34 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
the delay was only a wise way of making 
haste slowly. He wanted to say the right 
thing to Timothy Bunker, Esq., and his wife 
Sally, in his pastoral visits, and speak of the 
Club as a thing likely to turn up another 
season, if the farmers would take hold of it. 
He also had a few words to say to Seth 
Twiggs, John Tinker, and Tom Jones, and 
their neighbors, which would prove as good 
seed in good soil for his purposes. 
These private talks of the minister, to¬ 
gether with the fairs and the agricultural 
papers, had stirred up a good deal of interest 
in the community, so that everybody was 
prepared to see the notice stuck up on the 
sign post in Hookertown, in front of the 
meeting house, that the farmers and culti¬ 
vators would hold a Club meeting at the 
schoolhouse, on the first Tuesday evening 
in December. The subject announced for 
discussion was the “ Dioscorea Batatas or 
Chinese Potato.” 
The appointed evening came, and the 
schoolhouse, when the orthodox hour of 
early candle light appeared, revealed some 
five and twenty of the farmers, mechanics 
and professional men of the town. 
Deacon Smith was appointed Chairman, 
and as the proceedings were not designed 
for the public, It was concluded to forego 
the usual ceremony of appointing a clerk. 
The Chairman laid the subject for discus¬ 
sion before the meeting, and called upon 
gentlemen for their views of the distin¬ 
guished stranger. 
He said the topic had excited considera¬ 
ble interest among cultivators, and a good 
deal had been said about it in the papers. 
A nurseryman of distinction had claimed for 
it remarkable virtues, and had threatened to 
drive out all known esculents wjth it from 
the country. Great pains had been taken to 
disseminate the tubers, and he had learned 
that some of the tin boxes were imported 
into Hookertown last spring. He had un¬ 
derstood that gentlemen would be present 
this evening, who would relate their experi¬ 
ence. The meeting was open for remarks. 
Judge Bronson said he supposed the allu¬ 
sion to the tin boxes probably meant him, 
and he had to confess that he parted com¬ 
pany with an ‘X’ last April for one of those 
articles. The contents, he said, were sand, 
and a dozen black looking articles, a little 
bi«ger than pepper-corns, that looked about 
as likely to sprout as so many crumbs of 
Indian bread. He said his faith leaned hard 
upon a pamphlet containing a beautiful illus¬ 
tration of the tuber, and a glowing descrip¬ 
tion of its virtues and productiveness. He 
thought it was worth trying, and had tried 
it quite as thoroughly as any case he had 
ever tried in Court, and by ordinary rules of 
evidence, he was constrained to pronounce 
the claims put. forth a great humbug, what¬ 
ever might be said of the tuber itself. 
Rev. Mr. Slocum, of Shadtown, next ad¬ 
dressed the meeting. This gentleman’s 
exchanges with the Hookertown minister 
have been more frequent of late, and as he 
always stops at Esquire Bunker’s, it is mis¬ 
trusted that something beside the Farmer’s 
Club made him stay over to attend this 
meeting. Perhaps Sally Bunker knows 
about that; your Reporter does not. He 
said that he had received one of the pam¬ 
phlets which Judge Bronson had mentioned, 
and from what he could learn at the minis¬ 
ters’ meetings, the work was pretty exten¬ 
sively distributed among the clergy last win¬ 
ter. Whether the operator in tubers thought 
that an unusual share of the green ones was 
to be found among the clergy, he could not 
say. Probably that view of their character 
had something to do with the liberal share 
of the pamphlets bestowed upon them. He 
was happy to state, however, that very few 
of his brethren had been caught in the trap, 
and those who had fooled away their ten 
dollars were best able to bear it. Gentle¬ 
men who had tried the new yam in his 
parish were disappointed with its perform¬ 
ance, and thought it a swindle. 
This brought up old Jotham Sparrow- 
grass, the distinguished uncle of Jeremiah, 
the Broad way clerk, who made such a figure 
shooting robins and bobolinks last summer, 
in Tim Bunker’s cow pasture, as the readers 
of the Agriculturist will remember. Jotham 
had grown envious of Esquire Bunker’s re¬ 
cent improvements and notoriety, and also 
of his neighbors, and though he was always 
running out against book farming and new 
fangled notions, he determined that for once 
he would steal a march upon them, and as¬ 
tonish the natives with potatoes a yard long 
As soon as he saw the notices of the Dios¬ 
corea in certain leading political papers, he 
determined upon a venture, and ordered a 
dozen through his nephew, Jeremiah Spar- 
rowgrass—him of New-York city. 
“ Swindle !” echoed Uncle Jotham as he 
rose and struck his cane upon the floor; 
“ there has not been such a piece of rascal¬ 
ity afloat since the Multicaulus fever. I got 
caught then with a Chinaman, and vowed I 
never would have anything more to do with 
book-farming. But those stories in my New- 
York paper looked so mightily plausible, 
that I was taken in agin. You see, if they 
had only been in an agricultural paper, I 
wouldn’t ’ve read ’em. But coming in a 
political paper, I thought they were all right. 
But I have now come to the conclusion that 
there is a mighty difference between potatoes 
and politics. A man sound in politics may 
be a blind guide in vegetables. Why, them 
things that cost me near a dollar apiece, they 
did not half come up, and what did come up 
might as well have staid down ; they were 
such thin stringy consarns. Potatoes a 
yard long, and a rod of ground supporting a 
family!! Why, at the rate mine yielded, 
it would take an acre of ’em to support a 
pig, and if the one our folks cooked was a 
fair sample, the pigs might have ’em in wel¬ 
come.” 
Tim Bunker, Esq , here got the floor, and, 
with a side glance at Jotham, said : “ It 
would be well if cultivators who were going 
into new things would take a reliable agri¬ 
cultural paper, published by men who under¬ 
stood the business, and had access to the 
best sources of information in regard to the 
novelties that come out. He was not caught 
in this humbug, thanks to the American 
Agriculturist, which gave timely warning to 
all its readers last winter. The fact is, 
there is too much of a disposition to mix up 
things in the papers. I think a political 
paper better stick to politics and news, and 
a religious paper stick to religion and mis¬ 
sions, and when we have a farmer’s paper, 
let the editor stick to his text, and not hash 
up potatoes with love stories. I don’t mean 
to reflect upon any rural paper in particular. 
For my part, I want a simple diet in my 
paper as well as upon my table. Then 1 
know pretty much what I have got before 
me, and it is all plain sailing. But you see 
this China potato first got a going in a 
political paper, and folks swallowed it whole 
as if it was all according to Gunter. But 
you see, the fellow that wrote about it was 
a cute chap, cyphering up a good speculation 
for himself, instead of calculating for the 
good of the public. The fellow promised 
too much by half. If he had only said he 
had got a good thing, and wanted folks to 
try it, it would have looked more reasona¬ 
ble. But when he came to talk about its 
feeding all China, and that it was soon going 
to feed all America, it was going a leetle too 
far. The funniest part of the whole story 
was, that he expected ministers were such 
greenhorns as to believe the whole of it, 
just as if the doctrine of total depravity had 
never been heard of in Connecticut. I doubt 
whether he goes to meeting much. The 
only safe way for us to avoid humbugs is 
to take a good agricultural paper and keep 
up with the times.” 
Meeting adjourned. 
DIVISION Of 1 UBOK UPON THE EAM. 
This is a matter that has hardly begun to 
receive attention in this country. In Eng¬ 
land, it is carried out, perhaps quite as far 
as is desirable. There, labor of all kinds is 
much more divided than with us. Men in 
all the arts and trades are trained to a spe¬ 
cific work, and so closely is their attention 
confined to their particular department, that 
they know little else. Thus, in the manu 
facture of a pin there are a dozen or more 
distinct manipulations to be gone through 
with, each one requiring the steady work of 
one man or boy. The pin-header confines 
himself to that business, and knows nothing 
of the work of the pointer, the polisher, the 
packer, &c. He is nothing else than a pin- 
header. The influence of this training is 
seen in all the mechanics that come over to 
us from that country. They excel in the 
knowledge and practice of the particular de¬ 
partment of labor to which they have been 
trained, but can not compare with American 
artizans for general knowledge of mechan¬ 
ics, and for capacity to adapt themselves to 
any new department of their own trade. 
The same thing is seen in their farm la¬ 
borers. They do a given thing with which 
they have been acquainted, admirably, but 
are very awkward at tools they have not 
been accustomed to handle. But upon the 
American farm, one is trained from his boy¬ 
hood to do everything, and he draws in the 
belief, with his mother’s milk, that he is a 
