AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
few years. So he took his old plain lot, and 
plowed two furrows in a place, and turned 
up the biggest sight of yailer dirt you ever 
laid eyes on. It looked for all the world like 
so many acres of Scotch snuff. The result 
was that he planted corn there, and did not 
get ten bushels to the acre. The land was 
spilt, and it is of no use to talk to me about 
stirring the subsile.” 
Argument of course was out of the ques¬ 
tion, and the Deacon showed his good sense 
by leaving the plow to speak for itself. He 
subsoiled a field properly, and planted with 
corn. • He also induced Tim Bunker to try 
it on a patch of his garden where he was 
purposing to plant carrots and melons. 
The month of July brought a drouth in 
Hookertovvn. Uncle Jotham’s garden felt it 
severely, and he had plenty of neighbors to 
sympathize with him in his lamentations 
over withered vegetables. 
Tim Bunker called him into his garden 
one day as he was passing. 
“ See here, I want you to look at my car¬ 
rots, and see how green they arc where I 
used the Deacon’s subsoil plow. They are 
growing now as fast as if they had a plenty 
of rain, and over there is a piece in John 
Tinker’s garden that looks as if the light¬ 
ning had struck it. He put on a good deal 
more manure than I did, and you sec the 
difference.” 
“ Who would have thought it!” exclaimed 
Uncle Jotham. “ I guess you have put on 
water.” 
“Have you seen the Deacon’s garden! 
It is all as green as a leek, and nobody 
would think there had been no rain for three 
weeks. You see there is no getting x-ound 
the facts, and I have made up my mind to 
try a subsoil plow this fall. It must be a 
great thing to guard crops against drouth, 
and I shall try it on the piece of land that I 
sow with rye.” 
Jotham Sparrowgrass was much less vo¬ 
luble than usual during the call, and went 
home soliloquizing, “ Wonder if Tim Bunker 
did water them carrots!”— [Ed. 
Jhe Hasty Pudding. —We hesitated for 
some time before giving the necessary space 
for this famous old poem, but we have had 
sundry enquiries respecting it, and we sus¬ 
pect many of our readers have not chanced 
to meet with it. To some, the first few lines 
may appear dry, but no one will i-ead through 
the first half and stop there.— [Ed. 
An advertisement in an Irish paper lately, 
setting forth the many conveniences and ad¬ 
vantages to be derived from metal window 
sashes, among other particulars observed, 
“ that these sashes would last for. ever; and 
afterwards, if the owner had no use for 
them, they might be sold for old iron." 
The Emperor of China, instead of paying 
the doctor as we do when we are unwell, the 
instant he is taken ill stops the pay of his 
physician, and does not renew it until he is 
quite well again. 
The handsomest flower is not the sweet¬ 
est. 
THE HASTY-PUDDING. 
Written at Chamrery, in Savoy, Francs, January, 1793. 
BY JOEL BARLOW, 
Minister Plenipotentiary from the United 6 fates. 
CANTO I. 
Ye Alps audacious, thro’ the heavens that rise, 
To cramp the day and hide me from the skies ; 
Ye Gallic flags that o’er their heights unfurl’d, 
Bear death to kings, and freedom to the world, 
I sing not you. A softer theme I choose, 
A virgin theme, unconscious of the Muse, 
But fruitful rich, well suited to inspire 
The purest frenzy of poetic fire. 
Despise it not, ye Bards to terror steel'd, 
Who hurl’d your thunders round the epic field ; 
Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing 
Joys that the vineyard and the still-house bring ; 
Or on some distant fair your notes employ, 
And speak of raptures that you ne’er enjoy. 
I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel. 
My morning incense, and my evening meal, 
The sweets of Hasty-Pudding. Come, dear bowl, 
Glide o’er my palate, and inspire my soul. 
The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine, 
Its substance mingled, married it with thine, 
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat, 
And save the pains of blowing while I eat. 
Oh ! could the smooth, the emblematic song 
Flow like the genial juices o’er my tongue, 
Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime, 
And as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme, 
No more thy awkward unpoetic name, 
Should shun the Muse, or prejudice thy fame ; 
But, rising grateful to th’ accustom’d ear, 
Ail bards should catch it, and all realms revere ! 
Assist me first with pious toil to trace, 
Thro’ w-recks of time thy lineage and thy race ; 
Declare what lovely squaw, in days of yore, 
(Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore,) 
First gave thee to the world ; her works of fame 
Have liv’d indeed, but liv’d without a name. 
Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days, 
First learn’d with stones to crack the well-dry'd 
maize, • 
Thro’ the rough sieve to shake the golden show'r 
In boiling water stir the yellow flour— 
The yellow flour, bestrew’d and stirr’d with haste, 
Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste, 
Then puffs and tvallops, rises to the brim, 
Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim ; 
The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks, 
And the whole mass its true consistence takes. 
Could but her sacred name, unknown so long, 
Rise like her labors, to the son of song, 
To her, to them, I’d consecrate my lays, 
And blow her pudding with the breath of praise 
If ’twas Oella, whom I sang before, 
I here ascribe her one great virtue more. 
Nor thro’ the rich Peruvian realms alone 
The fame of Sol’s sweet daughter should be known 
But o’er the world's wide climes should live secure 
Far as his rays extend, as long as they endure. 
Dear Hasty-Pudding, what unpromised joy 
Expands my heart, to meet thee in Savoy 1 
Doom'd o’er the world thro’ devious paths to roam 
Each clime my country, and each house my home, 
My soul is sooth'd, my cares have found an end, 
I greet my long-lost, unforgotten friend. 
For thee thro’ Paris, that corrupted town, 
How long in vain I wander’d up and down, 
Where shameless Bacchus, with his drenching 
hoard 
Cold from his cave, usurps the morning board. 
London is lost in smoke and steep’d in tea ; 
No Yankee there can lisp the name of thee ; 
The uncouth word, a libel on the town, 
Would call a proclamation from the crown.* 
From climes oblique, that fear the sun’s full rays, 
Chill’d in their fogs, exclude the gen’rous maize ; 
A grain whose rich luxuriant growth requires 
Short gentle showers, and bright etherial fires. 
Buthere, tho’ distant from our native shore, 
With mutual glee we meet and laugh once more 
The same ! I know thee by that yellow face, 
That strong complexion of true Indian race, 
Which time can never change, nor soil impair, 
Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey’s morbid air ; 
For endless years, thro’ every mild domain, 
Where grows the maize, there thou art sure to 
reign. 
But man, more fickle, the bold license claims, 
In different realms to give thee different names. 
Thee the soft nations round the warm Levant 
Polanta call, the French, of course, Polemic; 
Ev’n in thy native regions, how I blush 
To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee Mush ! 
On Hudson's banks, while men of Belgic spawn 
Insult and eat thee by the name Suppavsn. 
All spurious appellations, void of truth; 
I’ve better known thee from my earliest youth, 
Thy name is Hasty-Pudding I Thus our sires 
Were wont to greet thee fuming from their fires ; 
And while they argu’d in thy just defence 
With logic clear, they thus explain'd the sense :— 
“ In haste the boiling caldron o’er the blaze, 
“ Receives and cooks the ready-powder’d maize ; 
“ In haste ’tis serv’d and then in equal haste , 
“With cooling milk, we make the sweet repast. 
“ No carving to be done, no knife to grate 
“ The tender ear, and wound the stony plate ; 
“ But the smooth spoon, just fitted to the lip, 
“ And taught with art the yielding mass to dip, 
“ By frequent journeys to the bowl well stored 
“ Performs the hasty honors of the board.” 
Such is thy name, significant and clear, 
A name, a sound to every Yankee dear, 
But most to me, whose heart and palate chaste 
Preserve my pure hereditary taste. 
There are who strive to stamp with disrepute 
The luscious food, because it feeds the brute ; 
In tropes of high-strain’d wit, while gaudy prigs 
Compare thy nursling man to pamper’d pigs ; 
With sovereign scorn I treat the vulgar jest, 
Nor fear to share thy bounties with the beast. 
What tho’ the gen’rous cow gives me to quaff 
The milk nutritious ; am I then a calf 7 
Or can the genius of the noisy swine, 
Tho’ nursed on pudding, thence lay claim to mine! 
Sure the sweet song, I fashion to thy praise, 
Runs more melodious than the notes they raise. 
My song resounding in its grateful glee, 
No merit claims ; I pra ; se myself in thee. 
My father lov’d thee thro’ his length of days ! 
For thee his fields were shaded o’er with maize ; 
From thee what health, what vigor.he possess’d. 
Ten sturdy freemen from his loins attest: 
Thy constellation ruled my natal morn, 
And all my bones were made of Indian corn. 
Delicious grain ! whatever form it take, 
* A certain king, at the time when this was written, 
was publishing proclamations to prevent American prin¬ 
ciples from being propagated in his country. 
