AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
$ wgwfc to imjwfre all Classes iateesfeir in Sail Calhm. 
AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL , THE MOST USEFUL, AND THE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN -Washington. 
ORANGU JUDD, A. M., ) 
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. ) 
mm: 
mt* 
$1.00 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE. 
SINGLE NUMBERS 10 CENTS. 
VOL. XVI.—No. 2 .] NEW-YORK, FEBRUARY, 1857. [new series-No. 121 . 
t5F”I5usiiiess Office at No. 191 Water-st. 
J3|pFor Contents, Terms, Arc. see paare48. 
jgP’Notes to CoiTespomlents, page 26, 43. 
jEgpFor Business Notices, see page 45. 
^For Advertisements, seepages 46-T. 
WORK EOR THE MONTH. 
“Hail, land of the North! where no golden mines. 
No soft perfumes, nor oils, nor myrtle bowers, 
Th« vigorous frame and lofty heart of man 
Enervate ; round whose stern cerulean brows 
White-winged snow, and cloud, and pearly rain 
Frequent attend, with solemn majesty; 
Rich queen of mists and vapors ! these, thy sons 
With their cool arms compress, and twist their nerves 
For deeds of excellence and high renown.’’ 
How much work these winter storms 
make us! How much is to be done to pre¬ 
pare for the winter, how much to make us 
comfortable while the snow fills the air, and 
the frost bridges the streams, and penetrates 
every nook and corner of barn, house, and 
cellar ! There is something stern and un¬ 
welcome in winter, and many who can see 
but one aspect of an evil, would like to drop 
this season from the calendar. But winter, 
with all its discomforts, leaves us largely a 
debtor. We could as poorly afford to spare 
it as any of the seasons. 
It performs an important office in our 
physical training, by giving us a cold bracing 
atmosphere to invigorate our bodies, and by 
throwing in our way such obstacles as call 
into exercise all our physical energies. 
There is more of life and health in the frosty 
air than in the sultry heats of summer. This 
essential element of animal existence is con¬ 
veyed to the system in a more condensed 
state than in summer, and does its work more 
thoroughly. Every one feels the languor of 
the dog-days. The whole fashionable world, 
to say nothing of the unfashionable, ac¬ 
knowledge the worth of cold as they pour 
forth in numberless throngs from our cities, 
and from the far South, seeking the cool 
shades of the country, and the cooler breez¬ 
es of the sea, which never loses entirely the 
spell of winter. God’s “worlds of ice,” in 
the shape of huge mountains, with their 
towering pinnacles, make the ocean a reser¬ 
voir of cold for the health of man. Winter 
has its evils as all good things have—is 
doubtless more favorable to some diseases 
than summer,yet it will be observed that our 
bills of mortality are not greatest at this sea¬ 
son, and the climates where winter reigns 
a part of the year, are more favorable to 
health than regions of perpetual verdure 
and bloom. 
But mere health and development are not 
the sum of physical well-being. These sin¬ 
ews, and bones, and muscles, must have 
thorough training, in order to reach their 
perfection. Winter imposes upon man the 
necessity of unwearied exertion. A large 
part of our toil is to arm ourselves against 
the rigors of this season. It modifies our 
whole style of living. A light structure, 
without windows, a roof or thatch of leaves, 
and an inside coating of smoke, may answer 
well enough for a home in the tropics. But 
he who would have a comfortable home un¬ 
der our northern skies, must toil to build it, 
even after he has gained the means of build¬ 
ing. The foundations must be laid deep be¬ 
yond the power of frost. Provision must 
be made for storing the harvest, which sum¬ 
mer has ripened. The walls and roof must 
be made thick and strong to withstand the 
storms, and to shut out the cold. And when 
this is done, our personal comfort demands an 
atmosphere of artificial heat for more than half 
the year. This involvts a large item of ex¬ 
pense and labor. Then the preparation of 
dress is different, and more costly in a 
cold climate. How many industrious hours 
are spent in guarding these bodies against 
the cold. Indeed it gives shape to the labors 
of all the year. For this, the husbandman 
plants in seed time—for this he gathers in 
his abundant harvests. Now this heavy 
tax which the frost lays upon human ener¬ 
gies, is the best physical training man can 
have. 
It is this which has given the northern 
nations, in all ages, their superiority over 
the tribes of the south. It was this that 
made the Goth and Vandal hordes, with lit¬ 
tle military science, victorious over Rome. 
“ Wide o’er the spacious regions of the North, 
That see Bootes urse his tardy wain, 
A boisterous race, by frosty Taurus pierced, 
Who little pleasure know, and fear no pain, 
Prolific swarm. They once returned the flame 
Of lost mankind in polished Slavery sunk ; 
Drove martial horde on horde with perfect sweep 
Resistless, rushing o’er the enfeebled south, 
And gave the vanquished world another form.” 
It is this training of winter more than all 
other physical causes,which gives the Anglo- 
Saxon race their predominance in the affairs 
of the world. Whatever enterprises they un¬ 
dertake, they accomplish with facility. 
Wherever they go they find less formidable 
difficulties to encounter than they have al¬ 
ready surmo'unted at home. They are 
equally successful, whether they pursue the 
prey of the deep among the ice-bergs of the 
northern oceans, or within the tropics ; alike 
victorious in war on the sultry plains of In¬ 
dia, or in the ruggea passe.,, ana before the 
strongest citadels of Mexico. No race on 
the globe, for well disciplined physical ener¬ 
gy, can compare with this, which has been 
nursed for centuries amid the storms and 
snows of winter. 
But the season is quite as favorable to the 
cultivation of our minds as it is to the disci¬ 
pline of our bodies. It furnishes us with 
an entirely new class of ideas. Man within 
the tropics never knows the sensation oi 
cold, never sees snow, sleet, and ice, form¬ 
ing in their natural way. He is a stranger 
to all those changes in the natural world 
which frost produces. He never witnesses 
the simultaneous decay of the flowers and 
the foliage, the bare aspect of the fields and 
forests,—their winter drapery, and the bridg¬ 
ing of lakes and rivers with ice. He knows 
nothing of the thoughts and cares which the 
changing seasons call forth. He is a stran¬ 
ger to the amusements and occupations of 
winter. He has no fireside—hardly a family 
circle. Take away from us all the ideas 
which this season furnishes,—its solicitudes, 
its scenes, its occupations, its home joys,— 
and what a void have you made in our minds 
and hearts ! Take away these and you rob 
the mind of a large share of the aliment upon 
which it feeds, and by which it grows. 
Especially would the loss be felt in the 
cultivation of the taste and the imagination. 
External objects address the soul, and awak¬ 
en its emotions. The greater the variety 
and beauty of nature, the more are its ener¬ 
gies quickened. Beautiful as are the scenes of 
summer, those of winter are hardly less 
beautiful, while they are more striking and 
grand, and better calculated to awaken the 
deep emotions of the soul. The winter 
storm, as it howls around our dwellings, fills 
us with awe. The approach of this season 
is announced in the forest by more gorgeous 
scenery than the summer can boast. Be¬ 
hold, in the frost smitten foliage, every deli¬ 
cate hue that ever glowed upon the painter’s 
canvas ! And when the leaves have fallen, 
what more beautiful than the forest, with 
every limb to its frailest twig loaded with 
the fresh fallen snow, and glittering in the 
morning sunbeams ; or the same forest after 
a freezing rain, sheeted with ice, and reflect¬ 
ing from its pendant jewels every hue of the 
prism ? If shut up at home, you admire the 
delicate tracery of the frost upon your win¬ 
dow, more highly wrought than the finest 
chasing of the ariizan. If you wander forth 
by the frozen stream, a thousand forms of 
beauty greet you in the crystal coated 
grass along its borders. If a calm winter 
morning, after a snow storm, occurred but 
