AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
FOR THE 
IT arm, G-arden, and. Id o n s eli old. 
“AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, MOST USEFUL, AND MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN.”—WABnmoTOir. 
ORAJTGE JUDD, A.31., 
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. 
ESTABLISHED IN 1842. 
( $1.00 PER ANNUM, IN' ADVANCE. 
1 SINGLE NUMBER, 10 CENTS. 
VOLUME XXI—No. 8. ■ NEW-YORK, MARCH, 1862. NEW SERIES-No. 182. 
Office at 41 Park-Row, (Times Buildings). 
Contents, Terms, &c., on page 98. 
Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1862, 
tiy Orange Judd, in tho Clerk’s Office of the District 
Court of the United States for the Southern District of 
New-Yorlc. jggPN. IS.—Every Journal is invited freely 
to copy any desirable articles, if each article or illustration 
copied, be duly accredited to the American Agriculturist. 
Slmcvicau Slqvicultunft in ©cuntatt. 
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 Illustrations. The German Edition 
Is furnished at the same rates as the English, singly or in 
clubs. A club may be part. English, and part German. 
March. 
“ Not only through the lenient air this change, 
Delicious, breathes; the penetrative sun, 
His force deep-darting to the dark retreat 
Of vegetation, sets the steaming power 
At large, to wander o’er the verdant earth, 
In various hues; hut chiefly thee, gay green! 
Thou smiling Nature’s universal robe.” Thomson. 
There is a feeling of relief, as we reach the 
first day of Spring, and look back upon Winter 
as a matter of history. It is very comfortable 
to remember its frosts and storms, the sheeted 
earth and frozen streams, as things of the past. 
Whatever appliances we may use to make the 
Winter tolerable, it is still a period of endu¬ 
rance, and the farewell with which we dismiss it, 
is one of the few occasions in which that word 
sounds pleasantly to the ear. The most enthu¬ 
siastic lover of sleigh rides and snow .banks, 
skating and ice, is content to put up the sleigh, 
and fold up the winter furs, and to lay aside 
the burnished skates. The school hoy houses 
his sled, and lays up the curling stick with a 
pleasure like that he feels when he takes them 
out for the winter campaign. The farmer draws 
his last sled-load of wood over the melting snow 
with a calm satisfaction, and is hardly displeased 
if it he left half way home unor the hare field, 
like Noah’s ark on dry land. We all feel that 
there is something better ahead than the Winter 
has afforded ns. Art has no power to compen¬ 
sate us for what we are deprived of, in the sea¬ 
son of storm and snow. We manage to make 
the dwelling very comfortable by stoves and fur¬ 
naces, but it is a welcome sound when the last 
clinker is rattled from the grate, and the fur¬ 
nace door creaks for the last time on its unoiled 
hinges, and we are glad to have the universal 
self-acting heater do its appointed work. We 
hail the lengthening of the days with a rapture 
that we never feel when the nights grow longer, 
and the darkness breaks off our unfinished task. 
And we do this without a thought of economy. 
It is true that the sun saves in the hills for light 
and fuel, but how few welcome the Spring with 
the thought that it will save coal, wood, gas, oil, 
or tallow candles! Instinctively we hail the 
opening days of Spring as good and beautiful in 
themselves. There is no heat like that which 
the sun gives, and no condition of the atmos¬ 
phere so genial and enjoyable as that which the 
sun makes. There is no light so pleasant to the 
eye as the light of day. Houses are necessary 
evils, with all their contrivances for heating, 
lighting, and ventilation. We are glad when 
we can have twelve hours of sunlight, when we 
can throw open doors and windows, and drink 
in sunlight and fresh air, like the birds and plants. 
The Winter creates dangers and difficulties 
which must be met and overcome, to make life 
at all comfortable. A good part of the Sum¬ 
mer is spent in toil to get ready for Winter, 
and gives birth to an almost endless variety of 
industry, to meet its necessities. The plow, 
the loom, and the anvil are all busy, weaving, 
tilling, forging, to make the season endurable. 
The discipline under this hard master is in¬ 
valuable, and it is probably for this reason that 
so large a portion of the human race have had 
their lot cast in the temperate zones. Here we 
find the best types of the race. They have had 
to struggle for a subsistence, and the conflict 
with frost and storm, darkness and tempest, has 
made them strong and heroic. We love to 
think of the peaceful victories of the ax, and 
the plow, and of all the wonderful inventions 
that soften the rigors of Winter, and bring us to 
the Spring fully prepared for its enjoyment. 
These patches of hare earth, we hail them 
like the faces of old friends coming back to us 
after long absence. There is a new odor in the 
atmosphere, though the fields are barren, and 
not a flower has bloomed. Is it fancy deluding 
the sense, and bringing up from the yet frozen 
earth the breath of snow-drops and violets? 
There is music upon the air, though we see no 
bird yet perched upon the tree under our win¬ 
dow, and the children have not announced the 
first note of the blue bird, or seen the first robin. 
It is the trickling song of the eaves, as the snow 
dissolves from the roof. It is the ripple of the 
rills as they run by every road side, carrying off 
the snow banks. It is the softer murmur of the 
wind from the “ sweet south,” wooing the buds 
in every tree top, and whispering to the yet 
slumbering grasses in the meadow. 
We perceive all these things as we look upon 
the outer world from our loop-hole of retreat. 
And if we venture forth and hold closer com¬ 
munion with nature, we have still stronger evi¬ 
dence that the reign of Winter is over. We see 
it in the warmer glow of the sun at his rising 
and setting. We feel it in the air. Here on the 
sunny side of the wall, where the snow r lay but 
yesterday, the grass has already started. Lift 
the covering from the flower border, and you 
see that the crocuses have already felt the breath 
of Spring, and are thrusting up their green 
lance points. There is a busier air in the farm¬ 
yard—cocks crowing with fiercer defiance, hens 
cackling in more obstreperous declaration of 
new laid eggs, gobblers strutting with redder 
heads and broader tail feathers, geese hissing at 
all intruders, and ducks holding a convention 
on family affairs in every puddle. Here are 
lambs just dropped, and calves frisking with 
tails erect, and frothy mouths, guilty of fresh 
drawn udders. There must he green grass not 
far ahead for all the new mouths that are open¬ 
ing to crop it.—This attitude of faith and ex¬ 
pectation in every living thing, should he cher¬ 
ished by the husbandman. Nature puts honor 
upon this faith, in every germ that shoots up 
from the bosom of the earth, in every thing that 
moves upon its surface. The grass finds abun¬ 
dant aliment, and fills every hungering stomach. 
We need, as a class, a much larger faith in 
our calling. Nature will honor all our drafts 
upon her bounty, and meet our largest expecta¬ 
tions, if we work according to her laws. Here, 
as in a higher sphere of toil, “he that doubteth 
is damned.” Many a busy toiler upon the farm 
is kept poor and discouraged by half way 
measures in husbandry. He has not a large- 
hearted, generous confidence in the capacities of 
the soil to reward the capital and labor he ex¬ 
pends upon it. There is sunshine enough, and 
rain enough, and almost food enough, on every 
acre of soil, to give seventy bushels of corn, if it 
he skillfully managed. Sometimes it is drain¬ 
ing, sometimes deeper plowing, sometimes more 
tillage, and oftener more manure, that will sup¬ 
ply the deficiency, and give full crops. What¬ 
ever the want, it should be generously met, that 
we may reap the full reward of our toils. Half¬ 
way plowing, manuring, and tillage, show us 
skeptics in husbandry. The grand principle, so 
true in our spiritual relations, is quite as true in 
our relations to the noble art of agriculture: 
“Give and it shall he given unto you: good 
measure, pressed down, and shaken together, 
and running over.” The genial air of the 
Spring should thaw out the crust of our unbe¬ 
lief, and make us devise liberal things for the soil 
