164 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
of a quandary) whether their son, on whom 
they thought as all parents generally do, espe- 
cially if they have but one, was not rather too 
good for farming. He used to loiter about the 
bar-roora when his lather tried the suits before 
him, and he had picked up a good many legal 
phrases Iro n the smart young attorneys who 
used to spout there. He could tell what was a 
“ cause of action," whether the “case should 
be brought as an action of tort, or an action of 
froner,” or simply “as an action on the case.” 
But though often thinking about it, and rather 
urged by his ambitious parents, he found so 
many hard words in looking into B’.acksiune, 
the “ Pons osinoriim” of all :egal aspirants, that 
he concluded he would not attempt it. His 
friends afterwards thought it a great pity, as if 
he had only got into practice, the law w’ould 
give him hi's fees, whether he rendered any ser- 
vice to his client or not. Other friends equally 
lamented he did not take hold of medicine, for 
which he at one time had quite an inclination, 
but from which he was deterred by an indolent 
and unsuccessful attempt a' mastering the tech- 
nical names of disea.ses and their remedies, in 
that horn-book of young Galena, the Dispensa- 
ry ; as they said, “ if he only got a run of cus- 
tom, he was sure to pocket his fees, as no man 
living could tell what kind of medicine hegives. 
if his patients got well in spite of the medicine, 
be was a first rate doctor, and if they didn’t, 
’iwas the fauH of the disease; and as for a trial for 
mal-practice, it must be decided by the doctcs 
themselves, and it they gave it against him, they 
would be the losers, as it would unsettle confi- 
dence in the profession. But if he went to farm- 
ing, and didn’t plant and sow right, and do his 
harvesting at the proper time, or let his cattle 
die of disease or neglect, he would have to bear 
the loss himself, as the law didn’t compel his 
customers, in that case, to pay him for what he 
didn’t sell them.” In short, before they were 
thirty, Thrifty and Unthrifty had at last got on 
the same platform or level, lor Tom had by this 
time paid up for his farm, and had it well stock- 
ed, and was entirely out of debt. 
Thrifty's Parming . — But the see-saw did not 
stop when it brought them to this position, for 
Tom kept going up while Josey kept going 
down. His father could not help him anymore, 
as he had only enough left to carry him and 
his wife through the world, while Tom had the 
pros^ct of getting some money from his fa- 
ther’s estate, who had lately died and left a snug 
property. But the great difference was in their 
own management. Thrifty’s plowing was al- 
ways done in the right time, his crops were in 
early, and they were harvested as soon as ready 
to cut; his manure was always carried out and 
spread on the ground ; his orchards were well 
planted and grafted with the best fruits, and he 
soon had the choicest to sell, which being better 
than his neighbors, always commanded a high 
price, besides supplying his own family with 
all they could use. The orchard was indeed 
one of the most profitable things of his farm. 
His tempting ripe peaches, with bread and 
milk, made a luscious meal for himself and his 
little ones. The rich sweet apples and baking 
pears, when cooked without any addition of 
sugar or molasses, was “ sauce” good enough 
for a king ; and it is hardly going beyond the 
truth to say, that it saved him a barrel of pork a 
year, besides giving him a luxury which any 
one might envy. His garden was always the 
best, for he chose a good spot for it, manured it 
abundantly, had its seeds in early, and what 
was best of all, he usually spent a half hour in 
it with his hoe before the dew was off, by which 
he secured an early, rapid growth, and his gar- 
den made up a third of his summer’s living, be- 
sides giving good vegetables through the win- 
ter. His cows were well chosen and well fed, 
and were another great help to his living. Be- 
sides this, his wife made butter and cheese 
enough to buy all the groceries, which dM not 
come to much, as they made thei rown maple-su- 
gar and molasses, and used little tea or coffee and 
no spirits or wine. His sheep have good fleeces 
and lambs. The last gave them choice mutton 
whenever they wanted fresh meat, and besides ' 
they occasionally sold some to the butcher, and 
having got a good name for fine lambs, they al- 
ways brought a large price. His wife made 
her own stocking yarn, and home-made flannel, 
and put out the remainder of the wool on shares 
to be worked into satinet.^, and lulled cloth, and 
flannel, so that theii half not only furnished 
what they wanted lor their own u-e, but gave 
them some besides to pay theirhired men. His 
fences were always up, and he never suffered 
from the depredations of his own or neighbors’ 
cattle. His children were punctual at school, 
and the whole lamily as punctual at church. 
All were neat and tidy, for Mrs. Thrifty was as 
busy and managing within, as he was without, 
and as was to have been guessed, Thrilty made 
rapid progress in “getting on in ihe w'orld.” 
Jos<y's Farming . — With .losey, eras we must 
nowdignify him, Mr. Unthrifiy, things were quite 
different. He was going down-hill w hile Thrit- 
ly was going up; yet he took it as easy as he 
used to do liis whippings atschool, and thought 
himself equally as liiile to blame now as then; 
in short, “ it was all his luck,” as he used to say. 
His fences were seldom all up at the same 
time; and when they were repaired, which was 
never done till the last minute, they were just 
hitched together, so that the first unruly ox that 
came along, w'ould tumble it over if he squinted 
very hard at the dwindled, stunted crops, grow- 
ing on the other side. Indeed,ihe poverty strick- 
en appearance of the crops more olten prevented 
depredation than the fences themselves. He 
got up late, had his breakfast late, and never 
went out to work before he ate it. By this lime 
the dew was off, and none of it wms hoed into 
the ground, or moistened the grass to make the 
scythe cut easier. He plowed late, sowed late, 
planted late, and harvested late; but he had one 
great advantage in all this, for he had so little 
to gather, that it never took a great while to se- 
cure his crops; or if the storms, snow, or ice 
did get them at last, he always consoled him- 
self with the idea, “that really he hadn’t lost 
much — they were hardly worth gathering,” He 
bad a very good orchard on his farm ten years 
before, thanks to the owner who preceded him, 
but the wind had broken off some of the branch- 
es, and for want of trimming, the b''oken and 
dead limbs had rotted down to the trunks, and 
made the bodies quite rotten, and the fruit itself 
had become stunted and wormy, and didn’t bear 
any ; and the lew it bore, were only fit lor the 
hogs, which, for the want of suitable attention, 
matched verv well with the apples. These he 
had procured by years of breeding, peculiar to 
many of the farmers. He always killed the 
best pigs because they were fattest, and as soon 
as he got one into the pen that would not fat at 
all, he said she w’ould have pigs just as well as 
any otliers, and ’twas a pity "to save them, as 
they were worth something for pork. His sheep 
were neglected and got the scab. He consoled 
himself by denouncing the whole flock as a 
misbegotten race, and unworthy his regard, and 
turned them on to the common, where the 
dogs and crows soon removed both sheep 
and scab together. His cattle became poor 
from short allowance and want of attention, 
and as misery loves company, poverty was soon 
followed by lice, and thinking them too degene- 
rate for the attention of a man of his expecta- 
tions, he called thrm a lousy, drivelling i ace of 
Pharaoh’s lean kine, and traded them off for 
anything he could get in exchange, old mus- 
kets, fish-nets, and a trooper’s second-hand ri 
H is house was leaky, and wanted shingling, 
but in rainy weather he couldn’nt go out to 
do it, and when it was fair he didn’t want it ; 
so his wife was taken sick from damp rooms, 
his children had the scarlet fever, and he got 
a confirmed rheumatism which lasted him for 
life. As we have not room for any further 
particulars of the history of Thrifty and Un- 
thrifty, the remair der shall be reserved for the 
American A griidf.ural Almanac, for 1847. 
By boiling and skimming molasses you may 
make it nearly as good as sugar for cooking. 
Analysis of Soils. 
From thcMafsachusetls Plo'S’man. 
We copy the following from the published 
transactions of the New' York Agricultural So- 
ciety, a copy of which was recently sent us by 
the officers of that Institution. We are inform- 
ed, in a note, that this was the last production 
of the lamented Willis Gaylord, w’ho died in 
March, 1844. 
“Ever since the revival of chemistry, and 
particularly since its importance in its applica- 
tion to agriculture became known, experiments 
have been making todetermine the character of 
the soils, their pow'er of production, and the 
causes of their varying fertility, by a chemical 
e.xamination of their constituents. That soils 
varied much in their adaptation to particular 
plants, was a fact perfectly obvious to all; for 
instance, that oats would succeed well on soils 
where wheat could not be grown, w'as a fact fa- 
miliar to every' farmer, and it was desirable to 
ascertain, if possible, the reasons of this non- 
adaptation, so far as it existed in the soil. It 
was found also, that certain plants of different 
species, wheat and clover for example, delighted 
in the same soil, and in their production could 
be strviceable to each other; anu chemical 
analysis was resorted to in order to determine 
the cause of this affinity. There certainly ap- 
peared to he externally no good reason w by this 
difference in the character or productive quali- 
ties of these soils should exist, and the separa- 
tion or reducing them to their ori 'inal elements 
promised much in solution of these difficulties. 
Sir Humphrey Davy, whose discov< ries in 
chemistry were so extensive and brilliant, was 
one of the first to enter the field of agriculiural 
chemistry, and in the importance and value of 
his labors can scarcely be said to have been ex- 
ceeded by any of the numerous able men that 
have follow'ed in the same course of inve.stiga- 
tion. New paths have indeed been struck out, 
new processes adopted, many errors corree'ed, 
many new and importam results been obtained, 
and the sphere of agricultural chemistry aston- 
ishingly simplified as well as extended, yet the 
honor of being the pioneer in this direction of 
science, as well as one of the able.-^t that have 
labored in this field, belongs to the English phi- 
losopher. Chapial, in France; Liebig and 
Sprengel, in Germany ; Johnston, in England : 
and Dana, in this country, have all been suc- 
cessful investigators in this department of sci- 
ence, and Liebig and Johnston, by the exient 
and success of their interrogaiicns of Nature, 
have given to agricultural chemistry almost the 
aspect of a new science. 
“ It was early found that the perfect analysis 
of soils, required a more thorough acquaintance 
with chemical proce.sses, and a more extensive 
and costly laboratory, than could be generally 
expected, and that a multitude of ihe original 
elements of soils were present in such small 
quantities, or under such circumstances, as to 
show they could be scarcely es.sential to the suc- 
cess of the crops usually grown by the farmer ! 
and their total absence in some cases or their 
presence in the smallest appreciable quantities, 
proved that such was the case. The more im- 
portant original elements, however, those which 
the analysis of the plants themselves, as well 
as of the soil producing them, proved to be es- 
sential to their perfection, was found in such 
quantities, and so easily determined, as to ren- 
der a general knowledge of the soil— that knowl- 
edge so essential to the practical farmer-^of 
comparative easy acquisition. The processes 
for ordinary analysis have accordingly within 
a few years been much simplified and improved, 
so as to be within the power of almost any one 
who chooses to undertake the task of investiga- 
ting the character of the soils he cultivates ; 
while the more delicate processes necessary for 
a refined and perfect analysis are left lor the 
laboratory of the professed chem.isl. 
“ Cultivated soils are composed of certain 
earths, salts and vegetable matter, and as a gen- 
eral rule it may be stated that in the temperate 
zones, and under ordinary circumstances, the 
