AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Q67 
removed. There are rocks and stumps in the 
way of the plow and the mower. These fields are 
cleaned up. Again, the swamps and low lands 
need drainage. The tiles are laid down, and tracts 
of land that were a nuisance are turned into fruit¬ 
ful meadows. He studies the capabilities of his 
farm, as he becomes acquainted with it, and turns 
them to the best advantage. He transfers the 
farm in his mind to the acres around him. Such 
a cultivator is an artist, as much so as he who 
carves in wood or stone. There is as much room 
for genius and for fame in this work, as there is 
in the cultivation of the fine arts so called. For, 
alas ! good farmers, who are true to their calling, 
and ennoble it, are even more scarce than poets, 
painters and sculptors. Diogenes hopes to live 
to see the day, when the proper definition of a 
farmer shall be —a Soil Artist. Now he is too 
often an unskillful dauber in mud. He defaces, 
and murders the soil, which he should beautify and 
improve. He has no model farm in his brain, and 
for that reason he never has one elsewhere. 
--- — -»-o- 
Old Time Agriculture in America- 
INTERESTING REMINISCENCES. 
Our New England fathers pursued farming un¬ 
der difficulties of which we have little concep¬ 
tion. The country from which they emigrated 
was further advanced in civilization, and better 
tilled than any then on the globe ; and this they 
exchanged for one entirely new to them, and for 
a soil and climate unlike those of which they had 
before some experience. Thrown into a savage 
wilderness, their knowledge of farming on the 
smooth plains of the old country would avail them 
but little. Almost everything must be learned 
anew, and their knowledge of farming in America 
must be acquired by slow and painful experience. 
Who will wonder, then, that their progress was 
slow 1 Rather, let us wonder that they did not 
succumb to the difficulties and hardships. 
The early settlers had no beasts of burden for 
many months after their arrival. And when at 
length a few cows were sent over, being poorly fed 
on coarse meadow hay, many of them drooped and 
died, and others surviving this, were killed by the 
wolves or the Indians. Besides, the difficulty 
and cost of importation were then so great, as to 
raise their price above the means of ordinary 
farmers. In the year 1636, cows sold from twenty- 
five to thirty pounds sterling, $125 to $150, and 
oxen at forty pounds a pair. The cattle, too, were 
greatly inferior to those of the present day. The 
ox was small and ill-shaped, and the horse very 
unlike the noble dray-horses of Boston and Bal¬ 
timore of the present day, and the sheep were 
inferior, both in size and form, and in the fineness 
of the wool. In 1638, there were no horses in 
the Plymouth colony ; and history tells us that 
one John Alden, the rival suitor of Miles Standish, 
carried home his bride “ on the back of a bull, 
which he had covered with a piece of handsome 
broadcloth, he leading the ungainly animal by a 
rope fastened to a ring in its nose.” 
Agricultural implements could then be imported 
from the mother country, but all persons could 
not afford to obtain them in this way. A farmer 
of the present day would not think the best of 
them worth much, they were so rudely made, so 
heavy and unwieldly. Many of their tools were 
made from bog-ore, the only metal then to be had, 
and were very brittle and easily destroyed. 
Twelve years after the landing at Plymouth, 
the farmers of the colony had no plows, and were 
obliged to prepare their lands for seed with the 
hoe. As late as 1637, there were only thirty-six 
plows in the whole of Massachusetts. For a long 
period after this, the State paid a bounty to any 
one who should buy and keep a plow in repair, 
making it his sole business to go from farm to 
farm, breaking up land. This must have been a 
real plow-man! 
It was a great advantage, surely, to the first 
settlers, to acquire the use of the several new 
plants employed by the natives for food. Yet it 
took some time to learn how to cultivate them, 
and hardly less, how to relish them. Indian corn 
was one of these plants; and pumpkins, squashes, 
potatoes and tobacco were almost equally 
strangers to them. It is said that the potato was 
so rare in England, at the beginning of the 17th 
century, as to be used only in the smallest quan¬ 
tities. “ It was sold at two shillings a pound for 
the Queen’s table, and was used as a fruit, baked 
into pies, seasoned with spices and wine, and 
sometimes eaten with sugar.” 
The colonists adopted, to a great extent, the 
Ind ian mode of cultivating the plants above named, 
and, as the times then were, it answered a good 
purpose. For example, like the natives, they 
planted their corn four feet apart; and those liv¬ 
ing near the sea-coast, manured their plants in the 
hill with horse-shoe crabs; those living on 
streams in the interior used fishes for the 
same purpose. They planted beans among their 
corn, that the former might be supported by the 
latter. They hilled their corn about two feet 
high, supposing it necessary to sustain the stalks. 
-•-<-—-K*-1 
An Honest Cat. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
In the March Agriculturist the question was 
asked, “ Did any body ever have an honest house 
cat!” Not having seen an answer to the above, 
I come to the aid of the too oft abused cat, and 
reply that I have seen several which I considered 
worthy the appellation, foremost among which is 
the subject of this sketch. 
But first I dislike the idea contained in the ar¬ 
ticle above alluded to, viz : that house cats were 
intended mainly to be pulled about by children, 
which is the chief cause of their indolence and 
thievishness. Need we wonder at their inactivi¬ 
ty, when we observe th<: abuse they meet with at 
the hands of children who drag them about by 
the tail, ears or legs, whichever is reached first, 
and too often kicked out of the way by other 
members of the household ! It is only a wonder 
that they have energy to move when life is in 
dangef, and we can scarcely blame them for ob¬ 
taining, in a stealthy way, that which hard treat¬ 
ment disables them from procuring honestly. 
But to return to our house cat, “ Timmy,” as 
he is called. He is what the writer alluded to 
styles a “wether cat,” (and we would never have 
any other). Tim is a Maltese, three years old, 
weighing about 10 lbs., and was adopted when 
four weeks old. He was always a pet of the 
children, playing and frolicking with them, but 
never abused, ranging the house with impunity 
from garret to cellar, pantry, milk-room and meat 
closet included. He is fed from the table at 
every meal, with meat and vegetables to his lik¬ 
ing, but generally choses the latter now that he 
is old enough to catch his own meat—in doing 
which he soon freed the premises from vermin. 
He never leaves home, nor allows intruders to 
infest the house or barn, or even remain within 
his dominions. He follows the milk-pails to and 
from the yard, and if they are left, as they some¬ 
times are, for a few minutes at the gate, he seats 
himself beside them, but neither touches the 
contents nor permits anything else to do so, but 
awaits their removal to the milk-room, when he 
expects, and always receives his share in a small 
dish under the shelf, to which he has free access 
through a small aperture made for his express 
convenience. 
With such a cat it is useless to say we are 
never troubled with rats or mice. We know 
nothing of terriers, and care as little. Give us 
half a dozen such cats as “ Timmy,” and we 
would not exchange them for as many of the best 
terriers in the country. And now, Mr. Editor, if 
you have not yet seen an honest house cat, one 
that would not steal cream, butter, cheese or 
meat, please call at our Woodland Cottage, and 
we will show you one. C. R. W. 
Genesee Co., Mich. 
Treatment of Sprains- 
These are very common with both man and 
beast, and we present the following very good 
suggestions for their treatment from Dr. Hall's 
N. Y. Journal of Health—a very valuable work: 
Sprains or Strains of the Joints are very painful, 
and more tedious of recovery than a broken bone. 
What we call flesh is muscle; every muscle tapers 
down to a kind of string, which we call cord or 
sinew. The muscle is above the joint, and the 
sinewy part is below it, or vice versa, and the ac¬ 
tion is much like that of a string over a pulley. 
When the ankle, for example, is “ sprained,'' the 
cord, tendon, or ligament (all mean the same 
thing) is torn in part or whole, either in its body, 
or from its attachment to the bone; and inflamma¬ 
tion—that is, a rush of blood to the spot—takes 
place as instantly as in case of a cut on the fin¬ 
ger. Why 1 For two reasons. Some blood-ves¬ 
sels are ruptured, and very naturally pour out 
their contents ; and second, by an infallible phys¬ 
iological law, an additional supply of blood is 
sent to the part, to repair the damages, to glue, 
to make grow together, the torn parts. From this 
double supply of blood, the parts are overflown, 
as it were, and push out, causing what we call 
“ swelling ”—an accumulation of dead blood, sc 
to speak. But dead blood can not repair an inju¬ 
ry. Two things, then, are to be done, to get rid 
of it, and to allow the parts to grow together. 
But if the finger be cut, it never will heal as long 
as the wound is pressed apart every half hour, 
nor will a torn tendon grow together, if it is 
stretched upon by the ceaseless movement of a 
joint, therefore, the first and indispensable step, 
in every case of sprain, is perfect quietude of the 
part; a single bend of the joint will retard what 
Nature has been hours in mending. It is in this 
way, that persons with sprained ankles are many 
months in getting well. In cases of sprain, then, 
children who can not be kept still, should be kept 
in bed, and so with many grown persons. 
The “ swelling ” can be got rid of in several 
ways ; by a bandage, which, in all cases of sprain 
should be applied by a skillful physician—other¬ 
wise, mortification and loss of limb may result. 
A bandage thus applied keeps the joint still, keeps 
an excess of blood from coming to the part, and 
by its pressure causes an absorption of extra blood 
or other extraneous matter. 
Another mode of getting rid of the swelling is, 
to let cold water run on the part injured for hours ; 
this carries away the heat, and the more volatile 
parts of extraneous matters already there ; and by 
cooling the parts, prevents an excess of blood be¬ 
ing attracted to the place ; so that, in reality, a 
bandage and a stream of cold water cure sprains 
in the same manner essentially, by a beautifully 
acting physiological law. The knowledge of these 
principles should be treasured un in every mint; 
