Work for the Month.—*Annual Meeting of the ’ST. Y. Stale Agricultural Society* 
§05 
sible. To those who are out of debt, we 
don’t know but it is as easy to live and make 
money as when produce brought double the 
prices that it now does ; and at any rate, the 
condition of the agricultural class of Ame¬ 
rica is singularly felicitous; and instead of 
repining and longing for things we have not, 
we ought to be grateful to a beneficent Pro¬ 
vidence for those we have, and go on cheer¬ 
fully performing our daily duties, thankful 
that we are enjoying so many blessings. 
Work for the Month. 
Stock —See that your stock are well shel¬ 
tered, well fed, and well watered ; that they 
have plenty of salt once or twice a week; 
let there be small heaps of charcoal or rotten 
wood for your pigs to get at and eat as they 
think proper, and a heap of clay for the sheep 
and horses, and even horned cattle to lick 
and eat in their yards and folds, as long as 
there is snow upon the ground, unless you 
are feeding them with a few roots daily, with 
a little dirt adhering to them. Horses, also, 
should have half a gill of ashes in their food 
once a week; they give the stomach a good 
tone, and are the best preventive against bots 
that we know of; salt is also a good pre¬ 
ventive, and by making free use of these, 
although we have managed horses more or 
less from boyhood, we never yet had them 
suffer in the slightest degree in this way. 
Ashes or lye mixed with the food of pigs, 
in a moderate quantity, are almost a sure 
preventive against the kidney worm. 
Wood. —See that all the wood is cut this 
month for the year’s use, that it may have 
time to season and burn freely, and thus 
enable the good wife to pursue her cooking, 
baking, and boiling, without having her pa¬ 
tience exhausted over a steaming fire, and 
her eyes half put out in a smoky room. 
Manure. —Where the snow is off the 
ground, leaves in the woods can be raked 
up and carried into the stock-yards and sta¬ 
bles for litter, and to increase the manure. 
Mud from the swamps can also be dug and 
put into the manure heaps, and mixed up 
with them; and don’t forget to add a little 
gypsum, or charcoal, so as to fix the am¬ 
monia , and retain it in the heap. Ammo¬ 
nia is the most valuable part of manure, and 
millions of dollars have been lost in this 
country by suffering it to evaporate from the 
dung heap. It is a gas which you cannot 
see, but you can smell it strongly, like the 
spirits of hartshorn, (a carbonate of ammo¬ 
nia,) when you go into a horse stable ; as the 
urine of the horse has a considerable quan¬ 
tity of it in its composition. Now, farmers 
here is a hard scientific term explained, and 
what is more easy than to understand it 1 It 
is certainly as simple as to understand what 
the tire on a cart wheel means. 
Ditching , Draining , and Plowing .—Where 
a milder climate than we have here prevails, 
these can be pursued with success the pre¬ 
sent month. 
All Tools should now be repaired and put 
in complete order; and whatever new ones 
may be wanted for the ensuing season, made 
ready before hand. 
Improve the Mind during these long winter 
evenings, by reading good and useful books 5 
particularly those on the best systems of 
stock-breeding and agriculture. How much 
better it is to be occupied in this, than dosing 
listlessly by the fire, or indulging in frivol¬ 
ous talk, or gadding about in silly company, 
or spouting politics in a bar-room tavern. 
Annual Meeting of the N. Y. Stat^ Agricultural Society. 
The annual meeting of this Society is to 
be held in Albany, on the 20th of this month, 
for the purpose of choosing officers, hearing 
reports, and judging of certain farm products 
and essays. It is an important meeting, and 
we trust that it will be well attended. We 
understand that certain reforms in the man¬ 
ner of judging and reporting on prize ani¬ 
mals and products will be offered at this 
meeting, and we hope they will be carefully 
considered and weighed, and if thought ben¬ 
eficial to the great cause for which this So¬ 
ciety was formed, that they may be adopted. 
Ever since we have attended agricultural 
meetings, we have been dissatisfied with the 
manner in which judgments were formed 
and prizes were awarded ; and have thought 
them, at times, so darkly , arbitrarily, and 
capriciously rendered, that we have been led 
to doubt, now and then, whether the forma¬ 
tion of such societies has not done more 
harm than good. But, upon the whole, the 
good has greatly predominated; yet this 
good may be made still better, increasing 
and increasing, till it has arrived at results 
in all the operations of agriculture and stock- 
breeding, as sure and immutable as the work¬ 
ing out of a t mathematical problem. What 
glory to itself would not a society attain by 
such a course; and that it is attainable, we 
as fully believe as that the sun will rise to¬ 
morrow. We shadowed forth our opinion 
upon these matters in the August number of 
this periodical; and it might not be consider¬ 
ed respectful to the Society, now to pursue 
the subject further. We therefore forbear. 
