AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Designed to improve all Classes interested in Soil Culture. 
AGRICULTURE IS TIIE MOST HK t .THFUL, THE MOST USEFUL, AND THE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN —Washington 
ORANGE JUDD, A. M., 
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. 
VOL. XVII.—No. 1.] 
U’SSusiiics*. Office at No. 189 Water-st. 
^For Contents, Terms, &c. see page 32. 
quotes to Correspondents, page 27. 
I^For Advertisements, see page 31. 
January. 
Through the hushed air the whiteningshower descends, 
At first thin wavering, till at last the flakes 
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day 
With a continual flow. The cherished fields 
Put on their Winter robe of purest w hite. 
’Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts 
Along the mazy current. Low the woods 
Bow their hoar heads ; and ere the languid sun 
Faint from the west emits his evening ray, 
Earth’s universal face, deep hid, and chill, 
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide 
The works of man.” 
There is something appropriate and beautiful in 
closing the old year and beginning the new, with a 
covering of snow. It is at once a winding sheet for 
the dead past, and a spotless tablet on which to 
write the impressions of the future. All the face 
of nature and the works of man lie entombed un¬ 
der this pure marble surface. The soil of the farm 
is all of one seeming quality, the upland and the 
ewamp, the rough and the smooth, all beautifully 
graded. Even the fences and stone walls are, many 
of them, erased, and one sees how charmingly a 
rolling prairie looks. It puts a new aspect upon 
the whole face of the country. Even the high¬ 
ways are changed, and the merry sleigh bells and 
the loaded wood sleds, pass over meadows and cul¬ 
tivated fields. Deep, narrow vallies are filled up, 
and unsightly brush and brambles, under the walls 
and by the road-side, are concealed. The farm of 
the sloven is for once put in order, and looks neat¬ 
ly. The gaps in his fence, the briars in his fields* 
the thistles and weeds around his house and barns, 
no longer stare us in the face 
The snow, as a winding sheet, is suggestive of 
many profitable lessons to the husbandman. It 
buries up many of his defects that ought to be en¬ 
tirely removed by more thorough and efficient man¬ 
agement. That meadow, where the boulders have 
never been disturbed, is now made smooth by the 
snow. It might be made so by a little gunpowder 
aad labor, and preserve that even surface through 
the year. How much better it would look you can 
qow see. How much better it would be, you would 
have occasion to know for the rest of your days. 
Tlrere are, perhaps, fifty unsightly rocks on every 
square acre, that have always hindered the plow, 
and the scythe, to say nothing of the room they 
have occupied. The expense of removing these 
stones is considerable, but then you gain soil by it, 
both in surface and in depth, and increased facility 
in tillage for a life-time. The clearing up of an 
acre of rocky land, is equivalent to a good sub-soil¬ 
ing in most cases, and it makes that operation com¬ 
paratively easy whenever the land is taken up for 
hoed crops. These are important items to be de¬ 
ducted from the expense of clearing. Then the age 
of the mowing machine has arrived, and you cannot 
mmumm m m%. 
avail yourself of its great advantages until the 
meadow is cleaned up. 
Now the snow has obliterated that long line of 
bushes, brakes and briars, under the wall, that have 
so long robbed you of the use of the richest 
strip of land in your fields. Here foul 
weeds and vermin have nestled, grass could not 
grow, of, if it did, neither cow nor scythe could ap¬ 
proach it. You see how much better the fences 
look with this nuisance abated. Now it is not ex¬ 
pensive to make clean work with these brush under 
the walls. A bush scythe and the grub hoe will 
finish them in a single season. You want the room 
they occupy, and the rich soil that always gathers 
under the fences. 
Absurd as it may seem, there are farmers that 
plead for bushes and rocks. The former afford a 
delicate browse for the cattle, and the latter retain 
heat and moisture for the land. They prefer land 
with the rocks in it,—have perhaps seen land 
spoiled by taking the rocks out of it. Of course, if 
you add one-eighth, or one-tenth, to the surface of a 
field by removing stones, and if you bring a large 
amount of subsoil to the surface by the digging, 
you increase the demand for manure, and if the de¬ 
mand be not met, the yield may not be as great the 
first year after the operation. But let this demand 
be generously met, and the thoroughly-loosened 
and deepened soil will give you a better return for 
manure and labor, than you ever received before. 
But the snow has completely covered those 
fences that divide a part of your mowing lots. Three 
fields are thrown into one, and you have a ten- 
acre field. How much time would you save in til¬ 
lage if that arrangement were made permanent ? 
It is a great vexation to cultivate corn or potatoes 
in small-walled lots, where the rows are hardly a 
dozen rods long, and nearly half the time of your 
man and horse is occupied in turning about at the 
ends. The mowing machine and the horse rake 
can never flourish in such circumscribed quarters. 
How much labor has been lost in fencing these 
small lots ? The snow is a great leveller, and its 
example should be followed in demolishing many 
of these useless fences. 
The swamps are now bridged and made solid. 
You can drive your team to any part of ifeem with 
perfect safety. What a convenience it would be if 
those floating acres could be anchored, and always 
be placed under your control; if they could be 
made solid, so that the plow, rather than the water, 
should invade their fertile bosom. There they have 
remained for ages the receptacle of the riches of 
your farm, nourishing nothing but reptiles and 
coarse grasses. How beautiful they would look 
ditched and drained, luxuriant with clover, and 
nodding with the plumes of herd’s grass. Shall art 
do the work of frost, and make those acres solid in 
Summer ? 
The husbandman is not merely a tiller of the 
soil. He sustains other relations, and this covering 
of snow should remind him of other duties. How 
kind >«= Nature in bestowing this mantle upon the 
$1.00 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE. 
SINGLE NUMBERS tO CENTS. 
earth in this inclement season! The lowly plants 
that nestle in the woods, the grasses and the tender 
shrubs, are all sheltered from the fierce winds and 
the cutting cold. Beneath the banks along the 
fences, the ground hardly freezes. Multitudes of 
plants, that would otherwise perish, are only in¬ 
vigorated by their hybernation, and are prepared to 
burst forth into new life and beauty with the open¬ 
ing Spring. She has forecast, and sees, that 
though she needs not these plants now, she will 
need them in the future. Thus they are sheltered 
and saved. 
There are tender plants in the human family that 
will need shelter this Winter. Whatever the hus¬ 
bandman’s circumstances, he should not forget the 
poor around him. He will need them in the fu¬ 
ture if he does not now. A little labor furnished 
now, or charity if needed, will bring warmth and 
comfort to their homes, and carry them through 
the Winter safely. 
“ In such a world, so thorny, and where none 
Finds happiness unblighted , or, if found, 
Without some thistly sorrow at his side ; 
It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin 
Against the law of love, to measure lots 
With less distinguished than ourselves ; that thus 
We may with patience bear our moderate ills 
And sympathize with other’s suffering more.” 
Gratitude for all that Providence has done for him, 
should prompt the farmer to befriend the poor. 
But the snow is a spotless tablet, as well as a 
covering. So is this new year upon which we have 
entered. It is a blank now, but is all to be filled 
up with busy thoughts, words and deeds. What 
shall be written upon these unsoiled pages ? What 
new improvements shall be introduced upon the 
farm, and what old ones shall be prosecuted with 
new vigor ? Whose heart does not swell with hope 
and with a generous ambition, to make only fair 
marks upon the coming days and months. In our 
secular affairs, as in our spiritual, it will quite like¬ 
ly be unto us according to our faith. The faith that 
works persistently and with energy, will, in due 
time, transform barren acres into fertile meadows, 
rocky pastures into smooth fields, and miry swamps 
into solid land. It will realize in more glowing 
colors than we have painted. 
As we look over our books we find n any names 
against which have been written during the past 
year that ominous word “ Deceased.” And how 
many more of the Agriculturist family, unreportpd 
to us, have since this day twelve months, 
fallen in life’s battle field. This year will bear the 
same record. Of the thirty thousand or more, 
regular readers who begin the volume with Us, in 
all probability a thousand or more will fall by the 
way-side in the year upon which we are now en¬ 
tering. No one of us can say it will not be I. 
Let us, then, start now on a new course of life, 
resolved to spend this year as if assured that it is 
to be our last. If we do this, however the event 
may prove, it will truly be, what we now heartitj 
wish to every reader, 
A HAPPY NEW-YEAR 
NEW-YORK, JANUARY, 1858. [new series-No. 132 . 
