1866.] 
55 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
I have inspected a field upon a portion of which 
this system was tried last year. The field was 
everywhere subject to the same cultivation, 
and if any thing the crop was superior upon the 
strings. The half acre upon which the experi¬ 
ment was made can now be distinguished with¬ 
out the slightest difficulty. Scarcely a plant has 
failed, and on an average, the new vine is fully 
one foot higher than in any other part, and is 
strong and healthy in proportion. It is already 
well established on the poles, and is from thi-ee 
to four feet high, being at least a fortnight in 
advance of any garden I saw in my short tour. 
The experiment will be extended this year, 
and as it is not yet too late, I would seriously 
urge an extensive trial by large hop-growers, in 
the strong conviction that it is most important 
to reform the present system of picking, which 
is contrary to every principle of vegetable phys¬ 
iology.’ 
“Your book on ‘Hop Culture’ (see Book 
List) should be in the hands of every hop-grow¬ 
er. It contains all the information necessary, it 
is a perfect manual of instruction for a novice.” 
Agricultural Education.—The Public or 
District School. 
In an article on page 11 on “ The School in the 
Family” we take it for granted that the farmer’s 
boy can attend school. Happily this is the case 
almost everywhere in our country, except in 
the ruder settlements of the West and the less 
populous parts of the South; but unhappily the 
character of the public schools in many sec¬ 
tions, even in the Eastern States, is very poor, so 
' poor indeed that it is a matter of but little re¬ 
gret that school keeps but four months in the 
year. Certainly no question should come home 
to every farmer with more force than the in¬ 
quiry—“whose fault is it that the district school 
is no better ? ” We know it is often very hard 
to induce a community of little-thinking men 
to tax themselves any more than they can help 
for any thing. And if the school is better than 
it used to be, and the boys are picking up from 
newspapers and story books, “ a better edication 
than their fathers had,” any movement to have 
a better house and better teachers will be very 
apt to be voted down in town meeting as often 
as it can be brought up. It is useless to argue 
on moral principles with the men who are' not 
"in favor of giving their children the very best 
education they possibly can, nor with those 
who, perhaps, having no children of their own, 
neither think nor care how those of their neigh¬ 
bors are educated. There is an appeal to per¬ 
sonal interest which they will heed. It is not 
hard to demonstrate by examples almost every¬ 
where, that the thoroughness of the schooling 
has a great effect, and that very soon, upon the 
general intelligence and moral sense of the 
community, the security of property, the value 
of real estate, etc. Crime is diminished; inven¬ 
tion and mechanical ingenuity quickened; bet¬ 
ter farming obtains, and the general welfare of 
the whole community is greatly increased. It 
is, in fact, hard to set bounds to the inevitable 
.and .elevating influence of a good district school 
well maintained for a series of years. 
It is every citizen’s bounden duty to do not 
onlyhis share towards maintaining a good 
public school in his neighborhood, but he should 
be active and earnest in having it just as good 
as it can be. It will put money in his pocket 
even though he be an old bachelor without any 
expectations, or a day laborer without family. 
There are always those in every community 
who appreciate the value of a good education 
for their children. Such people are very apt, 
after some discouraging efforts to have the 
public school good enough for their children, 
to send them off reluctantly to boarding schools 
at a distance, or undertake to have them in¬ 
structed at home by private tutors. This is a 
bad practice. It is more democratic and in 
every way better to have the children of all sta¬ 
tions in life, and of families of every grade of 
wealth, meet on the same level in the public 
school, the only qualifications for school 
membership being fair.morals, soundness of 
mind, and personal cleanliness. There is little 
danger of children well trained at home getting 
harm at such a school. There is far more dan¬ 
ger at boarding schools where boys and girls are 
separated from the influences of home, especial¬ 
ly if they are sent away in tender years. 
It matters not how carefully children are kept 
away from evil influences, they will inevitably 
meet them at some time and somewhere. Temp¬ 
tations to do wrong will come, if not in com¬ 
pany with others, then in their own hearts and 
when quite alone. Real moral strength comes 
with meeting and resisting. This the child of 
six years old is just as well able to do as the 
grandsire of sixty; and is it not written “as 
thy day, so shall thy strength be?” 
The public school teacher should be posses¬ 
sed of moral power. Do not employ a man of 
so little force of mind and goodness of heart 
combined that he has to govern by the rod— 
much better have a gentle woman with persua¬ 
sive graces and loving temper. Any teacher 
who shows anger should be dismissed at once, 
no matter how much he knows. To govern 
one’s self is more important than to govern the 
school. Very great learning is seldom a desir¬ 
able qualification; but, with good general know¬ 
ledge, great accuracy is. A teacher’s language 
should be easy and correct always, his pronun¬ 
ciation perfect. He should read easily and well, 
and spell well, and have a fair knowledge of 
arithmetic. With these qualifications, if he is 
not lazy, he will be a good teacher who loves 
his work and loves his pupils. In regard' to 
mere book knowledge, of even those things 
which he is to teach, as geography, history, 
etc., he can study faster, read more than, and 
keep thoroughly ahead of his pupils, if he has 
only a general understanding of his subjects. 
The primary school teacher’s chief business is 
to furnish a child with the means of acquiring 
knowledge, and a love for it; to give the 
child a knowledge of written language, so that 
he can comprehend books and put himself in 
communication with the thinking world; and to 
so far instruct him in regard to the world 
around him that he shall leave school with earn¬ 
est desires to learn more. So he is instructed a 
little, and a very little it is, in geography; he 
gains a little insight into mathematics and 
numerical relations (learns to count pennies and 
compute interest perhaps); he studies histoi'y 
of the United States and thinks he understands 
all very well; and so it is with other things. But 
most unfortunately neither school-books nor 
teachers tell their pupils where they can go for 
fuller knowledge and minute information on 
these subjects. This great want is in part sup¬ 
plied by good district school or public libraries 
where they exist, but the desire for such libra¬ 
ries and the use of such as exist might be great¬ 
ly increased by suitable references in the school¬ 
books in general use, to instructive treatises. 
The subject exceeds our space in the present 
number, and we must continue it at another time. 
The Cultivation of Peppermint. 
Occasional accounts appear in the papers of 
the large sums realized from the peppermint 
farms of Michigan and Western New York, and 
these naturally suggest to some of our readers 
to ask why we do not publish articles on pep¬ 
permint culture. We are a little shy about say¬ 
ing anything about specialties which shall in¬ 
duce people to engage in undertakings for which 
they are not well qualified, and which, if com¬ 
menced, would in nineteen cases out of twenty, 
result in loss. Mint growing has in many in¬ 
stances proved profitable, but it involves not 
only cultivation, but the immediate manufacture 
of the product into oil; a process which though 
not complicated, 5 "et requires care and skill in a 
sort of manipulation with which farmers are not 
familiar, and it is one which to be profitable 
must be carried on in a large waJ^ If any one 
wishes to start an enterprise of this kind it 
would be time and money profitably expended, 
to visit localities where the culture is established, 
and where he could in a few hours see and learn 
more than he could from any detailed descrip¬ 
tion. Another thing to be borne in mind is the 
fact that the oil of peppermint is an article for 
which the demand is limited, and that it is one 
the price of which is subject to great fluctua¬ 
tions. Mint does best in a light, rich and warm 
soil. It is propagated by sets or parts of old 
plants. The mint spreads rapidly by under¬ 
ground branches; the old plants obtained by 
plowing up a field may each be divided to form 
several sets. The ground is well prepared as 
for a potato crop, as early as the season will 
permit, and furrows are marked out from 18 to 
24 inches apart. The planter carries a bag of old 
plants from which he pulls off a portion, drops 
it into the furrow and covers it with his foot, 
putting them so thickly in the furrow as to 
nearly touch one another. During the season 
the weeds are kept down by the use of the culti¬ 
vator and hoe until August, and by the latter 
part of that month the plants will have nearly 
covered the whole surface. The cutting com¬ 
mences when the plant begins to flower, and is 
done with a cradle or grass scythe, the mint 
cocked in the field and allowed to wilt and then 
taken to the still. The still consists of a strong 
wooden tub, 4^ feet high, and 6 feet in diame¬ 
ter, with an opening in the top for charging it, 
which can be made steam-tight. From near the 
top of the still a tube connects with a condens¬ 
ing worm, and at its lower part is inserted a pipe 
which conducts steam from a boiler. The tub 
or still being crowded full of the wilted mint, 
and the cover fastened steam tight, steam is let 
on from the boiler, and after the whole mass is 
heated through, it passes into the worm where it 
is condensed. The steam carries the oil of the 
mint with it and both are condensed together, 
and the water and oil are caught in a receiving 
vessel where they separate the oil floating upon 
the water. The first year’s crop gives the best 
quality of oil and the greatest yield per acre. 
The second year nothing is done but to destroy 
the few weeds and cut and distil the mint. The 
third year, the field becomes overrun with weeds 
and the product of mint is small. The fourth 
year the field is plowed up to kill the weeds, and 
enough plants spring up from the broken roots 
to give a fair crop. The fifth year the field with¬ 
out much attention gives a crop about equal to 
that of the second 3 ’^ear, and after this the land 
is put in grass, and allowed to recover its ex¬ 
hausted fertility for a few years, when it 
may be planted again with mint 
