AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
ADAPTED TO THE 
IT arm, GrarcLen, and IdonseTiold. 
AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, THE MOST USEFUL, AND THE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN -Washington. 
OEAIGE JUDD, A. ffl., 
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. 
ESTABLISHED IN 1842, 
$1.00 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE. 
SINGLE NUMBERS 10 CENTS. 
VOL. XIX.—No. 7 . 
ly’Ofjicc at ISO Wittcr-st., (Near Fulton-st.) 
IVpOoss (Oiils, Terms, A c.,on pastes 31 9“3-l. 
Entered according, to Act of Congress in the year 1860, 
by Orange Judd, in the Clerk’s Office of the District 
.Court of the United Slates .for.the Southern District of 
New-York. 53p7V, IJ.—Every Journal is invited freely 
to copy any and all desirable articles, if each article or 
illustration copied be duly accredited to the American 
Agriculturist. ORANGE JUDD, Proprietor. 
American Agriculturist tit (Serittan. 
The AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST is published in 
both the English and German Languages. Both 
Editions are of the same size, and contain, as 
nearly as possible, the same Articles and Illustra¬ 
tions. The German Edition is furnished at the 
same rates as the English, singly or in clubs- 
July. 
“ Summer is here ! 
Amid the distant vales she tarried long; 
But she hath come ; oh joy ! for I have heard 
Her many corded harp the livelong day 
Sounding from plains and meadows, where of late 
Rattled the hail’s sharp arrows, and where came 
The wild north wind, careering like a steed 
Unconscious of the rein. She hath gone forth 
Into the forest, and its poised leaves 
Are flat formed for the Zephyr’s dancing feet. 
Under its green pavilions she hath reared 
Most beautiful things.”—E dith May. 
All over our broad land, the Summer has come. 
It has been fully three months in its march from 
the coast of Florida and the Gulf to the fir clad 
hills and mountains of northern New-England. 
The flaunting corn leaves do not stand higher to¬ 
day on the hanks of the Kennebeck than they 
stood on the first of April on;,.the banks of the 
St. Johns, and the Suanee. But now we have 
one grand Summer day from the far North to 
the South, a tropical sun raging alike in the hack- 
woods of Maine, and in the cane brakes and cy¬ 
press swamps of the Delta of the Mississippi. 
Already her fairy creations begin to appear full 
robed, complete in outline and in their filling up. 
As June was a month of promise and growth, 
July is a month of fruition and accomplishment. 
The designs of the mighty stir of Nature in the 
earlier months, begin to appear. It is no longer 
doubtful what the springing corn means. It has 
struggled up through the blade, the thin yellow 
leaves, into rank lustrous stalks, luxuriant silken 
tassels, perfumed spikes, shaking their pollen 
upon the Summer air, and heralding the harvest. 
Hope changes into full assurance, and the farmer 
sees in the present aspect of his fields, that 
which shall be in Autumn, “some thirty fold, 
some sixty, and some an hundred.” 
Every where in field and forest, we see not 
only-promise but fulfilment. The wheat, rye, and 
oats are already of full bight, or harvested. The 
clover fields are gorgeous with their red blos¬ 
soms, and musical with the murmuring sounds 
of Hymettus. Here the meadow is burdened with 
timothy shaking its nodding plumes, and there, 
NEW-YORK, JULY, I860. 
the red-top stretches away in graceful undula¬ 
tions like some discolored sea. 
In the orchard and fruit yard, the apples are 
swelling rapidly, and the limbs begin to bend un¬ 
der their precious burden. The robins are gath¬ 
ered to their Summer feast in the cherry trees 
and among the currant bushes, levying their tax 
upon the garden, for their busy labors in destroy¬ 
ing insects. The pears and plums are looking 
finely, and the melons are already studded with 
fruit. 
In the forest, every leaf is busily at work, and 
showing the results of its labors in the new green 
shoots and in the enlargement of the growths of 
former years. In many cases, the terminal bud 
is already formed, and the two or three feet of 
new wood marks the whole growth of the sea¬ 
son. The labors of Summer, henceforth, will be 
to consolidate and perfect what has already been 
marked out iu the department of Nature’s 
operations, as well as in that of human industry. 
The month is somewhat typical of the present 
condition of the arts and inventions that propose 
to aid the husbandman. The tentative period is 
past, and we are beginning to realize in well 
made implements the great economy of applying 
mind to husbandry. It would he interesting, if we 
had the facts and the space to display them, to 
trace the history of the plow from the forked stick 
of the ancients, to the present deep tiller, or 
Michigan, turning under the sod and thoroughly 
pulverizing the soil to a foot in depth. The ne¬ 
cessity of disturbing the soil was very early re¬ 
cognized, and the use of oxen for this purpose is 
as old as the Greeks. But very little progress 
had been made in this art until tiie last century, 
and the last thirty years have done more to com¬ 
plete this implement than all preceding time. 
But the tool is no sooner perfected, than we 
begin to feel the need of a new agent of traction 
to supersede the dull gait of the ox, the mule, 
and the horse. The plowing of the sea by steam 
has suggested the plowing of the land by the 
same motor, and already the steam engine is 
linked to the plow, and marching over the prai¬ 
ries. The perfected clod-rasper, tearing up the 
soil to the depth of a foot or more, and commi¬ 
nuting it to the fineness of a garden seed bed, 
can not he very far in the distance. 
The first conception of a hoe was doubtless sug¬ 
gested by a potsherd, or a clam shell fastened to 
a handle, to admit of the easier chopping off weeds 
and drawing the eartli toward the cultivated 
plant. The hoe of the plantation, now in use in 
most parts of the South, is still of the potsherd 
pattern, better only in material, and in being fur¬ 
nished with an eye for the insertion of the handle. 
There is a long reach upward from that ponder¬ 
ous unwieldy implement to the light glittering 
steel blade and elegant turned handle, with which 
a Yankee dresses out his corn and potatoes. If 
the hoe is efficient in the human hand, it is still 
more so when applied by horse power. We have 
[NEW SERIES—No. 162. 
accordingly the sharp steel blades inserted in a 
frame, and made to he adjusted to a narrower or 
wider space at the will of the operator. A skill¬ 
ful hand with one of Ihese tools and a horse, will 
till more corn or potatoes, than ten men with lines 
alone. What an immense saving of manual la¬ 
bor this single tool would make, were it univer¬ 
sally introduced. 
The scythe and the horse mower are still seen 
in adjoining fields, and there is as great a dispar¬ 
ity between them, as between the hand and the 
horse hoe. See the mower as he bends to his 
work among the thick grass from the early morn¬ 
ing to high noon. There used to he poetry in his 
work before we knew any thing better, and we 
thought him a fitting type of the great destroyer. 
Who does not remember that august and.horrible 
individual in the Primer, scythe in hand, and the 
couplet 
“ Time cuts down all 
Both great and small.” 
That picture would now look like a weak con¬ 
ception of a very rude age, and we should seat 
old father Time in the car of a horse mower, 
rein in hand, with fiery skeleton chargers, sweep¬ 
ing down more victims before his remorseless 
scythe, than his prototype in the Primer ever 
dreamed of. We no longer hear music in the 
ringing steel, as the mower whets his blade or 
drives it through the falling grass. The contrast 
between the gentleman of leisure upon the seat, 
and the stooping laborer dripping with sweat, 
and panting in the Summer sun, is too great. 
The poetry is transferred from the scythe to the 
mounted car, and we hear music in the sharp 
clatter of its triumphant inarch. There is a beau¬ 
ty in the smooth evenly spread grass as it lies in 
the track of the mower, that we never saw in the 
roughly piled swath made by the scythe. It 
suggests no painful posture, no strain of the mus¬ 
cles, no sweat of the brow. Invention is at 
length consolidated into an effective machine, 
that puts the hay and grain harvests completely 
under the control of the husbandman. 
So, in all the ingenious contrivances for saving 
labor in the field and in the garden, in the dairy 
room and in the granary, and, indeed, in every 
department of labor upon the farm we see sub¬ 
stantial growth. So far as effectiveness in tilling 
the soil is concerned, one man has more power 
now, than a score of men had a hundred years 
ago. And the end is not yet. 
The account given on a subsequent page of the 
inventions of agricultural implements during a 
single year, shows the attention given in this di¬ 
rection, and an increased number may be looked 
for in subsequent years. It needs that the intel¬ 
ligence of the cultivator shall keep pace with 
these improvements, that he may avail himself of 
the advantages they bring, and also be prepared 
to judge of the value of new implements offered : 
otherwise the best may die of neglect, and the 
inferior be purchased to his own detriment. 
