248 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
llUiUL SURROUNDINGS. 
NUMBER VIII—PEACOCKS—GUINEA HENS— 
KAT TERRIERS. 
It is big-li time we close our already numerous 
catalogue of country companions in the way of 
beasts and birds. Yet, we can hardly do so, in 
justice to our own long associations with a few crea¬ 
tures not yet described, without naming them. In 
our list of poultry we have omitted two very beau¬ 
tiful, and we may as well add, compared with those 
we have described, very useless birds, for all the 
real utility there is about them. These are the 
Peacock and the Guinea hen. Every one who 
knows much about poultry, knows what they 
both are, and a description of either is quite un¬ 
necessary. In form and plumage, although ex¬ 
ceedingly unlike, they are both rare birds to look 
upon. Shy in manner, wilh an ugly vain or vicious 
temper towards all other fowls, and no particular 
affection for humanity itself, there is little to ingra¬ 
tiate them with their keepers beyond the variety 
they give to the poultry yard, and the luxurious 
plumage which decorates them. AVe have kept 
them many years. We keep them still. We have 
discarded them sundry times, after they had sorely 
tried our temper, and exhausted our patience with 
their mischiefs, and their vices. Then relenting,and 
yearning towards them as a parent yearns towards 
an undutiful child who has some redeeming traits 
of character—the comparison is scarcely a proper 
one, but we will risk it—we again took them into 
our keeping, yet not into our confidence. AA r e tol¬ 
erate them, only. Pugnacious, noisy, rude and 
cowardly, they are a perpetual pest to all the well 
regulated poultry on the place, and we shall refrain 
from giving any directions about their breeding and 
rearing, not wishing to multiply races of birds, not 
decidedly useful on the farm. AVe therefore refer 
you, indulgent reader, to the boolc authorities, where 
you will find out pretty much all worth knowing of 
the Peacock, and Guinea hen; and what the books 
dont tell, you will find out fast enough yourselves, 
when you have had the birds six months on the 
farm in daily hostility with the other feathered fam¬ 
ilies of the establishment. 
THE BLACK AND TAN, SMOOTH-HAIRED TERRIER 
Is among the most useful of the pets we asso¬ 
ciate with in our rural occupations ; and we can not 
forego paying our grateful tribute to his useful, and 
agreeable qualities before closing our family sched¬ 
ule. These active and sagacious little dogs are the 
most inveterate exterminators of all predatory ver¬ 
min that we have yet had about us. Small in size, 
active and expert in movement, sagacious in under¬ 
standing, and kind in disposition, they embrace all 
that is really useful in theway ofa farm-dog. They 
are true, and loving in disposition, yet exceedingly 
watchful of every thing in, or out of doors, with an 
instinctive hatred of rats, mice, minks, weasels and 
every other pest which prowls about the premises. 
AVith an unflinching courage they attack everything 
offensive. Yet they are affectionate, loving and 
constant to the family with whom they associate 
familiar with the children, if there be any about the 
house, and companionable in every way that a don- 
should, or need to be. In size they run from ten 
to twenty-five pounds. Some are very diminutive 
not weighing over six pounds, and quite good rat¬ 
ters at that; but such size is too delicate, running 
frequently into effeminacy. A first-rate ratter 
should.not be less than fifteen pounds in weight, 
and of active shape and proportions. 
Some people have a vile habit of cropping- their 
ears, and tails, “ to make them look smart,” as they 
say. But such cropping injures them in hearing, 
eyesight and running. AVe have tried the whole 
thing; and know it to be sq. The ears and tail of a 
terrier, should be left as nature made them, a pro¬ 
tection to their hearing, and a guide for their turn¬ 
ing in the chase. 
AVe can not go into the mode of breeding, and 
training the terrier in our limited space. The dog 
books will tell you of these, and there is, also, a 
chapter on dogs among the last pages of Allen’s 
Rural Architecture, giving all the information con¬ 
cerning the terrier which is required for practical 
uses. AVith this reference we leave him. 
WHAT OF THE “TIMES?” 
Like most of our subscribers living in the 
country, we “read the papers,” and from these, 
more than from any other source, have we learned 
that there has been a “ terrible financial crisis.” 
We have heard that New-York city is bankrupt; 
but though we go daily from our quiet country 
home to our office, which is located in the midst 
of great blocks of heavy dealers in various kinds 
of merchandise, we know not of half a dozen 
business houses in our part of the city that have 
“ suspended,” “ assigned,” or “ failed.” We de¬ 
posit money in our good old bank, and when 
wanted, draw it out either in bills or in specie, as 
may be desired ; and although it is said that specie 
payments are suspended, we have really seen no 
special evidence of this fact, save in the single 
circumstance, that we find it difficult, or next to 
impossible, to get any fair equivalent for A\ T estern 
or Southern Bank Bills sent to us in payment for 
subscriptions. So much for what we have seen 
and felt, and our experience lias, we doubt not, 
been similar to that of nine-tenths of our country¬ 
dwelling readers. 
But it is not to be denied that there has been, 
and is, great trouble among certain classes of 
traders, manufactures, and dealers in railroad 
stocks, &c. It is also evident that the disturb¬ 
ance in the money market, and in the domestic 
and foreign exchanges of the country, have al¬ 
ready told sorely upon the prices of farm products. 
The want of confidence between the East and 
AVest has almost entirely cut off the usiml supplies 
of money necessary for buying grain. The ina¬ 
bility of farmers to sell their produce has pre¬ 
vented them from paying their “ store debts the 
merchants buying on credit have been unable to' 
meet their debts to the city jobbers; the jobbers 
have failed to pay the importers; and the import¬ 
ers cannot pay their debts to foreign or home 
manufacturers ; and thus a whole chain of dealers 
have been in trouble, and it is not strange that 
suspensions and failures by the hundred have oc¬ 
curred and are occurring in certain branches of 
business. The dealers on credit have been unable 
to pay their debts to the banks, and these in turn 
have been weakened, and to save themselves they 
have suspended specie payment, in name at least. 
Without speculating upon the causes of this 
state of things, let us inquire what is to be the 
result 1 The first effect, and the one which will 
be most felt by our readers especially, is the de¬ 
pression in prices of farm produce. To those who 
have run in debt on the expectation of paying 
with crops to be sold at former rates, this will be 
a pinching time. And we see no help for it. 
Money has taken a higher relative value. AA r ith 
a partial destruction of credit, the real currency, 
the gold and silver, have a larger work to do in 
the exchanges, or trade of the country, and their 
value is enhanced. There is less money to buy 
the grain crops, and more grain must be given 
than formerly for the same weight of gold—a dol¬ 
lar weight for example. AVe say, those who have 
contracted debts will suffer, because they must 
needs give more of their crops to pay a debt of 
fifty or a hundred dollars—the legal debt being 
always founded upon a metalic currency. 
Those who are not in debt will not suffer loss 
in the lower prices prevailing, for from the higher 
value of money, it will buy a greater quantity ot 
those articles which they desire or need to pur 
chase. When wheat was twelve shillings a 
bushel, sugar was twelve cents a pound. But 
when wheat sells for eight shillings, sugar will 
sink to the neighborhood of eight cents per pound, 
and so of cloth and other articles of merchandise. 
It is true, that this change in the relative value— 
this equalization of prices—will not take place 
suddenly all over the country. The disturbance 
in the money market and in the exchanges be¬ 
tween the East and West will fall first upon the 
heavy products of the soil. Traders who have 
bought theit goods at high figures will not reduce 
prices at once to the proper level, but the change 
will surely come, and that speedily. The trader 
who buys his stock, with cash, in this city to-day, 
can do so at prices far below what he could 
do only a few weeks since. The depreciation 
will fall hard upon the importers and manufactur¬ 
ers, and many of them must fail—indeed, almost 
all of them who have not a surplus from former 
profits to fall back upon. 
But there is no cause for general alarm or de¬ 
spondency. The panic makers would have us 
believe we are coming to sudden and irretrievable 
ruin. But, in truth, the country is now richer, in 
what constitutes real wealth, than it has evet- 
been before. Witli all the failures and suspen¬ 
sions, nothing worth speaking about has really 
been lost. We have to day more gold and silver 
in the country than one year ago—more products 
of the soil—more of ali the elements of real 
wealth. AA r e have parted with some imaginary 
wealth. A farm, a corner lot, a Western village 
property, considered worth five thousand dollars 
one year ago, may now sell for but half that 
sum, but its intrinsic value is just as great or 
greater now than then. The stock of a certain 
railroad may then have been held at $100 per 
share, while now it may not bring a dime per 
share, but the real worth of the road to the coun¬ 
try, as a means of bringing produce to market, in 
opening and developing the farm lands along its 
path, and in other ways, is just as great as if its 
stock sold at par. The individual stock holders 
who invested their money in it have suffered se¬ 
vere loss, but the country is richer for its being 
built. The vast net-work of railways which have 
been constructed at so much cost, and which have 
entailed so much, loss on individuals, are great 
additions to the wealth of the country. Suppose 
we have paid seven hundred millions of dollars 
for building 15,000 miles of railwavs. We have 
the railways now as a source of wealth—they are 
so much substantial capital—just as useful and 
just as valuable as canals, ships, wagons, or 
teams, to carry grain to market, to carry back 
merchandise, and transport travelers. England 
expended seven hundred millions in the Crimean 
war, and has nothing left for the money. 
Ail immense suin—more than the entire cost ol 
all the railroads in the country—has been added 
to our national wealth by the favorable Autumn 
weather bestowed upon us. Who can estimate 
the aggregate advantage to the corn crop, of this 
propitious ripening season 1 AVho can calculate 
the value of the unusual Fall feed, so luxuriant 
over ten thousand pasture fields'! AA’e repeat, 
then, that whatever may now be the relative 
value of money and produce and manufactures,: 
whatever may have been lost by individuals, the 
whole country has been benefited, and is richer 
than ever before in all that constitutes real wealth. 
War, pestilence, hurricanes or earthquakes have 
not annihilated any of the products of our labor. 
Let us then cast away all gloomy forebodings 
and looking upon the bright side of the picture, 
take courage for the future. 
