AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
117 
degraded by misery in proportion as they 
can and do take time to read. 
It was by reading that Columbus was first 
led to make his great voyage of discovery, 
and it was by taking time to read the history 
of that and subsequent voyages that the in¬ 
habitants of the Old World were induced to 
seek homes in the New. It is by reading 
that we have become a great, enlightened, 
and happy nation ; and by reading we are 
known to other enlightened nations, and our 
citizens respected. By reading, too, of our 
greatness and happiness, the people of other 
nations are stimulated to seek an asylum 
among us—not because we have a more 
fertile soil, or a more sunny clime, but be¬ 
cause we have learned how and took time to 
read. 
W T hat would be the result, if every farmer 
in these United States were prohibited from 
reading the newspapers, only for one year 1 
While it would be next to impossible to es¬ 
timate the loss to those interested, it is clear 
that the farmer would suffer in his pecuniary 
affairs largely. He would not know the 
value in market of a single article he wished 
to purchase or sell, and thus lie would be 
compelled to pay double or sell for half 
price in many cases, or else he would have 
to spend much time to inquire as to the 
market-value of whatever commodity he 
wished to deal in. 
Lest you should not find time to read much 
more, I will close, by merely saying, that 
while I have found but one who had no time 
to read , I have found several who, while they 
have time to read —when that is all that it 
costs them—yet they are too penurious to 
pay for a paper, of any sort, and read as 
their own. It is then these have no time to 
read. A READER. 
WINTER LABORS ON THE FARM. 
Under the head of “ A word to Farmers,” 
we find in the Tribune of the 25th ult., the 
following article, which contains some good 
suggestions, and we transcribe it entire: 
We are evidently on the verge of a hard 
winter for the poor. Food and fuel are 
dear, and likely to remain so, while most 
Railroads are either finished or stopped, 
and few public works will be in progress 
after January 1st. Foreign fabrics, wares, 
and metals continue to pour in upon us at 
the rate (for the whole country) of over 
three millions of dollars’ worth per week, 
though it is manifest that our exports, except 
of specie and promises, can not nearly bal¬ 
ance that sum. It is hardly possible, there¬ 
fore, that building should not fall off, and all 
enterprizes which depend on Bank facilities 
or loans of any kind should not be reduced 
to their lowest dimensions, bringing want 
and distress to the hearths of too many of 
the laboring poor. 
We appeal, therefore, to the farmers, as 
in the main the most thrifty and independent 
class in the community, to come to the res¬ 
cue of the unfortunate. Many farmers have 
secured good harvests ; nearly all have ob¬ 
tained or can realize satisfactory prices. 
Unlike almost everybody else, a majority of 
farmers can show a balance on the right side 
of the ledger as to the net results of the do¬ 
ings of 1854. Very many will have from 
one hundred to two or three thousand dol¬ 
lars’ surplus over the year’s outlay, to be 
carried to the account of clear profit or rea¬ 
lized earnings for the year. 
We entreat these to consider whether du¬ 
ty and interest do or do not combine to sug¬ 
gest the investmentofthis surplus in substan¬ 
tial and permanent improvements, giving 
employment to labor. Many have old fences 
that need renovating, (where they can not be 
dispensed with;) and have lands that need 
thorough plowing and subsoiling ; and every 
farmer should do something at draining. We 
know how general is the belief that none 
but lands usually too wet need to be drained ; 
and that only lands that bear high prices will 
justify the expense ; but these are both mis¬ 
takes, as ample experience attests. There 
are two thousand acres of swampy, boggy 
lands in Westchester County alone that 
could be thoroughly and lastingly drained at 
a cost of less than $100 per acre, and would 
then be richly worth $200 to $300 per acre, 
whereas they are not worth the taxes—not 
worth the cost of fencing them. Almost 
every farmer has some *such land, which 
now yields only frogs, bulrushes, alders, 
ague, mud-turtles and musketoes, yet which, 
properly drained and cultivated, would yield 
eighty bushels of Indian corn, or three tuns 
of hay per acre. How much longer shall 
these, our richest and most durable soils, be 
permitted to lie worse than useless, when 
corn is worth a dollar per bushel and labor 
is vainly seeking employment and bread ? 
But there is little land in the old States 
worth plowing which will not pay for drain¬ 
ing and subsoiling. Dry soils need these 
meliorations quite as much as wet, and will 
as richly reward them. There is no tolera¬ 
bly good land in this State so dry that it 
might not, by under-draining and deep plow¬ 
ing, have been made to stand the drouth of 
the past summer without rolling a single 
blade of corn. Proper draining moistens 
land when too dry as much as it dries it 
when too wet. These facts are well known 
to the decently instructed farmer, and we 
need not dwell on them. 
What we aspire to is not to tell the farm¬ 
ers what to do, but to urge them to do 
something. If each one who has the means 
will resolve to keep one, two, or more la¬ 
borers at work through the winter, he will be 
doing a truer charity than by supporting so 
many families in idleness by almsgiving. 
To find work for the industrious, deserving 
poor, is to save them not alone from want 
but from degredation ; to preserve not only 
their lives, but their self-respect and cour¬ 
age. Let every farmer who can, therefore, 
resolve to keep some laborers at work 
through the winter, and not turnalloff when 
the harvest is gathered to wear out the in¬ 
clement season as they may. 
There is no longer any lack of laborers 
wishing to be employed. You can find them 
in almost any township; or if not, there will 
henceforth be thousands of them vainly 
seeking work in our City. Any neighborhood 
by sending an agent here may hire as many 
as may be wanted on reasonable terms forth¬ 
with. Farmers ! give the poor a chance this 
hard winter! 
KEDZIE'S RAIN WATER FILTER. 
Take an oak cask or barrel, that is sound, 
sweet and clean ; bore an inch hole near the 
bottom of one side, into which insert the 
end of a piece of 2- inch lead pipe, ten or 
twelve inches long, the other end projecting 
inward and bent upward from the bot¬ 
tom of the cask, and in the other end place 
a common beer faucit or stop-cock, from 
which to draw water as desired. Have ready 
say one bushel of good hard wood charcoal, 
and the same quantity of clean, fine gravel— 
not limestone—from the fineness of coarse 
sand, up to the size of peas, and if not clean, 
wash it till no dirt will appear in the water. 
Break the charcoal to the size of walnuts 
and smaller, then mix it evenly with the 
gravel; next cover the bottom of the cask 
three or four inches thick with its mixture, 
pounding it down firmly. Next take a clean 
garden flowerpot, of large size, say two gal¬ 
lons, and place it bottom upward in the cen¬ 
ter of the barrel, on top of this layer of grav¬ 
el and coal, and over the end of the lead pipe. 
Then take apiece of small sized i or $ inch 
lead pipe, and place one end firmly into the 
hole in the bottom of the flower pot, now up¬ 
permost, and bring the other end through a 
hole near the top of the barrel, for the pur¬ 
pose of admitting air into the space under the 
flower pot. Now fill in the space around 
and above the flower pot with the mixture of 
coal and gravel, pounding it firmly down as 
you proceed, till the cask is about three- 
fourths full; then place somethin flat stones, 
not limestones, on top, and the filter is com¬ 
plete. The water being poured in on top, 
passes through the gravel and charcoal, by 
which it is purified, and enters the chamber, 
from which it is drawn by the stop-cock or 
faucit, as required ; the small pipe admitting 
air into the chamber to supply the place of 
the water while it is being drawn out. 
BAKED BEETS. 
A good housewife assures us, that the 
mode of cooking beets herein described, is 
preferable to all others : 
“ Beet root can not be too much recom¬ 
mended to the notice of mankind, as a cheap 
and salubrious substitute for the now failing 
and diseased potato. Hitherto the red kind 
has been only used in England as a pickle, or 
as a garnish for salad ; even the few who 
dress it, generally boil it, by which process 
the rich saccharine juice is lost, and the root 
consequently rendered less nutritious by the 
quantity of water it imbibes, as well as by 
parting with the native syrup, of which it is 
thus forcibly deprived; it is, therefore, 
strongly recommended to bake instead of 
boiling them, when they will be found to af¬ 
ford a delicious and wholesome food. This 
is not an untried novelty, for both red and 
white beet root are extensively used on the 
continent; in Italy, particularly, they are 
carried about hot from the oven twice a day, 
and sold publicly in the streets ; thus they 
are purchased by all classes of people, and 
give to thousands, with bread, salt, pepper 
and butter, a satisfactory meal. There are 
few purposes for which baked, or even 
roasted or fried beet root, would not be found 
preferable to boiled.” [Author Unknown. 
Western Hog Trade. —The Nashville 
Journal of the 24th inst., says, the packing 
season is rapidly approaching, and our coun¬ 
try readers wish doubtless to know some¬ 
thing about hogs. There is nothing doing, 
however. Packers, under present circum¬ 
stances, with a tight money market and large 
stocks, and great depression in prices of last 
year’s product, are loth to enter the market 
at the rates now demanded. The crop, it is 
now generally admitted, will not show so 
large a deficiency as supposed some time 
ago. We are confident, however, that no 
sales could at present be effected at over $4 
50 net. 
The Alton Telegraph says : “ We hear it 
rumored that five thousand hogs have been 
contracted for at Springfield, Illinois, at $3 
50. The represented seller is a packer of 
that place.” 
She St. Louis Intelligencer says : “ Here 
packers talk of $4, and so far as we have 
heard an expression of opinion, none calcu¬ 
late that less than this will be paid at any 
time during the season. A drover was in 
the city yesterday, offering to contract 1,000 
or 1,500 head at $5, but found no buyer.” 
At Cincinnati $4, net, is offered. 
It is now 114 years since the Methodists 
have existed as a people, and they number 
in the world nearly two millions of commu¬ 
nicants, and preach the gospel to ten or 
twelve millions, 
