2S0 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
which an experiment was tried of feeding swine 
upon turnips, both cooked and raw, by which 
it was found that the pigs all gained remarkably 
well, but that they ate twice as much of the 
cooked as of the raw food, and gained most on 
the raw. The raw turnips were “ pulped” or 
grated, and allowed to ferment. 
Let us have the experiment tried, and re¬ 
ported in our agricultural papers. I think the 
value of turnips is by no means appreciated in 
this country. It has been said that “the na¬ 
tional power of Great Britain has its root in 
the turnip.” It is there the great crop for fat¬ 
tening and sheep, and so maintaining the fer¬ 
tility of the soil.— H. F. F., in New-England 
Farmer. 
THE FARMER’S LIFE. 
Come, see him at his harvest home, 
When garden, field, and tree, 
Conspire, with flowing stores to fill 
His barn and granary. 
His healthful children gaily sport 
Amid the new-mown hay, 
Or proudly aid with vigorous arm 
His tasks as best they may. 
The dog partakes his master’s joy, 
And guards the loaded wain, 
The feathery people clap their wings, 
And lead their youngling traiu. 
Perchance the hoary grandsire’s eye 
The glowing scene surveys, 
And breathes a blessing on his race, 
Or guides their evening praise. 
The Harvest Giver is their friend, 
The maker of the soil, 
And earth, the Mother, gives them bread, 
And cheers their patient toil. 
Come, join them round their wintry hearth, 
Their heart felt pleasures see, 
And you may better judge how blest 
The farmer’s life may be. 
LYDIA n. SIGOURNEY. 
-*©♦- 
TO THE WINDS. 
Talk to my heart, 0 winds— 
Talk to my heart to-night; 
My spirit always finds 
With you a new delight— 
Finds always new delight, 
In your silver talk at night. 
Come up from your cold bed, 
In the stilly twilight sea, 
For the dearest hope lies dead 
That was ever dear to me ; 
Come up from your cold bed, 
And we’ll talk about the dead. 
Tell me, for oft you go 
Winds, lovely winds of night, 
About the chambers low, 
With sheets so dainty white, 
If they sleep through all the night, 
In the beds so chill and white ? 
Talk to me, winds, and say, 
If in the grave be rest; 
For, 0, life’s little day 
Is a weary odo at best; 
Talk to my heart and say 
If death will give me rest 
New Needle Cushion. —An old maid in 
Connecticut, being at a loss for a pin-cushion, 
made use of an onion. On the following morn¬ 
ing she found that all the needles had tears in 
their eyes. 
VALUE OF THE PRESS. 
A GOOD STORY WITH A MORAL. 
The editor of a village paper, out West, struck 
for his dues once on a time, and stopped his 
paper. His subscribers were all in arrears, 
and he resolved, in the most positive manner, 
that ho would give the people no more of the 
products of his brain until he had received some 
of the products of their farms, or, if that was not 
convenient, the cash instead. He happened to 
own a patch of ground, and he very quietly took 
up the shovel and the hoe, and with his “devil,” 
went to work raising his “grub,” while waiting 
the decision of the town’s people. 
Great was the excitement in the village when 
the paper was stopped. The maids and matrons 
didn’t know who was married and who died 
in the neighboring towns; the farmers got no 
news respecting the crops in the other sections 
of the country, and sold off their produce at 
much lower prices than they might have com¬ 
manded; the manners and the morals of the 
people deteriorated; the children grew up much 
less intelligent than formerly, and the people got 
completely in the fog on all the prominent ques¬ 
tions of the day. 
The inhabitants of the town were like those 
of some islands, Block Island, for instance, cut 
off from frequent communications with the world, 
and when one of them tackled up his team and 
drove to a neighboring town to trade, he gen¬ 
erally came back with his head filled with ridi¬ 
culous reports respecting the affairs of this and 
other nations, which had been told to him by 
mischievous persons who knew that the village 
paper was stopped for want of pay, and that the 
people would not subscribe for city papers, 
whose terms were “invariably cash in advance!” 
When one of the “solid men” of this village 
had been over to the country town to attend court, 
or sell his wheat, on his return the village was 
generally thrown into a commotion by a rumor 
of war impending on the frontier, or between 
the United States and England, until somebody 
paying a visit to the village would disabuse the 
good people of the error that had been imposed 
on them, and not unfrequently laugh at them for 
their credulity. Their only excuse was that 
their paper had stopped, and this excuse the 
better portion were ashamed to give. 
Frequently, when some of the men of the vil¬ 
lage passed by the editor’s homestead, and saw 
him leaning over the fence, watching the growth 
of his corn and potatoes, they would ask him in 
tones almost indignant, wdien he intended to 
start the paper again ? 
His only reply was, “when the old subscribers 
pay up.” 
The old subscribers were “rather stuffy about 
the matter,” as a venerable dame expressed it. 
They thought it hard to be obliged to pay for a 
paper, when they had only subscribed at first 
to give the enterprise a start—only to encourage 
the editor and publisher, and so they resolved to 
endure the privation as long as possible. 
Matters were, however, brought to a crisis by 
the following circumstance. The deacon of the 
village church—(which, by the way, was not so 
well attended after the paper was suspended)— 
came home one day from the country town, a 
place of considerable size, and announced that 
Thanksgiving was to be eaten on Thursday of 
the next week. The farmers killed all their fat 
poultry on the first of the next week, and started 
off to market, while their good wives rolled up 
sleeves and went to work at making mince pies. 
The young men bought dancing pumps and en¬ 
gaged a fiddler, and the girls sat up o’nights to 
make dresses for the Thanksgiving ball. 
Great was the surprise and chagrin of all the 
inhabitants of the village, to learn, on the return 
of the farmers from the market, that the deacon 
had been grossly humbugged, and that the 
thanksgiving festival would not come off until 
another week. They had been obliged to sell 
their poultry in a country town at a great sacri¬ 
fice, and would be compelled to wear their old 
Sunday coats another year in consequence. 
The old women of the village set up a great 
clamor, and at length their husbands, ashamed 
of their conduct, called a public meeting, and 
voted to invite the editor to “ lay down the 
shovel and the hoe,” and resume the publication 
of his paper. They paid up their arrearage’s, 
and, for the next year, in advance, and many 
who had depended on their neighbors for their 
reading, subscribed for copies for themselves, so 
the editor’s list of subscribers was increased, 
and all became in reality patrons of his sheet. 
The people of the village are happy once more, 
and each thanksgiving festival reminds them to 
renew them their advance payments for their 
village paper .—Boston Herald. 
Paddle your own Canoe. —Young man, you 
must paddle your own canoe! It is, on the 
whole, better that you should. See that young 
man who gets into a canoe bought with the 
money of his parents or his friends. When the 
vessel is launched, he must have it paddled by 
hired hands, while he lolls back, and perhaps 
sees nothing but an unsubstantial shadow of 
himself in the smooth waters. By and by the 
canoe, through carelessness and presumptuous 
steering, is dashed among the rapids, and he 
goes down. Should he come up again, he finds 
he is abandoned by all, and that he has made a 
wreck where he might have made a fortune. 
Young man or woman! paddle your own 
canoe. Even if you are favored with parents 
and friends who can give you one, be sure you 
earn it by the worthiness of your lives. In high 
purposes, in noble resolves, in generous deeds, 
in purity and virtuous endurance, and blame¬ 
less conversation, let your endeavors to paddle 
your own canoe be seen by all. Pull away! If 
the paddle breaks whilst pulling against the 
rapids, have another ready. If you have but 
one, pull with the stump of the old. Don’t re¬ 
lax one effort. One stroke lost, and it may be 
the fatal one. Pull away 1 your canoe, if you 
have built it, like your friend, of the right ma¬ 
terial in your character, will hold as long as 
yourself will. Pull away, and before long, you 
may find yourself in as fair a haven as the man 
that “paddles his own canoe.”— Boston Jour¬ 
nal. 
Barking at the Moon. —A story is told of 
the late Judge Olin, of Vermont, that he was 
once presiding upon a certain occasion in court, 
when a waspish little lawyer, full of ignorance 
and conceit, who was pleading a case before 
him, took occasion, in the course of his remarks, 
to address some very contemptuous language to 
the bench. 
Every one in court turned instinctively to¬ 
wards the Judge, expecting a severe rebuke 
would at once be administered to the insolent of¬ 
fender, but what was their surprise to see the 
Judge sitting with brow serene and unclouded, 
quietly making his notes, as if he had not heard 
the language, or as if nothing out of the way had 
been uttered. 
After the adjournment, as most of the officers 
of the court met around the dinner table at the 
hotel, a friend asked the Judge for an explanation 
of his strange forbearance—why he had taken 
no notice of one who so justly deserved to be 
committed for contempt of court ? “ I’ll tell you 
a story,” said the Judge, the quiet humor beam¬ 
ing from his eyes the while; “ my father once 
had a dog —a mere wifi'et of a thing—that had 
a strange fashion of going out every moonlight 
night and barking furiously at the moon 1” 
Here the Judge paused, and went on delibe¬ 
rately eating his dinner, as if he had finished the 
story—“ Well ?”—“Well?”—said several voices 
—“ What of that?" “Oh! nothing,” said the 
Judge; “ the moon went right on /” 
Young Hawks not Provided for. —A few 
years since, when the Rev. Dr. Hawks, the cel¬ 
ebrated Episcopal clergyman, was about leaving 
New-York for the South, he was waited upon 
by the vestry-men of a small church of West¬ 
chester county, and urgently solicited to take 
chai’ge of the same. The Rev. Doctor gra- 
