AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Designed to improve all Classes interested in Soil Culture 
AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, THE MOST USEFUL, AND THE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN — WasHINOTOB 
ORASGE JUDD, A. M., 
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. 
wmiiMB m m 
$1.00 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE. 
SINGLE NUMBERS IO CENTS. 
VOL. XVIL-No. 12 .] NLW-YOR.K, DECEMBER, 1858. [NEW series— No. 143 . 
OPOfffice at 189 Water-st., (Near Fulton-st.) 
Oontents, Terms, &c.see page 378. 
[copy eight secured.] 
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1858, 
hy Oringe Judd, hi the Clerk’s Office of the District 
Court of the United States for the Southern District of 
New-York. 
N. Hi.— Every Journal is invited freely to copy 
any and all desirable articles, and no use or advantage 
will be taken of the Copy-Right, wherever each article 
or illustration is duly accredited to the American Agri¬ 
culturist. ORANGE JUDD, Proprietor. 
American Agriculturist in (German. 
The AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST is published in 
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December. 
“ Now, all amid the rigors of the year, 
In the wild depth of winter, while without 
The ceaseless winds blow' ice, be my retreat 
Between the growing forest and the shore 
Beat by the boundless multitude of waves; 
A rural, sheltered solitary scene, 
Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join 
To clear the gloom. There studious let me sit, 
And hold high converse with the mighty dead ; 
Sages of ancient time, as gods revered, 
As gods beneficent, who blessed mankind 
With arts, and arms, and humanized a world.” 
Thomson. 
The closing month of the year has come, with 
its short days and early twilight, its fierce storms 
and biting cold. The harvests are gathered, the 
leaves have fallen, the stock are sheltered in the 
barn to consume the crops their labors have aided 
the earth to bring forth. There is a pause in all 
the activities of life, and man has time to look 
back over the labors of the year, and to contem¬ 
plate ihe scenes amid which he is a busy actor. 
Nothing is lost to human happiness or progress 
by this change from activity to comparative rest. 
We know that Nature loses nothing by hyberna- 
ting. Her greatest activity follows immediately 
upon this period of rest. Every sleeping bud and 
germ is gathering strengih for a new effort with 
the opening Spring. These terrible frosts, that 
send such a chill to our bones, are plying the clods 
with more potent forces than human art ever 
brings to bear upon them. The most adhesive 
and indurated lumps are disintegrated and pow¬ 
dered, as the plow and harrow could never crush 
them. 
Man also is forced into a comparative rest for 
his physical powers. The vital energy no longer 
spends itself upon the reproduction of muscle. 
Mind is quickened by the changing season, and 
brought in contact with new scenes, and new 
objects of interest. There is time, now, to look 
at the principles that underlie the activities ofthe 
year, time to study the economies, the moralities 
and the esthetics of life. If the farmer improves 
the leisure of Winter, he will lose nothing by the 
cessation of labor. Mind, rightly directed will 
economise labor in the house and upon the farm, in a 
thousand ways. The reflections of a single Win¬ 
ter evening may save weeks of toil next Sum¬ 
mer, when time is so valuable. Some trifling 
change suggested by the fireside may save > Tin- 
dred’s of dollars of needless expense. Happy is 
the man who takes lessons from the field and for¬ 
est, and uses Winter as a season of getting ready 
for the pressing labors of Summer. 
As you are gathered around your happy fireside, 
on these cold December nights, we will throw in 
a few hints to help your reflections. Is every 
tiling about your house as comfortable as it might 
be 1 “ Oh no,” you respond. “ I have little 
ready money, I am in debt for my farm, and I 
am not able to purchase elegant furniture, or to in 
dulge my family in sofas and easy chairs.” 
But the luxuries of life, the parlor adornments 
to be used on rare occasions, have little to do 
with every day comfort. Many a man has these, 
who is daily suffering from inconveniences, that 
a very little time and money would remove. Your 
house lias been leaking with every shower, all 
through the Summer. Have you ever thought 
how many steps those leaks made your wife in 
the course of a year! Every shower, the tubs 
and pans have to be carried to the attic to catch 
water, and then carried back again to the cellar. 
This comes often when she is weary, and leads 
to fretfulness and discomfort. The walls are 
stained, the carpets and furniture are injured, and 
a fair face that you love, is often beclouded for 
want of a hundred shingles, and a sixpence worth 
of nails. Those leaks stopped in some leisure 
hour, would do your wife more good and promote 
household comfort more than a five hundred dol¬ 
lar piano in the parlor. 
As we are chatting here by the fire, unwhole¬ 
some gusts come puffing in at the windows, and 
the cracks of the door. One side is about as 
much too cold, as the other is too hot. Your 
family must take cold often in these currents of 
air. Have you ever thought how extravagant a 
luxury these December breezes, indoor, were 1 
Really they are more costly than the parlor orna¬ 
ments of your rich neighbor that you think you 
can not afford. Wood is worth with you, perhaps 
four dollars a cord, cut up ready for the stove ; 
and you use up two cords extra to keep the room 
comfortable during the Winter, and fail in the en¬ 
deavor. A single day’s work of the carpenter 
would make the doors and windows tight, and 
,put in a ventilator in the chimney, and save you 
this annual expense for fuel with all its concom¬ 
itants of colds, and doctor’s bills. 
Your well in daily use is thirty rods from the 
house, at the foot of the hill, put there because 
less digging was necessary, or a natural spring 
.nvited. Consider, now, how many steps are 
taken to visit this spot thrice or more, daily, and 
how much labor is involved, in thus carrying 
water up hill all your days. The good wife, or 
the maid, who draws the water has often sug¬ 
gested that a well might be dug within a rod of 
the door just as bountiful in its supplies of water, 
and much more convenient. It would save many 
days of labor every year, and much wear and tear 
of spirit. Shall that well be sunk, and an endless 
chain he put in, to give your family water, where 
they want to use it 1 
Washing is the heavy business of housekeeping, 
and bears hardly upon woman. Is this made as 
easy, and comfortable, as it might be! The wa¬ 
ter has to be drawn, heated, and emptied after 
use, each change requiring labor. Now suppose 
instead of the cedar tubs, you had one large 
square pine tub, witli four divisions in it, put 'up 
as a fixture on the side of the wash room, and 
furnished witli pipes and stop cocks that would 
turn on the water and let it off, without your 
lifting a finger. Instead of all those weary jour¬ 
neys to the well, the washer turns a faucet, and 
her tub is filled. She turns another and hot wa 
ter comes in from the boiler. She pulls a stopper 
and the soap suds are passed off into a vault 
where all the wastes of the house are collected 
for fertilizers. Full one half of the drudgery of 
washing day is saved by these simple contri¬ 
vances. The thinking mind does the work of 
many hands. These labor saving inventions are 
adopted in many farm houses, and may be in yours. 
Hark how the wind whistles, and the snow is 
piled up in huge embankments under every wall, 
and around every corner! What a charming 
thing it would be, if we could break off this fierce 
wind and compel the snow to fall on a level, and 
make smooth paths for the cattle ! This can be 
done, at least so far as your premises are con¬ 
cerned. You have often cut wood in the forest, 
in the depths of Winter, and observed that there 
were no banks of snow there. However fierce 
the winds, the snow comes down gently through 
the tree tops covering the earth as evenly, as if 
it fell on a day of Summer calm. All this, man 
may imitate on the bleakest spot, and in a few 
years shut out his home from the violence of the 
Winter blasts. 
Shelter is every year attracting more attention 
from rural improvers. No sight is more com¬ 
mon in our older farming districts, than long lines 
of shade trees planted by the road side, or belts 
of Arbor vitae, Norway Spruce, Hemlock and Fir, 
designed especially to keep off the winds and snow 
banks. These not only add much to the warmth 
and comfort of a home in Winter, but they throw 
around it an air of refinement and taste, pleasing 
to every observer. These are cheap luxuries 
within the reach of almost every cultivator of 
the soil. In this period of rest and reflection, let 
him ponder these inexpensive methods of adding 
to the comforts and attractions of his home. We 
drop the subject here to be resumed again during 
the succeeding Winter months. 
