He may have grown rich in money by 
the process, but his farm is ruined. Go through 
the older farming districts of any of our sea- 
board States, and we doubt if the majority of 
the farms will carry the stock the}' grazed and 
fattened two generations back. They have lost 
so much in fertility that not even the improved 
tools and husbandry of the present day can 
make them pay so well as they did then. 
The Carmel farmer had faith in his business, 
and felt that his surplus earnings were safer and 
better invested in the soil, under his own man- 
agement, than in the bank, under the manage- 
ment of others. He literally cast his bread not 
only upon the land, but upon the waters of his 
farm, not doubting that it would return again. 
He put money into dams and sluice ways ; 
and the brook that had run to waste for ages 
was turned over his meadows, and set every 
blade of grass it fertilized to coining money for 
him. He demonstrated that irrigation alone 
would keep up the fertility of meadows, im- 
proving the quality and increasing the quantity 
of the grass. He gave us one of the best con- 
ducted experiments in irrigation — worth millions 
to the State, if his example were only faithfully 
followed. The stream that was barren to oth- 
ers became a Pactolus for him, flowing over 
sands of gold. He had faith in drains, and the 
rough land was cleared of its stones, and sluice 
ways for the passage of water were formed be- 
neath the surface, making the drained field of 
fourfold value for all its future history. He be- 
lieved in improved stock and invested largely 
in it both for milk and beef. He expected to 
get more milk and more beef from a given num- 
ber of cattle, from the fact that they bad been 
bred respectively for those qualities; and he 
succeeded in his object. He had faith in home- 
made manures, and worked his muck mines, 
and turned the stable, stye and barn-yard to 
good account. He brought up a rough farm, 
worth less than five thousand dollars, to a valu- 
ation of fifty thousand. He claimed that it 
would pay the interest on that, well mauaged ; 
and that perhaps is the best test of value. 
We believe this course — investing in the farm 
rather than in the bank — is belter both for the 
farmer and for society. It is certainly much 
safer ; for banks fail much more frequently than 
well managed farms. The dividends of the 
latter never fail entirely. The good, substantial 
living, and the comfortable home are always 
secure. It makes better society, farming be- 
comes an improving and improvable art, and 
intelligence is as much a growth of the pursuit 
as farm products are of the soil. It puts the 
farmer's capital into his business, where he 
needs it, and where he can manage it himself. 
He ventures everything upon his business, lives 
wholly by it while he lives, and at death hands 
over a cultivated homestead and a living busi- 
ness to his heirs. This policy glorifies hus- 
bandry and hastens the Agricultural Millennium. 
"We look with longing for the dawn of that day. 
Stone Fences. 
In some regious a stone wall is the. cheapest 
fence that can be made. In many respects, too, 
it is the best for farm purposes. It has a look 
of honest stability that is truly pleasing, but 
is rarely advisable, except where adjoining 
fields will furnish stones enough to inclose them, 
and the fields will be greatly improved, by 
their removal. Every wall will tumble down- 
some time or other. On springy soils, draining 
is indispensable. A trench should be dug a foot 
or more deep with plow and scraper. Then draw 
the larger stones for the foundation, and dump 
them in the trench, which will save much band- 
lifting. Afterwards draw the smaller, scattering 
them along the entire line. Of course, the stones 
should be laid so as to bind as much as possible, 
and inclining inwards somewhat. If practicable, 
find enough flat stones to cover. the top of the 
fence, and help to throw off the rain, and to 
prevent Jack Frost from tearing it into pieces. 
Majs t gel-"Wuktzels foe Sheep.— " Will it 
pay in Missouri to raise mangels to feed sheep 
when good ha} 7 may be put up for §2.00 per 
ton and corn i3 worth 40 cents per bushel ? " 
No — unless you can feed them off on the ground. 
If so, yes ; for then you will manure your land 
at the same time for a good crop of corn to fol- 
low, or for some other crop perhaps, and so 
doubly save and doubly gain. You will save 
the labor of harvesting the crop and of making 
and hauling out manure ; you will gain the 
clearing of the land of weeds, if the crop is well 
attended to, and the value of the roots as feed, 
besides the security of not placing all your de- 
pendence for winter fodder on hay and corn, 
and the introduction of something like a sensible 
system of rotation, which is a gain all round. 
