REVIEW OF TIlE MAY NUMBER OF THE AGRICULTURIST. 
215 
any manure, but some folks are not satisfied with 
that. 
Ruta~Baga Turnips. —One thousand and fifteen 
bushels from one acre ! This shows what may 
be done, if farmers will only try. But let me 
inquire whether this manuring of Mr. Hallock’s 
Was not more expensive than an application of 
guano would have been? I hope no one will 
mind your hint about the book , it is only book 
farming , when experiments fail. 
California Farming. —Deliver me from it. 
Why, suppose just as your potatoes are in blos¬ 
som, some fellow discovers a yellow speck in 
your potato patch. Away goes your crop, root 
and branch, prospecting for gold without any 
prospect left for potatoes. 
Pork — Bacon — Ham.— Another excellent arti¬ 
cle, and the information is none the worse for 
coming from England. Although a hoggish 
country, we are not quite so well up to bristles 
as we might be, notwithstanding we sometimes 
get up our own, when other pigs elevate theirs 
at us. I advise readers to re-peruse this article? 
and then, while they take a last fond look at 
the slab-sided, long-snouted brutes in their own 
yard, make a solemn resolution that old friends 
must part, without a grunt. 
Swamp Draining of Southern Lands. —There is 
another sort of draining of southern lands, 
which will swamp the whole of the owners, un¬ 
less they dam the drain pretty soon. It is a 
drain of all the fertility of the soil by a system 
of cropping which will soon compel them to 
take to the swamp, or some other tall timber, to 
make cotton. I am glad to see your South-Car- 
olina friend is so successful in his experiments 
at draining. I have a sort of vague notion that 
some lands as far north as the blue-stocking 
state, might be drained to advantage. Suppose 
some of your bog-meadow gentlemen try your 
hand. 
Draining Tiles. —Information worth a dozen 
dough machines. It would be worth still more 
if these great improvers of the soil were more, 
generally used. There is a vast amount of land 
in America, that only needs draining to become 
very productive, which is now nearly worthless. 
Good and Bad Effects of Salt on Animals .— 
Another long title. Salting stock is shorter and 
better. Who is Medicus ? On which side is he 
arguing—for or against the use of salt as food 
for cattle ? Your correspondents took the posi¬ 
tion that it was not a necessary of life with 
healthy animals, not against its usefulness as a 
medicine. [How will they be kept in health 
without if ?*— Eds.] 
How to Make Home Happy .—“ Always be cheer¬ 
ful.” This is the substance of that chapter; 
yet, it is an untrue axiom, or I do not understand 
the definition of the words, “ happy, lucky, 
fortunate, successful.” Now. I have seen a few 
homes , where luck, fortune, and success never 
entered ; yet the inmates filled every definition 
of the word cheerful, as given by Noah Webster. 
Let industry, energy, and constant perseverance 
determine to make home comfortable, by adding 
conveniences and embellishments, and the 
dwellers therein will have a happy home. 
What Seed will You Plant ?—Five lines of 
words instead of these seven—“ As ye sow, so 
shall ye reap.” 
Plows and Plowing. —It is refreshing to find an 
article like this, plainly written upon a plain 
subject, with lucid explanations of lucid draw¬ 
ings, that all lucid minds can elucidate to their 
entire satisfaction. I am glad to hear that some 
plow manufacturers have at length learned a 
modicum of common sense about placing the 
beams higher. It has been one of the greatest 
faults for years, to be found with cast-iron plows? 
that the beams were so low that whenever used 
in stubble or foul land, they were a constant 
torment to the plowman, and almost useless as 
a plow. Every effort that I have made to urge 
makers to adopt the improvement, has been met 
with the killing reply, “ How would a plow look 
with a beam twenty inches high?” 
Ladies' Department .—This page is occupied 
with a very sensible article about English wo¬ 
men, but it is out of place—it has no business 
in this department. My girls say there is an 
implied contract, if not a written one, by which 
they are entitled to have this page filled every 
month with little bijouterie of household econo¬ 
my—recipes for cookery, washing, dyeing, col¬ 
oring, gardening, and a thousand et ceteras, any 
one of which is worth more than the whole cost 
of the paper. Do you think they are particu¬ 
larly interested in an essay that holds up Eng¬ 
lish women as superior to American ones ? It is 
all very well for a bachelor or an editor, far 
removed from the influence of black eyes and 
blue, to have an article like this hung up in his 
bed room, to remind him continually what fine 
women there are just over the other side of the 
pond, but it is sadly out of place in ths ladies’ 
room. It is a breach of contract of which I 
hope the Agriculturist will not be guilty again. 
Be assured, sir, if you lose influence in the “La¬ 
dies’ Department,” you may as well stop pub¬ 
lishing. Trespassing upon their rights, let me 
tell you, is about the surest way to get up a 
