1862.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
301 
Blinks from a Lantern — XXXI. 
I never paid any particular attention to women 
when in the flesh. Perhaps that is a sufficient 
apology for my present interest in the “ better 
half” of creation. My dwelling was rather too 
narrow for company, even if there were no more 
potent reasons for the cynic reputation that has 
survived me. To tell the plain truth, as a phi¬ 
losopher should, I always suspected it was the 
dweller, rather than the dwelling, that the 
women of my day objected to. It doubtless 
saved my feelings somewhat, to be told by this 
one, that my tub was too small for two; by that 
one, that my beard was too long; and by a third, 
that water would improve me. I took these 
not particularly complimentary hints, with the 
coolness of a philosopher, and remained wedded 
to my tub. I had occasion to observe, as I ex¬ 
amined them by the light of my lantern, that 
the first had not even a tub at home, the second 
wore a wig, and the third wore more dirt than 
I did—with only this difference, that mine was 
a natural color, while hers was a tinge of red.. 
. “ A woman farmer!” exclaims a fair reader 
with lily hands. “The world has outgrown 
that idea.” And possibly will have to grow 
back into it again. The only patent of a man’s 
capacity for a given sphere of toil, is the fact 
that he fills it, and tried by this standard, as we 
have seen by the light of the lantern, there are 
not many men farmers. 
“Just what do you mean by a farmer?” asks 
Mr. Higgings, with that solemn air which he 
puts on in his philosophic moods. Well, not 
necessarily a dirt-begrimed biped, with braw¬ 
ny arms, and a pair of palms like the hide of a 
rhinoceros. Such are to be found in large 
numbers upon the plantations of the South, clad 
in the coarsest material, and inured to the hard¬ 
est work the year round, chopping wood, roll¬ 
ing logs, ditching, plowing, hoeing, and harvest¬ 
ing. Sex excuses no work. But it is not neces¬ 
sary that man, or woman, should do any of these 
things to make a first rate farmer. It is not 
necessary that a mason should mix his own 
mortar, or shoulder the hod. A man may be an 
architect without planing the boards, framing 
the timber, or driving the nails, or attending to 
any one of the details of building. A general 
need not fire cannon, or thrust with the sword 
and bayonet, and yet he may be well versed in 
the art of war. Strong limbs and tough mus¬ 
cles do not constitute a farmer. We have 
enough of these on most American farms, very 
good in their place, but no better than the brute 
sinews that drive the mowers and reapers, the 
rakes and drills, the cultivators, and hoes, that 
are doing so much to relieve human muscles, or 
dispensing with them altogether. The essential 
thing about farming lies in the to-ain, a region 
the blinks from my lantern fail to illumine, 
which perhaps accounts for my poor success in 
searching for a farmer. This brain I imagine is 
pretty much the same thing in man and woman. 
Philosophers of old were not agreed as to the 
question of sex in souls, and they are not yet 
harmonized. Whatever difference of opinion 
may exist upon this point, there can be very lit¬ 
tle as to the capacity of a woman to grasp the 
business details of a farm. It is no more diffi¬ 
cult than many things which she does manage 
with aptness and entire success. 
It is certainly as clever a thing to fit out a 
woman’s wardrobe, especially if it be a fashion¬ 
able one, as to stock a farm. She does this to a 
charm. She keeps a variety store, manages a 
bakery; sets type, binds books, writes and reads 
them, sings, paints, and makes herself immortal 
by the chisel. Why should not such a capable 
being manage a farm ? 
Mrs. Grundy has done it, and thus answered 
the question for her sex. She is a near neigh¬ 
bor of my friend Higgins, who has figured 
somewhat in these papers. Higgins poked fun 
at the idea of her farming, when she commenced, 
said he should as soon think of setting a woman. 
to sail one of his ships. But he has experienced 
other emotions since, as she has frequently beat¬ 
en him at the fairs, and last year got the prize 
for the premium farm in the county where Hig¬ 
gins was himself .a competitor. To do my 
.neighbor justice, he acquiesced in the correct¬ 
ness of the award. 
She had some advantages which all women 
have not, but these were not such as take away 
from the substantial merit of her success. She 
was left a widow with six children at the age of 
thirty, upon a snug dairy farm, well stocked, but 
not more than half paid for. She might sell, 
she might lease the farm, or, manage it herself. 
She chose the latter, and people well acquaint¬ 
ed with the parties say that she has managed 
with even more shrewdness and good sense than 
•Mr. Grundy, who was a very fair farmer accord¬ 
ing to the popular estimate. She had to learn 
some things, of course. What sensible man 
does not, in every department of human effort, 
and still leaves many things unlearned. She is 
an excellent judge of horses and cattle, and 
would make a better decision at the shows than 
many put upon record. It would reform a 
woman-hater to hear her discuss the fine points 
of her favorite carriage horse, and the perform¬ 
ances of her grade Devons and Ayrshires. It is 
womanly to paint horses and cows, why not to 
own them, and to manage them for pleasure 
and profit ? If the inquiry is not hypercynical, 
is not a well dressed woman as attractive in a 
green meadow, admiring the liquid eyes of her 
grazing heifer, her sleek skin and swollen ud¬ 
ders, as in a picture gallery, admiring the same 
things upon canvass ? A woman’s perceptions 
of form and color are, upon the average, as good 
as those of a man. Why should they not have 
their training upon wool on the sheep’s back, as 
well as upon worsted work in the parlor? Mrs. 
Grundy was never able to discover why, and she 
knows a Saxony from a South-down, and is not 
ashamed of her knowledge. In the ornament¬ 
ing of the homestead, she has greatly improved 
upon her husband’s management. The bushes 
have disappeared from the fences, trees are 
planted by the road side, and by the carriage 
drive that leads to the house, which stands on 
an eminence a little back from the road. The 
dwelling and barn have the shelter of a belt of 
evergreens, which Mr. Grundy never thought of. 
The result of her thirty years’ farming, (for she 
is now an old lady), shows that she has under¬ 
stood accounts, and kept them. The farm has 
been paid for, greatly improved, and adorned; 
the children have been educated, and respecta¬ 
bly settled in life, as the result of her enterprise. 
She has not held the plow, or driven, but has 
seen that work well done. She has understood 
men and women, and known how to use them 
wisely for her purposes. Mrs. Grundy is a 
woman of faculty, and for aught we, can see, 
has as good a right to be a farmer as any man. 
With the example of this woman before him, 
the views of Higgins have undergone a change. 
. When to Sell Hay. 
Most of our farms are in such need of manure 
that it is deemed bad husbandry to sell hay, and 
as a rule, it is only short sighted farmers that 
part with it at any price. If they can not pay 
for it in milk and beef sold, most farmers are 
certain it pays in making manure. With some 
it has passed into a proverb that “ he that sells 
hay is a candidate for the poor-house.” Unless 
something is restored to the land in the place of 
the hay„it is pretty certain to make a poor- 
house of the farm. 
Here lies the whole secret of safety in selling 
this crop. The meadows must be kept in good 
heart, and if it is not done by hay consumed 
upon the farm it must be by some other process. 
Farmers living within a few hours of a good 
market and cheap sources of manure, can sell 
hay to advantage. The team that carries hay 
may bring back a load of manure. The farmer 
would really be at no expense for carting, for 
the cart would otherwise come home empty. If 
the manure were from a stable of grain-fed 
horses, the farm would be a gainer by the ex¬ 
change. Cities and villages have many wastes 
that are cneap sources of fertility, and where 
these can be transported without much expense 
it will do to sell hay. 
Then there are farms upon the sea-board and 
near sea ports, that may safely export haj r . 
They have a cheap transit for their hay, and an 
.inexhaustible source of manure in the fish and 
weeds which the sea produces. With a liberal 
use of these fertilizers a farm may be kept up to 
any degree of fertility. Farms without these ad¬ 
vantages'can rarely sell hay to a profit. The 
exceptions will be in the cases of farms liberally 
supplied with muck or peat, to form the base of 
composts, or those furnished with streams for 
irrigation. Muck, if decomposed with lime or 
ashes or fermented with any kind of animal ma¬ 
nure, makes an excellent top-dressing for mead¬ 
ows, and with this, the soil may be made to 
yield maximum crops of hay. 
It is asserted by men who have tried it for years, 
that meadows may be kept up to two or three 
tuns of hay to the acre by irrigation alone. In 
lands naturally or artificially underdrained, we 
have no doubt of the truth of this position. The 
productiveness of intervale land, where there is 
an annual overflow, cbnfirms this position. 
Though artificial irrigation is little practiced in 
this country, the few examples that we have met 
with confirm the correctness of this position. 
We have little doubt that a brook, flowing 
through a farm of sufficient fall to be available 
for irrigation, is as valuable as a muck mine. 
The beauty of this mode of fertilizing is that 
after the dams are built, and the channels pre¬ 
pared, it costs nothing to keep the meadow's fer¬ 
tile. You have only to look on and see the 
grass grow. We recently visited a farm cutting 
a hundred and fifty tuns of hay for this market, 
where water did the principal manuring. As the 
fields have gained in their annual yield for ten 
years, it may safely be inferred that they will 
yield grass abundantly as long as the water runs. 
