234 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
IWritten in June, for July number—but crowded out.] 
A Rainy Day- 
“ If it would but stop raining ! Rain— rain — 
rain,” says the nervous impatient farmer, tlie 
suburban gardener, and the country amateur. 
“ Why, our crops and vegetables, and flowers, are 
all spindling up to nothing, and no sun to strength¬ 
en, and give them substance !” Well, good 
friends, that may all be so ; but why complain 1 
The rain falleth both on the just and unjust. Our 
seeds in the end took well, the growth of our 
plants is vigorous, and the harvest shall not fail, 
for which hopeful truth we have the highest au¬ 
thority. Your work may be getting behind—ours 
has been. The crops .may spindle up out. of due 
pioportion, but all will come right ere long, and 
before the harvest has fairly set in, sunshine and 
heat will have done their office, and the Summer’s 
growth will be garnered in its usual fullness and 
perfection. Of all these, therefore, take no heed 
for the morrow. 
A rainy day, or a succession, of them, we know 
hangs heavy on the hands of a man who loves 
nis fields better than his house, barn, or work¬ 
shop. But rainy weather need not be idle weath¬ 
er, even with him. Read, write, enjoy your 
Tiends, or do some in-door work. Recollect, 
meanwhile, that the clouds and rain, even when 
you think you have too much of them, are doing 
you more service than a score of hands under a 
fervid sun, or a pinching drouth. Good farmers 
rarely suffer from over abundant rains, unless on 
a river bottom with flooding waters. Ditches 
carry off the surplus, while the ammonia, which 
comes with the rain, fertilizes the earth, strength¬ 
ens the plants, and prepares them for the genial 
warmth of the sun soon to follow. 
For our part we love to sit in our porch and see 
the falling shower on the lifting grass, or the grow¬ 
ing corn, be it wheat, or maize. How softly the 
vegetation drinks it in, and after it is over, it re¬ 
vives into renewed freshness and beauty ! At 
such times we think upon the withering, contin¬ 
uous drouths which in other years, for weeks in 
succession have parched our pastures, and mead¬ 
ows, and grain fields ; how our cattle and sheep 
have sweltered with heat under the almost crisp 
leaves of the trees which gave them no relief from 
the broiling sun. Day after day has the brassy 
sun risen and set without a cloud, and man and 
beast lay down exhausted, while the poor wilted 
crops, neither half grown, nor giving promise of 
ever filling for harvest, were almost as ready for 
the faggot as for the scythe, or sickle. Let us re¬ 
member our days of privation, when a driving 
shower, or a continuous rain would bless millions 
of people and add millions to our stores, and be 
thankful that a superintending Providence, wiser 
than all mortals put together, is dealing blessings 
upon us that we little wot ofin this hour of com¬ 
plaining. 
Our readers may call this moralizing. Be it so. 
But we have little reason to find fault with the 
weather. We have extremes, we know. How¬ 
ever, the present season has been on the whole, 
a good one. Our Spring was early, yet cool, with 
perhaps a surplus of rain, and not as unfavorable 
for seeding as many preceding ones. Our crops 
promise fairly. We shall, with present prospects, 
have full barns and granaries. Food will be 
abundant—labor plenty, and cheap enough. We 
have had our reverses, too, in past years. Ex¬ 
tremes of the season have followed each other 
In the past three or four years, more than is 
their usua' wont. They have raised prices almost 
to a Lunine scale, and depressed them to a non¬ 
producing noint. We now hope for an equili¬ 
brium—a parallel of production and consumption 
which will give courage to the farmer, and con¬ 
fidence to his purchaser. A rainy day, or a suc¬ 
cession of them may be profitably spent, at odd 
spells, cyphering out the various problems in po¬ 
litical economy. 
-— w a (p»i - > o . 
Observing Farmers- 
It is hardly to be expected that all farmers will 
be able to write for the press, or to speak in pub¬ 
lic assemblies. With some, their early education 
has, perhaps, been so deficient as to forbid it; 
and with others, their incessant and toilsome la¬ 
bors make it almost impossible for them to give 
time and thought to such things. Every man who 
labors hard daily in any calling, knows that when 
night overtakes him his body is wearied, and his 
mind sympathizes with it and craves rest. And 
the difficulty of writing grows with tho disuse of 
it. Hence it comes to pass that some of our best 
farmers seldom put pen to paper for the sake of 
writing agricultural essays. And it must be con¬ 
fessed, on the other hand, that some farmers who 
drive the quill for the papers, hold the plow with 
a very slack hand. 
It is said that a certain eminent statesman of 
Pennsylvania, who wrote many valuable papers 
on agriculture, was often called upon by his ad¬ 
miring readers, expecting to see on his own lands 
a practical exemplification of his writings. What 
was their surprise to see gates with broken hinges, 
plows, harrows and hoes lying about in disorder, 
and barns and fences out of repair. They made 
bold to express their astonishment to the learned 
farmer, when his Honor replied : 
“ Why, gentlemen, do you expect me to write 
and work too !” And so, it can hardly be ex¬ 
pected that practical farmers should do much in 
the way of writing for publication. Few men 
can do more than one thing thoroughly. 
Yet, we think that farmers make too little use 
of stormy weather and of the leisure of Winter for 
reading and writing. What if they can not pro¬ 
duce essays as learned as Liebig’s, and polished 
as Macaulay’s, they yet can contribute something 
valuable to the stock of human knowledge. Every 
intelligent farmer is an observer. He sees some¬ 
thing, almost every day, that is worthy of putting 
on record for his own use, if not for the benefit of 
others. He learns something both by success and 
ill fortune, which ought not to be lost. Should not 
this habit of observation be cultivated 1 Would 
it not add much of interest to the routine of farm- 
life 1 And if all cannot prepare their notes of ob¬ 
servation in finished style for the press, let them 
communicate their knowledge orally in Farmers’ 
Clubs, and let them send extracts from their jour¬ 
nals to the editors of agricultural papers, who 
would make good use of their observations. 
And let us add in behalf of the editorial frater¬ 
nity, that we always desire to have plain, straight¬ 
forward details of practice. If well written, with 
the main facts stated in condensed, clear style, it 
is labor saved to us, but this is not essential. No 
matter how ungrammatically written, this is all 
straightened out before the type setters get 
hold of a letter, and errors in communications are 
known only to the editors. 
----—-E-S-W--- 
A physician once advised Sydney Smith to “ take 
a walk upon an empty stomach.” “ Whose sto¬ 
mach 1” asked the wit. 
“ See-Saw.” —“ Well,,” said a carpenter, “ of all 
the saws ever I saw, I never saw a saw saw as I 
saw that saw saw.” 
Mules and Hinnies. 
If we should ask the youngest farmer on oui 
list of subscribers, “What is a mulel” he would 
reply at once that, he is “ a hybrid or cross, be¬ 
tween the horse and the ass.” And he would be¬ 
gin to .look at our ears, as if the asking so sim¬ 
ple a question indicated that we were akin to 
the last named animal. Yet it is not certain that 
everybody could answer our question ; and fewer 
still could tell us that there are two distinct ani¬ 
mals, both the progeny of the horse and ass, one 
of which is, and the other is not, a mule. The 
offspring of a male ass and female horse is the 
genuine mule. The offspring of a male horse (stal¬ 
lion) and a female ass is a hinny. The English 
word hinny is derived from the Latin verb hinnio, 
to neigh, which was used by t'he Romans to desig¬ 
nate a point of difference between the two ani¬ 
mals—the hinny neighs while the mule brays. 
Nor is this the only difference. The general ap¬ 
pearance of the mule is like that of the ass, 
while the hinny more resembles the horse ; and 
the temper of the two is likewise different. 
The mule has long ears, like its sire, 
though a little shortened, out of respect to its 
dam. The mule has also a rope-like tail, 
with a tuft at the end ; and a long head, (though 
not a very profound thinker); a thin thigh, erect 
frame, slender legs and hoofs, and the unmelodi- 
ous voice of the sire. 
The hinny has a smaller and better shaped 
head, flowing mane and tail, shorter hair, and 
larger frame, legs and feet than the mule. The 
hinny has also the voice of the horse. 
Considering the wonderful endurance of the 
mule, its comparative freedom from disease, and 
faculty of keeping in good condition on the cheap¬ 
est food, we wonder that this animal is not more 
commonly used at the North for all kinds of farm 
and team-work. At the South, the mule is the 
common drudge. The hinny is hardier than the 
horse, more patient, and will bear harder usage, 
yet -is inferior in these respects to the ass and 
mule. 
- m a a -»-»- 
The Foot of a Horse. 
The human hand has often been taken to illus¬ 
trate Divine wisdom—and very well. But 
have you ever examined your horse’s foot 1 It is 
hardly less curious, in its way. Its parts are 
somewhat complicated, yet their design is simple 
and obvious. The hoof is not, as it appears to the 
careless eye, a mere solid lump of insensible bone, 
fastened to the leg by a joint. It is made up of a 
series of thin layers, or leaves of horn, about 
five hundred in number, nicely fitted to each other 
and forming a lining to the foot itself. Then there 
are as many more layers belonging to what is 
called the “coffin-bone,” and fitted into this. 
These are elastic. Take a quire of paper, and 
insert the leaves, one by one, into those of ano¬ 
ther quire, and you will get some idea of the ar¬ 
rangement of these several layers. Now, the 
weight of the horse rests on as many elastic 
springs as there are layers in his four feet—about 
four thousand—and all this is contrived, not only 
for the easy conveyance of the horse’s own 
body, but of human bodies, and whatever burdens 
may be laid upon him. 
• --«—* W m * O * 
Good wheat sown never changes to cheat or 
tares; but “ wild oats ” sown in youth always 
does so. 
Let rebukes always be soft words, with hard 
arguments. 
