Jmgitei to impro&e all €lum hxUxtitU'b in Soil Culture 
AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, THE MOST USEFUL, AND THE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF HfA IV.— Washington. 
ORANGE JUDD, A. HI., ) U'SOTJIM TO H’&JZ’tfl < $ 1.00 pee annum, in advance. 
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. ) «aS> A aA<S5MKS)iSiiSa»3 lilXll is ( SINGLE NUMBERS 10 CENTS. 
VOL. XVI.—No. 1.] 
NEW-YORK, JANUARY, 1857. 
[NEW SERIES—No. 120. 
jgP’Busin.ess Office at No. 191 Water-st. 
[^For Contents, Terms, Arc. see page 24. 
[J'For Business Notices, see page 21. 
U»PFor Advertisements, see pages 22-3. 
WORK. FOR THE MONTH. 
“ Flat on tlie hearth the glowing embers lie, 
And flames reflected glow in every eye ; 
There the long billets forced at last to bend, 
While frothing sap gushes at either end, 
Throws round its welcome heatthe plowman smiles, 
And oft the joke runs hard on sleepish Giles, 
Who sits joint tenant of the corner stool, 
The converse sharing though in duty’s school; 
For now attentively ’tis his to hear 
Interrogations from the master’s chair.” 
Bloomfield’s Farmer Boy 
Our fathers brought the good old English 
fireside over with them in the Mayflower, 
and though it has been displaced by the mod¬ 
ern stove in most parts of the country, it is 
still in the vivid recollection of the genera¬ 
tion now upon the stage. Houses built fifty 
years ago, had the broad open fire-place 
surmounted by the long ponderous granite 
niantle-piece, extending eight or ten feet 
from jamb to jamb. Many now living can 
recall the full length back log, the fore stick, 
and the long billets heaped high, and the 
roaring flame, biddingdefiance to the winter’s 
cold, the oven in one corner of the fire-place, 
the tub in the other, which served the double 
purpose of seat and dyeing establishment, 
where fast colors were given to the woolens, 
which made up the staple of domestic manu¬ 
facture for winter, in the good old age of 
Homespun. The fire side has been con¬ 
tracting with every successive age, as the 
forests have waned ; and our ideas of do¬ 
mestic comfort have advanced. 
There is a great deal of poetry lingering 
about that old wide mouthed fire-place, 
which we enjoy mightily, as we look back 
upon it from the snugger and more com¬ 
fortable parlors of modern times. But there 
was precious little comfort or poetry to the 
men and women, who were constrained to 
pass their winter life by that open fire in the 
kitchen, which in most cases served all the 
purposes of a sink room, kitchen, sitting 
room and parlor. There was a chill in the 
atmosphere of that room on such a night as 
this, which the cheerful blaze could not dis¬ 
pel. As one side thawed the other nearly 
froze, and every side took its turn of frost 
and fire. It was an uncomfortable spot in 
most instances, and belonged to a ruder a^e. 
The farmer’s home has gained immeasurably 
in health, comfort, and domestic attraction, 
by bricking up the open chimney, and put- 
ting in the fire fra.me the stove the grate or 
even the furnace in the cellar. We may not 
indeed see the fire, but the grand use of fire, 
at least in the winter, is to comfort another 
sense, and to give us opportunity to use the 
sense of vision, for a better purpose than 
gazing at the blaze. 
It is worth while, as we are drawn up this 
evening around our cosey fire, to look back 
at Bloomfield’s picture and contrast the so¬ 
ciety which it represents with the rural life 
of our own times. With winter comes op¬ 
portunity for retrospect, and reflection, and 
we can hardly appreciate our own position, 
without comparing it with the past. There 
can be no doubt, that there has been a great 
change for the better, in almost everything 
that pertains to rural life, during the last 
half century. The material improvement in 
the homes and farms, in the tools with which 
they are wrought, and in the animals with 
which they are stocked, is but a fair index of 
the great moral change that has come over 
our farming population. We will not say 
that the uncomfortable fire place drove them 
forth to other resorts, but from some cause 
or another they went, father, and son, and 
hired man, with great uniformity to spend 
their evenings at the village store or tavern. 
The bar-room was ample, and always well 
heated and lighted, and furnished with genial 
company. No school of vice more prolific 
in woes than this, could have been devised. 
It corrupted the rising generation as fast as 
they came upon the stage. 
The brief work of the winter day being 
done, a large part of the male population of 
the surrounding country congregated here, 
to guzzle drinks of all the vile compounds 
into which New-England rum could be stir¬ 
red, and to speak and act out the foolish and 
mad fancies these drinks inspired. These 
nightly gatherings, habitual during all the 
winter months, were terrible in their influ¬ 
ence upon the public morals. Men did not 
live out half their days. Not even the health¬ 
ful occupation of the husbandman could re¬ 
sist the blight of these winter carousings. 
Drinking inflamed the passions and .led to 
betting and gambling, and often to quarrels 
in which many beside the combatants were 
involved. Feuds between neighbors arose, 
which only grew more bitter and hopeless of 
healing by the habits of the parties. Intem¬ 
perance of course diverted men from their 
businoss, and proved as great a blight upon 
the industry, as upon the morals of the peo¬ 
ple. Every thing was neglected for the low 
pleasures of the tap room. The house went 
without paint inside and‘out the walls and 
fences were broken down, and the farming 
tools were always out of repair. The cat¬ 
tle were not regularly foddered and watered, 
the barn leaked water at the top, and wind 
through the crevices, which were as numer¬ 
ous as the planks upon its sides. The mow¬ 
ing fields were run down, and the corn fields, 
half manured and half hoed, yielded maxi¬ 
mum crops of nothing but weeds. The cat¬ 
tle were lean and long, and lean meat pre¬ 
ponderated in all the pork that was killed 
The children were not ready to go to school 
in the fall until long after the school had be¬ 
gun and were often interrupted in their at¬ 
tendance during the winter, by the father’s 
improvidence. This of course brought on 
complaints at home, discouragement, low 
spirits, and peevishness, to be answered with 
bitter words, and with still further neglect. 
Domestic peace was destroyed, and home 
lost its charms. Mortgage after mortgage 
settled down upon the homestead, until it 
was all dissipated and passed into the hands 
of strangers. 
What a change from all this, has come 
over the homes of our rural population. The 
old comfortless fire place has gone, and the 
kitchen of the olden time has resolved itself 
into separate apartments, adding a sink room 
at one end, a sitting and dining room at the 
other, and a parlor beyond that, which often 
sparkles as brightly with the glow of social 
life as its Franklin does with well seasoned 
hickory billets. The intemperance and 
low vices of the bar-room have been banished 
from many of our communities, and the ru¬ 
ral population find their brightest pleasures 
at home. There is peace and comfort in¬ 
stead of bickering and strife. The sitting- 
room is neatly carpeted, well warmed and 
lighted, the whole household is well clad 
and all are cheerful and happy. Books and 
papers are there in abundance, and the con¬ 
versation no longer runs upon scandal and 
gossip about neighbors, but upon the princi¬ 
ples that underlie the business of life. The 
farmer not only has his political paper, but 
hisjournals devoted to agriculture, horticul¬ 
ture, literature, and religion. His labor is 
more intelligent and better rewarded, and 
he has time to give to reading and thinking, 
as well as to labor in the fields. No class in 
the community have more occasion for grati¬ 
tude in the review of the past than our own ■ 
We live in happier days than our fathers, 
we have better houses, better food, and bet¬ 
ter cooking, better beds and better clothing 
Everywhere there is a high degree of intelli¬ 
gence and civilization. The wants of farm- 
