THE CULTIVATOR. 
9 
Shelter during stormy weather, at all seasons, is consi¬ 
dered indispensable to the health of the sheep, particu¬ 
larly after they have been shorn. “So tender and de¬ 
licate is the skin of the fine woolled sheep, and so close 
are their fleeces, that there is great danger of pelt-rot 
being occasioned by too great exposure to the chilling 
influence of long and cold storms.” 
Sheep should be brought to the barn, in autumn, in good 
order. —“ They are thus fitted to withstand the rigors of 
winter much better, and they will be carried through 
this inclement season with much less care, and more 
economically than they can be if they are poor and 
emaciated when winter sets in.” This is true of all 
farm stock. 
Sheep require the stimulus of distension —they should 
be filled with something that they will eat. When fed 
upon green grass, a sheep consumes eight pounds a day. 
If this grass is converted into hay, it weighs but two 
pounds, and the two pounds constitutes its winter ra¬ 
tion. To ensure health, the six deficient pounds should 
be made up in water, vegetables or other food. 
Pine or hemlock browse, are recommended to be given 
to sheep in winter. “I have for near thirty years,” 
says the writer ot a part of the report, “ made use of 
hemlock boughs as the cheapest green food.” It may be 
added, that the resinous qualities of these boughs, pro¬ 
mote. the health of the animal and prevent disease. 
Sheep should not be turned to pasture too early in the 
spring —“for it takes their appetite from their fodder, 
and as they cannot graze enough to fill them, they lose 
flesh fast.” 
Sheep should not be crowded in sheds, nor huddled toge¬ 
ther in one spot too long; “ as that,” says the book, “ I 
am confident, has produced disease in my flock. In one 
instance, I have no doubt the pelt-rot was thus produced, 
and nothing saved the whole flock from the scab, but a 
timely application of oil to the sheep.” 
Open sheds are the best shelter for sheep. —If kept dry, 
the wind is desirable, though cold. It preserves the pu¬ 
rity of the air, and promotes health. 
Under the treatment in March it is remarked— 1 II. III. IV. V. “ Take 
good care of your sheep this month, that they may be 
able to bring forth their young the better during the 
next.” And under the treatment for April it is urged, 
to “make the sheep eat as much green food as possible 
each day. Grass is the best, if you have it; next to that 
potatoes. This month tests all the rest, as regards ewe 
sheep, for he who raises the greatest number of lambs 
from a given number of ewes, is supposed to be the best 
shepherd, all other things being equal.” 
We pass over the second part of the work, which 
treats of the diseases of sheep, and content ourselves 
for the present with making the subjoined extracts from 
the miscellaneous part. 
“ Salt. —I have mentioned that salt was considered by the 
Spanish shepherds as essential to the health of sheep, and 
this sentiment is very general in every part of Europe except 
England, whose situation renders the air sufficiently salt.— 
The same consequence from similar causes takes place here. 
Upon Long-Island, and elsewhere near the sea, the cattle 
require no salt, nor manifest a desire for it; whereas north of 
the Highlands, they eat it ravenously, and it is thought es¬ 
sential to their health. The ancients also entertained simi¬ 
lar sentiments upon this subject. Aristotle prescribed one 
peck every five days, during the summer, to one hundred 
sheep. We should consider this a large allowance, but it 
would be readily eaten. They also observe, that, however 
good your pastures may be, the sheep will tire of them if not 
changed, unless their appetites are kept up by salt.” 
“ Transitions from high to low food. —With all stock, it is 
allowed to be very dangerous to pass very suddenly from 
high feed to that which is scant and poor; or from plenty of 
green food to that which is altogether dry. Hence arises a 
very important maxim in respect to sheep; which is, as soon 
as the pastures fail, towards the end of autumn, to put them 
to turnips or cabbages, if we have them; and this will per¬ 
haps be found our best system with respect to turnips; to 
sow a sufficient quantity for our sheep, to be eaten after the 
grass fails, and before the snow falls, so as permanently to 
cover the ground.” 
Essex Agricultural Society’s Transactions. 
We always turn to these with a certainty of finding 
much to instruct, and something to amuse us. The 
transactions of 1838, which are now before us, are rich 
in matters of interest to the farmer and to the country; 
and we hope to serve up to our readers some accepta¬ 
ble repasts from their contents. We shall begin with 
extracts from the address delivered before the society 
at its anniversary meeting; and the sentiments which 
these contain, we are persuaded, will be heartily acced¬ 
ed to by every honest republican, who is not led astray 
by the phantom of speculation, or who is not bewildered 
in the mazes of party politics. 
The scope of Mr. Withington’s address, he remarks, 
may be expressed in the following propositions and 
questions, embracing the great problem now before the 
public mind. 
Proposition I. The majority must rule. 
II. The majority must toil. 
III. All professions must be open and free. 
IV. The majority, to rule well, must be in¬ 
telligent and virtuous. 
V. How shall we make them so intelligent 
and virtuous as to choose the toilsome pro¬ 
fessions and rule well? 
We pass over the first four pages of the address, to 
the following 
EXTRACTS. 
Yes—to be a good republican it needs faith; it is necessa¬ 
ry for the prelusive experiment. It is well known, for ages 
past, the masses of men have been rising. Ever since the 
establishment of corporations and boroughs in the middle 
ages, in every political convulsion, the result has been to 
increase the influence of the many and diminish the oppres¬ 
sion of the few. Our government is one of the last efforts 
of these long operating causes; it was established, not for a 
few families, not for a titled aristocracy, not for a king, but 
for him that drives the chisel and him that holds the spade; 
and it supposes the possibility of that dubious and much- 
doubted attainment in human nature,—that he, who earns 
his bread by the sweat of his brow, may yet be a thinking 
being; choose his own religion and make his own laws, as 
well as obey them. History perhaps has very little to pro¬ 
duce this faith of which we have been speaking. Our 
brightest visions must be borrowed from the future. Our 
hopes are founded on what man may be; not on what he 
has been. We read, it is true, of ancient republics; but they 
resemble us only in a generic name. There never was a 
republic that went for man; or was founded on the rights of 
man. They all formed a conventional idea of the citizen; 
and never went for that inheritor of will and reason, that 
responsible being, who derives his immortal gift from, and 
is accountable chiefly to God. Why should we be forever 
talking of Athens and Rome; of Athens with its 20,000 ci¬ 
tizens and 400,000 slaves; of Rome, not only with its slaves, 
but with its myriad of idle citizens, fed from the public trea¬ 
sury; and where we are told, even before the age of Cice¬ 
ro, there were not more than 2,000 citizens who had what 
might be called an estate. Were these republics founded 
on the rights of man? Were their partial experiments, 
when fully unfolded, calculated to produce much confidence 
in our own ? 
The soul must animate the body; the plan must go before the 
execution; the theory must guide the action; and confidence in 
what is possible and true must inspirit the perseverance that 
leads to success. We often hear it lamented that so many evils 
should mar the beauty of our rising morn. Ah, these clouds ! 
these fogs; these curtains of darkness over the rising sun ! The 
mob; the radical; the popular delusion; the impracticable 
plan and the still more absurd execution; the libel; the in¬ 
flammatory press; the sage that will not write and the fool 
that will; the midnight caucus and the premature nomina¬ 
tion; the demagogue in office and the general spread of po¬ 
litical corruption; a surplus revenue in the midst of national 
bankruptcy; and the dreadful shakings of credit in the com¬ 
mercial world; the jealousies between the opposite parts of 
our republics; the justling of the wheels in our delicate and 
complex machine; all these are evils—earthquakes, which 
shake our moral ground; and yet it seems to me the chief 
evil of these mortifying calamities is not seen. The chief 
evil is, that they go to destroy that confidence in the perma¬ 
nency of our institutions, which is of itself a part of their 
spirit. Every bad election; every wflld experiment; every 
mob in a great city; every act of political injustice, tends to 
destroy that faith which is at once the spring of our activity and 
the source of our salvation. If I can discern aright the signs 
of the times, we are now in danger from a wide-spreading 
skepticism respecting the stability of republican institutions, 
and even the value of liberty itself. It is the dry-rot, which has 
seized the beams of the building, from the sills to the ridge¬ 
pole; and however silent in its progress, is seen in its mortal 
effects. It is astonishing how many are infected with this 
criminal distrust. It quenches all enthusiasm; it destroys 
all principle; it leads to political corruption; it makes parties 
a mere contest for place; in a word, it cuts off the stream of 
action in its head-spring, and leaves to the citizen, in his 
prospects, a dreary and fountainless waste. Alas ! this poli¬ 
tical infidelity has crept from heart to heart, until it has be¬ 
come more extensive than we allow ourselves to confess. 
How different is this spirit from that of the last generation ! 
Then all was credulity, principle, confidence, enthusiasm. 
Every oration, on the fourth of July, was filled with the 
most fulsome promises. A great empire! A free people! 
An intelligent majority ! Wise rulers ! The best of laws ! 
A new example ! An imitating world ! ! Such were the first 
visions of a new born nation. Now the note is entirely 
changed. Presumption has been followed by despair; and it 
is to be feared, that as some disastrous facts have weakened 
the principle, so the weaker principle may produce new 
facts, still more disastrous, until exertion ceases and liberty 
is lost. 
The cures of those evils are many; but a very important 
one must come from a well-prized and well-regulated agri¬ 
culture. 
Society has often been compared to a. pyramid, which 
owes its durability not only to solid materials, but to its skil¬ 
ful shape. Agriculture is the base; the ground is the fruit¬ 
ful mother of the best of our comforts. And it is necessary, 
for the welfare of any nation, that the majority of its citizens 
should follow the profession of tilling it. It produces the 
raw material. Thence come the bread and meat and wool, 
which nourish and clothe our bodies. It is the silent stew¬ 
ard of the Great Father of nature, offering a kind of temporal 
omnipresence to the solicitations and wants of its inhabitants; 
various in its gifts; permanent in its location; reasonable in 
its restitutions and most just, in its rewards.* No man that 
was willing to cultivate the earth and thence derive his sup¬ 
port by the sweat of his brow, ever perished by hunger; and 
no nation, whose citizens kept the ranks of this profession 
proportionably supplied, was ever known to perish by wars 
or treasons, or commercial confusions; by banks or bankrupt¬ 
cy ) by discontents and factions within; or by invasions and 
foes from abroad. Not that following agriculture is itself a 
virtue, or forsaking it essentially a vice; but a due replenish¬ 
ing of this employment is an indication of a healthful state 
in the public sentiment. It shows that the foundation of the 
mountain is broad; and that the top thereof, though lofty, 
may alike defy the electric fires and the sweeping winds of 
the summer and the winter cloud. 
. Such is the imperfect character of our most solemn inves¬ 
tigations, and so greatly are we blinded by party spirit and 
passion, that whenever we are called (as we think) to op¬ 
pose and overthrow any public institutions, we inflame our 
zeal by exposing all their defects and allowing none of their 
excellencies. Never was there a revolution when the me¬ 
rits of a conquered dynasty were carefully estimated by the 
victorious party. Even in institutions where the balance of 
evils is on the whole great, it is always found, when the y 
^'Justissima tellus is Virgil’s fine expression. II. Georgic. 
135 
are abolished, that some unthought of benefit, is lost, by a 
removal; nor is it until long after the excitement of the 
change is passed away that mankind can foot the account 
and fairly estimate the exact magnitude of their loss and 
gain. 
So it was in our American revolution. We rejected the 
institutions of Great Britain. We threw off those aristo¬ 
cratic chains, they were binding upon us. We altered the 
foundations of society; and liberty started on a new career 
of more daring experiments. She was wider in her sweep; 
deeper in her franchises; more radical in her maxims. She 
professed to comprehend all men in her offered privileges 
and blessings. It was freedom in manners as well as in 
laws; her powerful sun, now in the meridian, was to melt 
away the last floe of restrictive ice and set every human crea¬ 
ture on the career of wisdom as the w r aves dance together on 
the sea in equal space and freedom. But it is now found 
that this universal enterprise has its evils. There is danger, 
that the necessary professions should not be kept full; that 
multitudes should forsake the plough for the pen; that the 
splendid professions should be chosen rather than the useful; 
I have some suspicion that, in our present constitution of 
manners, even the multitudes of colleges in New-England 
may be an evil; certainly no man should hope to hide his 
laziness under a pretended love for literature and religion. 
***** 
There is another evil. No heterogeneous composition can 
last. We have retained the ideal of the old system with the 
form of the new-. They are destructive of each other. There 
is a silent spirit, which tinges our fancy and tinctures all our 
ideas of gradation and eminence. It still seems to say that 
one profession shall be more honorable and profitable than 
another, while at the same time, in theory and in practice, 
we throw the doors wide open and make all alike accessible 
to every class. The consequence is, there is a pressure to 
those which are esteemed the more desirable pofessions. 
Enterprise and honor are confined to narrow channels. An 
anecdote will explain what I mean. Two advertisements 
were recently published in a neighboring city; one for a 
clerk in a store; the other for an apprentice to learn the 
blacksmith's trade. The number of applicants for the former 
place was fifty; for the latter not one. 
But how shall we avert the evil ? It is certain we cannot 
reverse our republican institutions; nor restore the ancient 
ranks. Some plan must be devised within the sphere of 
manners, more suitable to the spirit of the age; more gentle 
in its operations; more salutary and healing in its effects. 
To elucidate this point is our main inquiry. 
In the first place, then, we must bring our manners and 
our political theory more into harmony. Our creed mus 
sanction our practice, and our practice must be in conformity 
to the spirit of our creed. We must not attempt to put the 
new wine into old bottles; else the bottles break and the wine 
runneth out and the bottles perish; or, in plain language, the 
republican spirit must be put into the republican forms; and 
we must be content to take the system, the whole system 
and nothing but the system, with all its blessings and at¬ 
tendant evils. If all men are bom free and equal; and all 
professions are alike honorable, then say so at once; and 
leave the balance of the relative numbers to be regulated by 
the relative profits; as it certainly will be, if not controlled 
by these subtle, colouring ideas, inherited from other ages 
and antiquated systems. Two grand ideal powers are now' 
brought into mental collision, and are shooting their moral 
ammunition across the Atlantic. On the one side, our theo¬ 
ry is deeply felt among the powers of Europe. It produced 
the French revolution; and is still producing a deeper revo¬ 
lution, though silent, in the vision of eastern politicians. 
On the other hand, their commercial monopolies, their insti¬ 
tutions and manners are exercising a deep influence over us. 
It is felt in the traveller; the summer visitant, the steam¬ 
boat; their newspapers; their debates; their titles; their re¬ 
views; their wit and their metaphysics. Even the late co¬ 
ronation) of the queen Victoria was not without its effect. 
The whole system of commercial wants and supplies grows 
up from these social forms and supplies them. Every cargo 
of fashionable goods creates a taste and leads to an expense 
unfavorable to republicanism. For my part, though no 
friend to sudden innovation, and wishing to place myself as 
far as possible from the spirit of modern radicalism, I am 
compelled to say, that it is my wish, that everything, in this 
western world, should radiate from one great central idea; 
that we might have republican manners; republican fortunes; 
republican architecture; republican books; and republican, 
eloquence; that everything might be latently blended with 
that spirit, which hails the improvement and recognizes the 
equality of man. Let the central altar be built with unpo¬ 
lished stones and be tinged with the crimson of our own 
rustic sacrifices. 
Education too should take a shape from our public pros¬ 
pects. Every father and tutor should educate his son or pu¬ 
pil with reference to the condition, which his country im¬ 
poses and the duties she requires. 
***** 
Thirdly. The human mind is, aftei all, governed by some 
very fine and invisible threads, which, though delicate in 
their texture, are strong in their effects. There is a latent 
impression of elegance, grace, beauty, which a young man 
gets early in life, from a thousand indeffinite causes, power¬ 
fully determining him in the choice of his profession. Woe 
to that man, who sees, in his youthful morning, the rainbow 
settle on the wrong hill; and is doomed to pursue it through 
life over unfordable streams and up impracticable heights. 
There is an idea of the beautiful in morals and in life, to ka- 
lon, the fond image f'om which emanates our strongest de¬ 
sires, and around which play our brightest dreams of feli¬ 
city. It is this, which coloring all the operations of reason; 
governs the man; decides his choice; inflames his energy- 
increases his skill, and gives him the elements of success! 
One man finds it on the ocean: another on the land; one in 
war ; another in peace ; one in science ; another in poe¬ 
try. 1 etrarch had his Laura; and it has been seriously 
doubted whether she ever had flesh and blood; whether she 
ever existed out of poetry; whether the bard did not 
embody his own fancies and give to an airy nothing a local 
habitation and a name. In a certain sense, every man has 
his Laura; who fills his imagination, and leads him through 
life. Every man has some ideal of perfection and happiness 
after which he always reaches, though never grasping; and 
which modifies his pleasures and his pains from his cradle 
