2 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
increase the weight; or, what is the same thing, 
20 per cent, more food must be given, to pro¬ 
duce an increase of weight in January, equal to 
that of October. This is a fair illustration of 
what is actually the case, though the figures 
given may be wide of the mark. 
Another suggestion arises in this connection, 
viz.: that fattening animals especially should be 
protected, as much as possible, from cold, by 
keeping them in warm enclosures. 
JAUNT IN DUTCHESS COUNTY.-No. 2 . 
Farm of Mr. De Forest .—This gentleman is 
a near neighbor of Mr. Haight, mentioned in our 
first number, and has an excellent farm, which he 
has made so by years of perseverance in a steady 
line of improvement. It is devoted principally 
to stock and fruit. He has an orchard of about 
eighteen acres of pears, peaches, and apples; 
and we must confess we never saw trees in better 
condition. This is undoubtedly owing in a great 
measure to the fact that this orchard was set 
out on newly-cleared forest land, the soil of 
which was bountifully furnished with all the 
elements necessary to grow healthy trees and 
fruit; for Mr. De Forest has applied scarcely any 
other fertilizer to it except common barn-yard 
manure. He has ploughed and cropped the or¬ 
chard every year, and washed the body of the 
trees with soap-suds. There are six hundred pear 
trees. Every other one in the rows is on a quince 
stock, which will be done bearing about the 
time the others get large enough to make it ne¬ 
cessary to cut them down. These little trees 
were hanging full of fair, large fruit. The peach 
trees were looking well, and the apple trees very 
promising. 
Mr. De F. has a fine yearling Devon bull and 
a Devon cow, and proposes enlarging his stock 
in this line, although he is surrounded mostly 
by short-horn breeders. But we like to see a 
variety of stock kept up in every neighborhood, 
for no one kind suits all tastes and the differ¬ 
ent qualities of soil. 
The principal stock on this farm, however, is 
Merino sheep. Mr. De F. imported his buck 
from France, and a noble great fellow he is, too. 
The first crop of this buck’s lambs, from the 
common American Merino ewes, sheared twice 
as much wool as any lambs they ever produced 
before, although they have been turned out to 
run with the others, all receiving the same kind 
of treatment. This shows a great and really 
valuable improvement. 
To guard Bees from the Moth. —Mr. De For¬ 
est has practised a novel method (at least to 
us) of preserving his bees from the ravages of 
the moth. He takes a skeleton of an ox’s head, 
and places it in the crotch of each tree near his 
bee-hives. In the holes of these skeletons wrens 
make their nests, and they devour the moths at 
the bee-hives as fast as they appear, but do not 
touch the bees. 
Mr. De Forest’s buildings are handsome and 
commodious, and every thing about him is kept 
in such nice order as to make it a pleasure to 
walk over his farm and inspect its cultivation. 
- 0 C o - 
THOUGHTS IN AN AMATEUR’S GARDEN. 
It is a beautiful spot, a creation of genius and 
taste; as much so as the costly painting or the 
elaborate piece of statuary. Carving in dirt is 
as much a fine art as carving in marble. It as 
much calls for inventive capacity and for skill 
in execution, as the products of any school of 
art. And when the design of the amateur gar¬ 
dener is carried out, his handiwork is as capable 
of impressing the soul as the painting or the 
statue. 
There are many such creations, wrought up 
with more or less of finish, in the vicinity of all 
our cities and large towns. Here and there they 
are found in the country, bright gems amid the 
surrounding wastes. Their proprietors, in the 
main, are gentlemen in easy worldly circum¬ 
stances, and, by reason of their social position, 
have an extensive influence. Whatever may be 
said of the defects of many of these gardens, 
the bad taste of their arrangement, their pre¬ 
tension, the improper selection of fruits, shrubs, 
and flowers; they are so far in advance of the 
ordinary farm-house and cottage, that they 
serve as models and exert a good influence. 
The very sight of fine ornamental trees and 
flowers, even though the selection is not the 
best, is suggestive to the man who has neither 
by his own door. And these private gardens, 
though they were only seen from the highway, 
are a boon to the country. Every tree and 
shrub planted by the amateur is a silent preacher 
to the wayfarer, bidding him go and do like¬ 
wise. Every tasteful, well-kept yard in front of 
a dwelling is an often-read epistle upon aesthetics, 
and is doing something to improve the rural 
taste, and to cultivate the love of home among 
our countrymen. 
How beautiful these cultivated grounds about 
the dwellings make a country, the traveller 
amid English scenery can vividly recall. “One 
can hardly visit the mother-country without 
lavishing all the epithets of admiration on her 
rural beauty; and his praises are as justly due 
to the way-side cottages of the humble laborers, 
whose pecuniary condition of life is far below 
that of our numerous small householders, as 
to the great palaces and villas. Perhaps the 
loveliest and most fascinating of the ‘cottage 
homes,’ of which Mrs. Hemans has so touch¬ 
ingly sung, are the clergymen’s dwellings in that 
country; dwellings for the most part of very 
moderate size, and no greater cost than are 
common in all the most thriving and populous 
parts of the Union, but which, owing to the 
love of horticulture, and the taste for something 
above the merely useful, which characterize 
their owners as a class, are, for the most part, 
radiant with the bloom and embellishment of 
the loveliest flowers and shrubs.” This rural 
cultivation gives the vicinity of Boston its 
greatest charm. The good work is well begun 
there, and no equal area in our country can 
boast of so many attractive and tasteful homes. 
These amateur gardens are doing much to 
cultivate the taste of the country for floriculture 
and horticulture: and with a little attention on 
the part of their owners, they might be made 
much more efficient in this good work. Moral 
reforms are said to begin with the humble 
classes, and work upward in society. Rural 
cultivation must begin with the wealthy, who 
have the means of adornment. It is in this way 
that this reform has been carried in England, 
and that whole country been made a land of 
gardens. Rural taste has descended from the 
Chatsworths, and the public parks and gardens 
of the nation, to the humblest cottages. From 
these large receptacles of trees and plants, it has 
been easy for all classes to procure the gems 
that adorn their homes. 
Our countrymen are not deficient in capacity 
to appreciate fine trees or flowers, or such an 
arrangement of both as makes a home look 
tasteful and inviting. Many an elm that waves 
gracefully in the distant pasture is coveted by 
the farmer as an ornament for his home. He 
would pay largely to have it removed where he 
could enjoy its shade. He admires the few 
well-kept gardens he sees in the suburbs of the 
market-town he frequently visits. But he can¬ 
not name the shrubs and flowers that please his 
eye, and does not know how or where they are 
to be procured. He admires a pleasant home 
as much as any one, and will go as far as his 
neighbors in adoi’ning his own. But he sees 
little around him to cultivate his taste, or to 
make him dissatisfied with his present treeless 
home. He wants but the stimulus of good ex¬ 
ample, and the knowledge of trees, shrubs, and 
flowers, to make him zealous in rural improve¬ 
ments. 
Now, here is a very wide field of usefulness 
for our amateurs; a work of benevolence that 
will tell upon human improvement and happi¬ 
ness quite as much as other schemes of philan¬ 
thropy that make far mor e noi se in the world. 
We know that many of them arc not strangers 
to this labor of love, a's the improving farm¬ 
houses and cottages for miles around them bear 
ample testimony. But many others do little for 
improvement among their neighbors, either from 
the apprehension that their gifts of plants and 
flowers would not be appreciated, or that the 
practice of giving to all applicants would subject 
them to troublesome demands upon their time. 
There is doubtless ground for both these appre¬ 
hensions in many cases; but suppose half the 
plants a gentleman might conveniently send 
out from his garden should find appreciating 
owners in as many different houses; how much 
happiness would they confer, and how much 
would they do to cultivate the taste of the 
neighborhood! There are few shrubs or flowers 
in any private garden that would not be prized 
by others who do not possess them. Plants are 
prolific, and many of them are multiplied with 
very little labor. A very small patch of straw¬ 
berries will in a single season furnish young 
plants enough to stock a score of small gardens 
in the neighborhood. Now, suppose a gentle¬ 
man should give out word, in any way most 
convenient to himself, that on a given day he 
would furnish such friends as called at his gar¬ 
den with young plants enough to set out a 
strawberry-bed; could he make the day’s-work 
of his gardener in any other way more avail¬ 
able for the common good, or for his own per¬ 
sonal happiness ? Flowers are prolific in seeds, 
and a little time of the gardener, wisely directed, 
will serve to distribute hundreds of packages 
among neighbors and friends, to cheer and adorn 
their homes. Even fruit trees might be distri¬ 
buted without any very large outlay of time or 
capital. Seedlings are constantly showing them¬ 
selves, and these are easily budded with the 
choicest fruits. If a score of young trees were 
sent out every year, they would accomplish 
much in due .time, by cultivating a taste for 
tree-planting. Scions and buds, in their appro¬ 
priate season, might be distributed with much 
less difficulty. 
The happy results of such labors among ama¬ 
teur gardeners may be seen in the suburbs of 
Boston, Hartford, New-Haven, New-York, and 
other places, where the weekly horticultural 
shows afford the best facilities for the distribu- 
