AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
FOR THE 
UTjti-m, GrarcLen, and. IdonseTio 1 cl. 
“AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, MOST USEFUL, AND MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN;»-Wi.hmto». 
OKA»«£ JUDD, A .itt., 
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. 
Office, 41 Parle Row, (Times Buildings.) 
VOLUME XXI—No. 6. 
Entered according to act of Congress in tlie year 18G2, by 
Obange Judd, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of 
the United States for the Southern District of New-York. 
t3?" Other Journals are invited to copy desirable articles 
freely, if each article bo credited to American Agriculturist. 
June. 
“ Amid his subjects safe, 
Slumbers the monarch swain; his careless arm 
Thrown round his head, on downy moss sustained , 
Here laid his script, with wholesome viands filled ; 
There, listening every noise, his watchful dog, 
Sight fly his slumbers, if perchance a flight 
Of angry gad-flies fasten on the herd, 
That startling scatters from the shallow brook, 
In search of lavish stream.— Thomson.” 
Of all months of the year, commend us to 
June for sight seeing and enjoyment. The poet’s 
picture is in keeping with the month—the hank 
of a .placid stream half guarded by woodland 
and half by meadow, the farmer taking his noon¬ 
day rest, the herd, the dog, and the speckled 
trout that we only think of under the bank. 
Nature is never so fresh and beautiful as now; 
the leaves that have lingered so long in buds, 
have burst all their encasements and are ex¬ 
panded to their full size. How delicate and 
glossy they are! How rapidly the wood is 
making! You can almost see the process of 
growth. Beneath your feet, the grasses are 
springing in the greatest luxuriance, and some 
are already waving their little plumes and tas¬ 
sels in the air. The endless verdure is relieved 
by the blooming dandelions, and buttercups. 
And the mouths for which Nature has made 
ready this abundant supply, are here to be filled. 
The peaceful kine are grazing quietly in the 
meadow. They stop a moment to stare at you 
with their large liquid eyes, hut only a moment, 
for they go to grass without any bidding, 
and will not rest until their maw is filled, and 
the noon-tide heat drives them to shelter. They 
make music as they move on slowly in column, 
plucking the grass like a hand of reapers. When 
chewing the cud in the, shade, with half closed 
eyes, they make another familiar sound sugges- 
ESTABLISHED IN 1842. 
Published both in English and German. 
NEW-YORK, JUNE, 1862. 
tive of the fullest animal content. It is an ano¬ 
dyne for fretted nerves, to see them thus tranquil. 
Yonder, upon the distant hill-side, you seethe 
flocks of sheep and the young cattle that do 
not need to he brought home at night. They are 
a beautiful sight, with their lambs which are 
now nearly large enough to be separated from 
their mothers. They are not the less beautiful 
in the eyes of the farmer that they are turning 
the grass into money with very little of his la¬ 
bor or supervision. It is one of the delights of 
June that the days are so clear that you can see 
distant objects with the greatest distinctness. 
The clouds are brought down to you, and the 
far off hills and mountains become your neigh¬ 
bors. But the creatures that help man are by no 
means confined to his domestic animals. Here 
in the orchard are a multitude of birds, robins, 
blue-birds, woodpeckers, sparrows, and wrens, 
all busy helping him. They make money with¬ 
out thinking of it. Watch that pair of robins 
as they tend their young. First the mother 
comes with earth worms or caterpillars that 
she has plucked from the apple-trees. The lit¬ 
tle buds know the sound of her wings, and their 
mouths open with a murmur of delight as soon 
as she alights upon the nest. The worms are 
dropped into their mouths. She is hardly gone 
before her mate comes with his bill full of in¬ 
sects and thus the whole day is spent in cater¬ 
ing for their young. Hundreds of noxious in¬ 
sects are thus destroyed each day, by every 
family of robins. The appetite of the young for 
animal food is astonishing. There seems to be 
no limit to their capacity to devour, save the 
capacity of the birds to bring supplies. Where 
insects are abundant, the growth of the young is 
very rapid; in a few weeks from hatching they 
are on the wing, apparently as large as old birds. 
But we have some insects that hide under 
the bark, and burrow in the wood, doing their 
mischief out of sight of human eyes. The 
woodpecker is the artist to attend to these sly 
depredators. Murder is said to be one of the 
fine arts. It is, in the hands, or rather in the 
bill of the woodpecker. He perches in the top 
of an old tree, with his buoyant chivalric song, 
bidding all his fortified enemies “Wake up, 
Wake up,” as if he would not surprise them, or 
take any advantage of their somnolency. He 
is in no hurry for slaughter. He hops along the 
limbs, scans the underside closely where the 
holes are most likely to be found. He knocks 
gently on the limb near the premises of the grub 
as if he expected a cordial invitation to come 
in. He stops to listen as if he would find out 
whether his gentle knock has waked up any 
body. Possibly he hears a gnawing inside as if 
his neighbor was retreating at the back door. 
He works sharp now and the bill is driven into 
the decayed wood with strokes so rapid that you 
can not count them. The chips fly, and the 
artist waxes warm over his work. At length he 
strikes his enemy, and with his long bill drags 
( $1.00 PEE ANNUM, IN ADVANCE, 
-j SINGLE NUMBER, 10 CENTS. 
( For Contents, Terms, etc., see page i‘J2. 
NEW SERIES—No. 185. 
him from his hole and bears him off in triumph 
to the knot-hole cabin that you see in yonder 
tree. His young family have a feast, and anoth¬ 
er of the farmer’s enemies is disposed of. 
Listen again: here is another sound in the or¬ 
chard. The apple trees are full of blossoms, and 
almost as full of bees, and the murmur of their 
myriad wings falls on the ear with a soothing 
melody. Their legs are covered with the yel¬ 
low dust, suggestive of the price of their luscious 
stores. All the air between the orchard and the 
hives is a busy highway for these little laborers. 
They preach industry to man while they fill their 
hives with honey. There is a charm in apple 
blossoms, and bee music is none the less pleas¬ 
ant to the farmer because they bring him money. 
And now that we have taken it upon us to 
look up the humble helpers of the farm, we 
must say a good word in behalf of that much 
abused animal, the Mephitis Americana. You think 
at once of his bad name, of the eggs lie has stolen, 
of the setting hens and turkeys he has broken 
up, of the roosts he has invaded, and the breezes 
he has polluted. Mr. Skunk is guilty of some 
misdemeanors, as all useful animals are. The 
cat catches your chickens, the dog runs mad and 
destroys man and beast with his virus, the horse 
runs away, smashes the carriage, and breaks your 
bones, the cow breaks down the shrubbery with 
her wicked horns, and the hogs get into the 
corn. They are all very good creatures in their 
place, not so good out of it. The same can be 
said of our hero. Possibly the hen-roost might 
have been made proof against vermin, and the 
fowls might have been confined to a yard—to 
your profit as well as to the safety of the eggs. 
If the eggs were out of place, the wandering 
animal whose instinct prompts him to eat eggs, 
wherever he finds them, is hardly so much to 
blame as the owner of the eggs. The eggs 
which you leave at loose ends are only a fair 
compensation for his services. All summer long 
he roams your pastures at night, picking up 
beetles and grubs, poking with his nose potato 
hills where many worms are at work. He is 
after the grubs, not the tuhers. He takes pos¬ 
session of the apartments of the woodchuck, 
who has quartered himself and family upon your 
clover field or garden, and makes short work 
with all the domestic arrangements of that un¬ 
mitigated nuisance. With this white backed 
sentinel around, you can grow clover in peace, 
and the young turnips will flourish. Your beans 
will not be prematurely snapped, and your gar¬ 
den sauce will be safe from other vermin. The 
most careless observation of his habits shows 
that hi- lives almost exclusively upon insects. 
While } ou sleep he is busy doing your work, 
helping to destroy your enemies. In any fair 
account kept with him the balance must be 
Struck in his favor. Thus among the animals 
we often find friends under the most unpromis¬ 
ing appearances, and badly abused men are 
not unfrequently the benefactors of society. 
