■CARE OF TOOLS.-BENEFIT OF IRRIGATION.—-A CRAZY FARMER. 
335 
undreds of dollars per annum—their editors and 
publishers foolishly living on hope, which they will 
find to their sorrow will greatly disappoint them in 
the end. These are deplorable facts, and it is ex¬ 
ceedingly mortifying to us to state them ; neverthe¬ 
less, we have at last felt bound in duty to do so with 
all frankness, in order to stop the delusion which ex¬ 
ists on this subject, and save our brethren and those 
ambitious of becoming so, from needless expense, 
and no little labor, care, and vexation. 
From the best data which we can get at, we find 
that not one farmer out of a hundred—take the United 
States over—is a subscriber to an agricultural paper: 
the ninety and nine being bitterly prejudiced against, 
or totally indifferent towards them—as, indeed, we 
will candidly acknowledge they well may be, in 
some instances, when we consider the rank humbugs 
and ill-judged matter with which their columns are too 
often overloaded. If it were not for the gardeners, 
mechanics, merchants, and professional men, who 
mainly support it, our paper could not live a single 
year ! We have more subscribers in this city alone, 
than we have west of Buffalo and the Alleghany 
mountains! 
Shall the great body of the agricultural class be 
then given up to their ignorance* prejudices, and in¬ 
difference ? By no means. On the contrary, change 
your tactics, and endeavour to reach them in a differ¬ 
ent way. There are probably at least 3,000 political, 
literary, and religious papers published in the United 
States ; get a column or two of every one of these to 
be devoted to agriculture, and fill it up as a few al¬ 
ready do, with short, racy articles, such as are best 
calculated to promote the interests of the fanning 
community of that particular section of the country 
where such paper circulates. Incalculable good may 
be effected in this way, and agriculture be’greatly ad¬ 
vanced, instead of being retarded by the change. An-; 
other thing, take measures to properly educate the^ 
rising generation. Every school should be supplied 
with a go*od agricultural periodical, and the master 
be instructed to have its contents daily read and ex¬ 
plained to the higher classes. The best education 
for the farmer’s boy is, to teach him what he is to do 
when he becomes a man, and what is better calculated: 
to effect this than a good agricultural periodical ? 
CARE OF/TOOLS. 
It is too frequent a habit of hundreds of indus¬ 
trious farmers, to allow their wagons, sleds, plows, 
scythes, &c„, &c., to remain out of doors through a 
considerable part of the year. A little more care 
would be equivalent to a great deal of industry. All 
wood on exposure to wet and heat is injured; some 
kinds with great rapidity, others with less. But this 
result is much more rapid when the alternations are 
from wet to dry, and heat to cold, as there is a con¬ 
stant expansion and contraction of the pores of the 
wood, which tends to weaken it and produce decay. 
This result is still more rapidly produced where mor¬ 
tices and tenons exist, as in wagons, sleds, plows, 
&c., where the water gets into the joints. Many 
such articles will wear out more in a single year 
with such exposure, than in four of ordinary use. 
This kind of negligence is inexcusable, because 
easily avoided. A trifling expenditure for covering 
will be sufficient to house any vehicle or tool on 
the farm, which will save to the owner the entire 
cost of the covering every year, in the preservation 
of the tools. 
To prepare them for use, the irons not exposed to 
wear should be covered with a good coating of tar 
applied while warm, or thoroughly painted. The 
wood work should be always painted, or saturated 
with oil. Paint made of white lead is preferable, as 
besides the absorption of the oil by the wood, which 
is a strong preservation to it, the lead and residuum 
of the oil remaining after evaporation, forms a firm, 
dense, impenetrable coating, which is impervious to 
rain and mois.ure. 
Benefit of Irrigation. —A friend of ours in 
Massachusetts, informed us last month, that by 
turning a little rivulet which meanders though his 
farm on to his meadows, he has cut over two 
tons of hay per acre the past year, where, on ac¬ 
count of the drouth, had he not irrigated, he would 
have scarcely cut one ton per acre. He will have 
over 100 tons to sell this year, for which he can 
obtain $22 per ton. How often we have entreated 
the farmers of this country to irrigate their lands, 
we appeal to our back volumes; it is more easily 
done than they are aware of; and if a general sys¬ 
tem of irrigation could be adopted in the United 
States, it would he millions of dollars to their ad¬ 
vantage. 
A crazy"FARMER. 
Among other places which we visited during a 
ramble last summer in Massachusetts, was the magni¬ 
ficent Asylum for the Insane, at Worcester. It is 
still under the superintendence of Dr. Woodward, one 
of the most enlightened and benevolent men of the 
age; and to whom the country is greatly indebted for 
an amelioration of the condition of the insane, and 
introducing a kind system of treating these unfortu¬ 
nates, in place of the harsh and cruel usage to which 
they were formerly the suffering, and, in many in¬ 
stances, the loathsome objects. One of the best 
means he finds for this purpose, is, to employ the 
males on the farm attached to the hospital. As an 
evidence of the safety of this method, he has repeat¬ 
edly trusted four homicides to work together in the 
same field, with axes or scythes in their hands, and 
the slightest accident, or ill temper, or disposition to 
do harm, has never been manifested by them. The 
farm js of considerable extent, and is almost entirely 
cultivated by the inmates of the Asylum. 
Among his patients, Dr. W. had one who became 
exceedingly ambitious of farming upon his own hook. 
At length, the Doctor good-humoredly yielded to his 
importunities, and gave him possession of a field in 
rear of the hospital, on which to expend his eccen¬ 
tricities. The field was in grass, and the surface of 
it slightly descending from the rear of the buildings. 
Near the sides of these he constructed little ponds 
into which he drained the water from the roofs, 
and the urine from the water closets, let it stand 
and well amalgamate a few days, and then he con¬ 
ducted this liquid, quite evenly, by means of nar¬ 
row, shallow ditches, over all his field. The 
result was, that this field yielded six cutting^ 
of grass, of about one ton each per acre—making 
six tons per acre—during the first season ! So 
much for a crazy man’s farming. All we can add, 
is, that we wish there were plenty more such in 
the country. 
