AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
181 
of the soil, but not deep enough to disturb 
the roots ; this acts the same part as hoeing 
in summer, and tends vastly to promote the 
growth of plants. Give each plant space 
enough for air to circulate around it, if pos¬ 
sible ; let it have the benefit of a little pure, 
fresh air at times.” 
THE FARMING BUSINESS. 
The independence, health, and comfort of a 
farmer’s life in this country, if carried on 
with a tolerable degree of intelligence and 
spirit, is a subject of common remark. Our 
people, too, are generally aware that it may 
be considered the most patriotic of the pro¬ 
fessions—that the agricultural interest is the 
grand standard interest to the nation—that 
the science and capital putiinto it may be said 
to be loaned out for the public welfare—that 
as Republicans and Americans, we need no¬ 
thing so much, and nothing so well becomes 
us, as the diligent, enlightened cultivation of 
the soil. From a neglect of these principles 
have arisen, essentially, a great part of our 
calamities in former years. We have be¬ 
come, especially our rising generation, im¬ 
patient, impetuous, ambitious, “ go ahead,” 
that is the phrase which expresses in fact 
our greatest national fault and national curse 
at once. Hence the steady pursuits of our 
fathers are abandoned. They are too tame 
and slow. Hence the old farmer finds him¬ 
self deserted by his sons, as soon as they are 
grown to man’s estate, and generally much 
before. Hence the country is left compara¬ 
tively to run to waste, while the cities and 
large towns are crowded with ill-bred, inex¬ 
perienced, silly young fellows, who are all 
on the qui vive for rushing into trade and 
making a fortune at once. Others embark 
in it, almost without the tedious ceremony 
of apprenticeship or clerkship. Others mi¬ 
grate, and speculate in the South and West. 
Of all this miserable host, nine-tenths are 
ruined within two years from the time they 
leave home. The country is filled mean¬ 
while with indolence, extravagance, and all 
sorts of desperate characters and irregular 
habits. This is going ahead. The old fash¬ 
ioned pursuits, the regular professions, the 
life one may lead in the country, are all too 
slow.” They are nothing like going ahead. 
But we rejoice that the community is be¬ 
ginning to cherish more correct ideas on 
these matters, and is waking up to its real 
dignity and interest, and to those of the na¬ 
tion. Agriculture is rising in public estima¬ 
tion, its true value and respectability are 
beginning to be appreciated, and the time 
will soon eome, if it has not already arrived, 
when it will be a proud thing to be a farmer ; 
and a little experience, a little reflection 
shows that it is not merely the most com¬ 
fortable, but a profitable pursuit—in the ag¬ 
gregate and in the long run, we mean. Spe¬ 
culation may turn out badly, but cultivation 
neverneed to fail. The soil maybe depended 
on always, while the stocks can never—es¬ 
pecially in a mercantile community so excit¬ 
able, so political, and so dependent on extrin¬ 
sic and occasional influences and operations 
as ours is. Nor is it the western soil only 
that will do. There is no need of our young 
men rushing out to Wisconsin, and Texas, 
and Minnesota, and Nebraska, and Oregon 
to find farms; or to California and Austra¬ 
lia, to get possession of that, the love of 
which is “the root of all evil.” They can 
find farms good enough for any praisworthy 
ambition much nearer home. All New-Eng- 
land is good enough for their purpose, and 
by hard digging and plowing they may find 
gold. This running away to “ seek a for¬ 
tune” is merely a foolish notion. Our own 
country is the best country in the world, for 
our own people, at least. And what is more 
to the point, it is a fact, not generally known, 
perhaps, that money can be made here. 
Look at our hills and valleys—they are the 
true El Dorado after all. Look at the gar¬ 
dening business on the lines of our railroads. 
Fortunes are made in this business by any 
one who chooses ; and much more might be 
done if the business was properly followed 
up. But the whole country, the farming 
country, the remotest and rudest portion of 
it, are embraced within our remarks. 
Boston Paper. 
LARGE AND SMALL TREES. 
We have had some experience in trans¬ 
planting both kinds, taken from the nurse¬ 
ries. There is no more risk in removing a 
pear or apple tree, four or five years from 
the bud, than one year from it. We are per¬ 
suaded that we have lost three years by set¬ 
ting small trees where we might have set 
large. The large apple trees from Dyer’s 
nursery, that we put out tv/o years ago, 
have made as much Avood as smaller ones. 
Some of them have blossomed, and the ap¬ 
ples set both years, and as they are full of 
fruit-buds, we "look for a sample of their 
fruit next season. 
It may not generally be known that large 
sized apple trees, say two or three inches at 
the butt, cost no more than the smallest 
size. Nurserymen, if they have a large 
stock on hand, have no other resource than 
to cut and burn them, as they grow beyond 
the proper size for transplanting, so that they 
are glad to dispose of them at that price. 
Large pear trees, especially those upon 
quince, are most expensive. We have pur¬ 
chased some nine years old this fall, at two 
dollars each, and consider it much better 
economy than to pay fifty cents for trees, 
two years from the bud. They are as safe¬ 
ly moved, and will soon bear abundantly. If 
any of our readers are about to set an apple 
orchard, we are confident they will find it for 
their interest to order large trees. Let them 
dig large holes and put in compost liberally, 
and they will soon have fruit. We have 
found the trees from the nursery of the 
Messrs. Dyer, of Brooklyn, uniformly good, 
and have never lost a tree of their growing. 
Their mode of culture gives a large mass of 
fine, fibrous roots, and with ordinary care 
the trees are sure to live. Judging from the 
samples sent us to order, tree planters in 
this vicinity will not do better than to take a 
trip to Brooklyn, or to send in their orders. 
As we pay for our trees in corn rather than 
compliments, our readers may consider this 
an unbiased opinion. 
Norwich (Conn.) Examiner. 
THE OREGON AND OTHER PEAS. 
Panoi-a. writing to the American Cotton 
Planter, speaks of the Oregon pea as fol¬ 
lows : 
The Oregon pea, that magnificent hum¬ 
bug, has had its sway in South Carolina. 
Its career, however, was short. One dollar 
a pint will never be given again in this State 
for this prolific little pea. It has qualities 
to recommend it, but the same can with 
equal propriety be said of the common 
“ Southern pea.” Stock of all kinds, horses, 
cattle, hogs, and cows, will eat the pods and 
vines of the Oregon pea, but they will do the 
same with the other also. Horses brought 
from Kentucky, or any northern State, do 
not willingly eat either, but a little coaxing 
soon creates a voracious appetite for them. 
But they never will abandon the common 
pea for the Oregon pea. Ours is an equally 
productive pea, much more easily gathered, 
and properly prepared is as delicate an ar¬ 
ticle of diet as any pea, let it come from a 
distance doubly as far as the savage wilds of 
Oregon. I must admit, however, that there 
is one preference to be yielded to the Oregon 
pea, and that is, that it grows more luxuri¬ 
antly on poor ground than any other vege¬ 
table matter. To say that it flourishes best 
on poor land is all humbug ; but it may be 
said that in proportion it bears more abund¬ 
antly on such land, for, if the land be rich it 
grows rapidly to a large weed, too coarse for 
fodder, and, unable to sustain its own 
weight, decays its fruit by its own shade, 
lying flatly on the ground. The pea is te¬ 
dious to gather, and unless taken when moist 
with dew, or just as soon as it is ripe, it pops 
open like a touch-me-not when handled, and 
the greater parts of the seeds are lost. Sev¬ 
enty-five cents a bushel for the “ Georgia 
Crowder,” or “ Sidney pea,” is an hundred 
fold cheaper than one dollar a pint for the 
much-extolled “ Oregon pea.” 
BIRDS EGGING IN THE PACIFIC. 
A friend in San Francisco, who is some¬ 
what given to the study of ornithology, writes 
us some very interesting and surprising facts 
in regard to an important trade carried on in 
the markets of that city in the eggs of sea 
birds. He states that the Farallones de los 
Frayles, a group of rocky islets, lying a little 
more than twenty miles west of the entrance 
to the Bay of San Francisco, are the resort 
of innumerable sea-fowl, known by the fish¬ 
ermen as “ murres.” These islands are al¬ 
most inaccessible, and, with a single excep¬ 
tion, are uninhabited. They, therefore, 
very naturally afford a resort for great mul¬ 
titudes of birds. Some time since a com¬ 
pany was organized in San Francisco, for 
the purpose of bringing the eggs of the mur¬ 
res to market. An imperfect idea of the 
numbers of these birds maybe formed from 
the fact that this company sold in that city 
the last season, (a period of less than two 
months, July and parts of June and August,) 
more than five hundred thousand eggs! All 
these were gathered on a single one of these 
islands, and, in the opinion of the eggers, not 
more than one egg in six of those deposited 
on that island was gathered. Our corre¬ 
spondent informs us that he was told by those 
families on the islands, that all the eggs 
brought in were laid by birds of a single 
kind. Yet they exhibit astonishing varia¬ 
tions in size, in form and in coloring. There 
is no reason to suppose that he was misin¬ 
formed in regard to these eggs being deposi¬ 
ted by a single species. The men could 
have had no motive for deception, and simi¬ 
lar facts are observable on the Labrador 
coast and in th*e islands north of Scotland. 
Besides, the writer ascertained from other 
sources, that all the eggs brought to the mar¬ 
ket were obtained from a limited portion of 
the island, known as the Great Fallaron— 
called the Rookery, where a single species 
swarm in myriads, and where no other kind 
of bird is found. Naturalists, in our East¬ 
ern cities, who have received specimens of 
these birds, pronounce them as Thickbilled 
or Brunnich’s Guillemot, or Murres of La¬ 
brador and Northern Europe. The eggs are 
three and a half inches in length, and are 
esteemed a great delicacy. 
Something New. —An invention which 
must become popular consists in a small 
padlock, with the owner’s name engraved 
upon it, which is affixed to an umbrella in 
such a way that it can not be taken off, nor 
the umbrella opened. This, it is supposed, 
will guard against the stealing of umbrellas, 
and in this light will, if successful, be by 
some considered an infringement of natural 
rights. 
Nothing so well becomes true feminine 
beauty as simplicity. 
