AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
3H5 
Habits of Gophers, etc- 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
Mr. P. Bailey, who writes in the August num¬ 
ber of the Agriculturist , can not have had as good 
opportunities to observe the method by whicli the 
gopher prepares its hurrovv as we have. We can 
take them with a small steel trap every time we 
try, and therefore do not permit them to destroy 
our garden. We have several times made pets 
of them, putting them into a barrel about one- 
third tilled with earth. It is very amusing to see 
how soon they will dig a hole which will hide 
them from view. They make no use of their 
pocket o sack for that purpose ; but after they 
have loosened a parcel of dirt, whirl round quick¬ 
ly, and raising their fore paws, push it abreast, 
and when they reach the entrance, give it a throw 
which sometimes sends it to the distance of two 
feet. When they reach the bottom of the barrel, 
they return and close the entrance, and seem to 
consider themselves quite secure. 
If we were near an Express line, I should be 
more than half tempted to send you a pet gopher, 
that you might have the pleasure of witnessing 
its operations. It would probably keep fat on a 
few turnips while riding in a box of dirt to New 
Fork. 
We are editing a “ family paper” according to 
your suggestions, and find it profitable. A thou¬ 
sand thanks for the “ Green Lanes of England ” 
picture and music, in th e American Agriculturist. 
Laban Hassett. 
Howard Center , Iowa. 
[If it happens to be convenient at any time we 
shall be pleased to have Mr. Hassett forward a pair 
of gophers, male and female, that we may not only 
observe their habits, but also take their portraits 
and show them to the readers of the Agriculturist. 
We purpose to illustrate with engravings a great 
many animals, plants, and other objects peculiar 
to particular sections of the country, in order to 
make others better acquainted with them.— Ed.j 
-— «>» • —•—- 
Tim Bunker on Beginning Life. 
A PEEP AT THE SHADTOWN PARSONAGE. 
Mr Editor : 
It is well that you are a good hundred miles 
out of Hookeitown about these times. Since 
that picture on “ gal horse-racin ” come out, 
there has been a good deal of talk—and some 
swearing or more. Up in Smithville, I guess 
there has been more. I was up there last week, 
and fell in with Colonel Lawson, who got up the 
race. He come up to me in the street—looking 
as red in the face as a beet, and about as mad as 
a March hare, and says he, 
‘•Old Bunker, did you write that mess of stuff 
in the paper about the Fair!” 
“ I did, them’s my sentiments, and I can’t back 
down on ’em any where.” 
“ Wal, who the witchcat got up that picter on 
the gals, with their bonnets off, and myself hold¬ 
ing the stakes ! The piece was bad enough, but 
that picter was all-fired mean, and immodest. It 
want fit to be decent. I shall prosecute the pub¬ 
lisher for libel.” 
“ Libel man ! Why, was'nt the picter a true 
bill, according to facts!” 
“ A true bill ! That's what I have to com¬ 
plain on. It was altogether too natural. There’s 
Wilcox's gal, with her bonnet flyin, feathers and 
all, and a feller with his pocket-book out, that 
they say was meant for me. I can’t go any 
wnere among decent folks, but what they are 
sticking Judd into my face, and inquiring with a 
smothered sort of grin, “Wall, Colonel, have 
you seen the last Agriculturist 1" I'm gettin’ 
tired on't, and if there’s any law in the univarse 
I’m hound to prosecute.” 
“ Keep cool, keep cool, Colonel. The least 
said is soonest mended. Folks, that put their 
daughters up for a show, have no right to com¬ 
plain if they are showed up. Folks whose pocket 
books are emptied shouldn’t go to law—good 
morning Colonel.” 
They say he lost a thousand dollars in bets, at 
the Fair, and I guess you are about as much in 
danger of being prosecuted, as you are of getting 
into the poor-house, by publishing the paper. I 
am sorry for the girls that have made such a be¬ 
ginning of life. Caught by the tinsel of silk 
dresses and bonnets, they were drawn into a 
false position, that will very much damage their 
prospects for life. 
And this, perhaps, is as common a failing 
among farmers as it is among city people. They 
begin life wrong, and start in business on a big¬ 
ger scale than they can hold out. They buy a 
big farm, generally twice as much as they can 
pay for, and then they are always short on’t for 
capital to work it with. It is pretty much like 
Deacon Smith’s singing nt the evening meetings; 
he pitches his tune so high at the outset, that his 
voice breaks into a screech before he gets through, 
and nobody can follow him. His wind is all used 
up before the psalm is half sung. The farn.br, in¬ 
stead of getting good serviceable cattle, will often 
buy fancy animals, at a high price, a yoke of cat¬ 
tle for two hundred dollars, and a fast horse for 
three or lour hundred. He don’t stop to think 
how he’s coming out. 
And then if his wife begins in the house in the 
same way, it makes a mighty uncomfortable con¬ 
cern. There was Tom Spalding and his wife be¬ 
gan to keep house about the time I did. Tom 
was a little fast, and his wife was a little faster. 
She was handsome, fond of company, and must 
dress and live in tip top farmer’s style. The 
farm, Tom bought, had an old house on it, but 
’twas comfortable, and would have lasted ten 
years without laying out a dollar on it. But she 
must have it fixed up, inside and out, before they 
moved in. So Tom put on an addition, and new 
clap-boarded, and painted, and papered, and hard 
finished, and by the time he got through, it about 
finished him. She must have extravagant car¬ 
pets, and furniture, and a fine carriage to ride in, 
and every thing to match the fine house. 
When Tom got through with his fitting out, he 
found himself fifteen hundred dollars in debt. 
The farm was a good one, and produced grand 
crops, but with all he could do, the balance was 
on the wrong side at the close of every year, and 
at the end of a dozen years they had to sell out, 
and emigrate. You see, the silk dresses and 
other women fixin’s kept him in debt, and he had 
no chance to buy more stock, when he needed it, 
or to hire as much labor as he really needed, to 
carry on the farm to advantage. It is of no use 
to begin life in this way. If he had lived in the 
old house a few years, and waited for the finery 
until he had the cash in his pocket to pay for it, 
he might have been in Hookertown to this day, 
and as thriving a man as there is in it. “ Pay as 
you go,’’ is the true principle for every thing 
that isn’t necessary. A man may incur debt for 
a part of his land or stock, or for the tools of his 
trade. But he might as well go to the poor- 
house as to run in debt for fine clothes, and a 
splendid house. Better sleep on a pine bedstead, 
till you are able to pay for mahogany. 
I have talked this doctrine over so much in my 
family, that I guess the children have got it all by 
heart. Sally has, I am certain. I suppose your 
readers would like to hear how she is getting on, 
over to the parsonage. Most stories end wi'h the 
wedding, as if folks were of no consequence at 
all, after they got married. But as I am only 
writing a statement of facts, about things in the 
land of steady habits, you must expect to hear of 
people after the honeymoon. 
I felt bound to give Josiah and Sally a good set¬ 
ting out, for folks in their circumstances. There 
is some parsonage land, that Josiah knows how 
to make use of, and they have to live among far¬ 
mers, and in plain farmer style. Now I hold, that 
a minister is bound to be an example to the flock, 
in his style of living, as well as in his morals, 
and in his religious duties. I have noticed, time 
and again, that example u'as a grand thing to put 
the nub on to a sermon. If a man preaches from 
the text, “ Owe no man anything,” and drives a 
fast horse that he hasn't paid for, somehow the 
two things don’t seem to hitch together. I 
have known extravagant living to drive some 
ministers from their parishes. They got in debt, 
got discontented and soured, and were “not con¬ 
tent with such things as they had.” until they 
were able to get better. I didn’t want any such 
trouble in Shadtown, and I knew' a good deal de¬ 
pended upon beginning right. I gave Sally a 
piano, hut I sent along a churn with it, to remind 
her that the cream of life was not all music. 
There was a lot of cane-bottom and mahogany 
chairs, but John slipped in a couple of milking 
stool a, af his own make, as a sort of hint, I sup¬ 
pose, that all the sitting was nut to be done in 
the parlor. On top of the dresses in the trunk, I 
noticed a pair of checked aprons. I guess Mrs. 
Bunker knew where they came from. I had to 
get a new carriage for Sally’s Black Hawk horse, 
but I sent down the next day a horse cart, with 
a lot of farm and garden tools, as a sort of insin 
nation that horse-flesh would sometimes he 
needed out of the carriage. The useful was pret¬ 
ty well mixed up wfith the sweet, in-doors and 
out. From all I can learn, the people are pretty 
well suite;*! with the young folks, and with the ar¬ 
rangements I have made for them. They havn’t 
got anything hut what they can afford, and noth¬ 
ing that they don’t want to use, and that. I take 
it, is about the w hole pith of beginning life right. 
Yours to command, 
Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
Hookertown , Nov. 15, 1858. 
. mi i m - 
Do Rats Reason? 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
The following item may help to answer the 
above question. One of my workmen recently 
set a noose before a rat-hole, at evening. During 
the next day he observed a pile of papers near 
the hole, with something moving beneath, and 
found there a rat caught by the noose. An exam¬ 
ination proved that the papers under which the 
rat was concealed had been brought from another 
story in the building. Thus it appears that the 
poor fellow's companions had endeavored to con¬ 
ceal him until they might effect his release. This 
certainly looks like reasoning. 
James Quarterman, 
New-York, October, 1858. 
--— . ■» »■ ---• 
A writer in one of out medical reviews says, 
that if a cow is diseased the milk is necessarily 
diseased too. Prentice says that the common 
treatment of diseased milk is the w'ater-cure. 
Men cannot expect to take pleasure unless they 
are willing to lake pains. 
“ Yours is a very hard case,” said the fox to 
the oyste r 
