278 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
dress him or pare his hoofs, the easiest position for the 
sheep, and the handiest for the shepherd, is to place him 
in a sitting posture, (he rope still left on until he is ready 
to be let out to pasture. The paring of the hoof can 
alone be well performed with a strong, sharp bladed 
knife, and is very simple; leave the bottom of the hoof 
as even as possible, so that the sheep may have an even 
and flat surface to stand upon, taking care of not cutting 
down to the quick; the toes should be left smooth and 
ronnded, and no portion of the heel touched, unless some 
jaggy is hanging. 
The shepherd with his dog and crook, and 24 tow 
ropes on his shoulder, his knife and vials in his pocket, 
can go out and pen his sheep in any clean and convenient 
corner, catch the lame ones and rope them, let the rest 
of his flock out to pasture, and then in a very few hours 
dress his invalid sheep, and be prepared for his other 
work. Suppose the shepherd to have the charge of a 
flock of 1000 sheep, he must be very ignorant, or very 
careless, ever to require to use more than 12 or 18 out 
of his 24 ropes on any one day; there is no business at 
which a man is engaged, that “a stitch in time is more 
certain to save nine,” than in herding a flock of sheep. 
With much respect, I remain, dear sir, 
Your humble serv’t, Grazier. 
Louisville, Ky., July , 1845. 
A LETTER TO FARMERS. 
Mr. Editor'—T here is no portion of the “ Empire 
State,’ 5 or any other section that has come under my ob¬ 
servation, where the agricultural population enjoy suffi¬ 
cient mutual thrift to prevent the frequent and painful 
contrast of a comfortable, or an elegant mansion, with 
poverty-stricken tenements, lacking not only the com¬ 
forts, but the decencies of life. And these, in some in¬ 
stances, have been for twenty or thirty years, the abode 
of honest, hard-working men, whose health and strength 
have been sufficient to have earned all the necessaries of 
life, educated their children, and reserved a generous 
portion for old age. And perhaps they have earned it, 
and because of their inability to keep it their neighbors 
instead of themselves have been enriched by their toil. 
Whatever has been the cause of their destitution, whe¬ 
ther it was a lack of calculation, temperance, or indus¬ 
try,—whether they have little or nothing, they must have 
a place which they call home, which you can help to 
make more comfortable. Do not see them wear away 
year after year in the same cheerless unvarying round. 
And do not hesitate to advise them when you know they 
are squandering the little they have earned, in foolish 
and unnecessary trading. And try to find them some 
employment, when they cannot get work elsewhere, and 
you will in a measure prevent them from contracting 
habits of idleness and dissipation, and save their families 
much suffering. 
Little offices of kindness, such as giving them a fruit 
tree or a few choice seeds, offering your team to break 
them up a garden, (in turn for their labor,) lending them 
your agricultural paper, &c., &c., will make them feel 
that you do not consider them or their affairs beneath 
your notice, and may be the means of exciting their gra¬ 
titude and ambition to profit by your advice and example. 
I never take a ride of half a dozen miles in any direc¬ 
tion, without feeling my comfort greatly abridged by the 
filthy and forlorn appearance, or the uncomfortable 
condition of most of the tenements inhabited by the 
poorer class of country laborers. Not unfrequently fas¬ 
tened upon the road-side, on the summit of a treeless 
hill, to be scorched by the blaze of a summer sun, and 
fanned by the wintry blast; or placed on stilts in a 
smoky swamp, a prey to musquitos and the ague, with¬ 
out well or cistern, wood-shed or garden, except per¬ 
haps a patch of potatoes which the children are kept 
from school to watch. 
Every man who lives in the country and is able to 
work, whether he has a trade, or depends upon tilling 
his neighbors’ ground for his support, can or ought to 
earn a comfortable home. And if he can have but an 
acre df ground with a snug warm cottage, (though it be 
of logs) he has sufficient space for all the conveniences 
----- e 
he needs, and may be as comfortable and happy as if hd 
were the owner of thousands. And if he can be induce 
to add a few cheap embellishments, which will cost him 
nothing but his labor, such as whitewashing his build¬ 
ings and fences, keeping a neat yard and garden, raising 
a few choice trees, vines, and flowers, his humble and 
limited possessions will form no unpleasant contrast with 
your spacious or splendid domains. 
If our independent farmers would take a little more in¬ 
terest in the affairs of their poor neighbors, they might 
in a short time greatly ameliorate their condition, and 
improve the face of the country. 
A Farmer’s Wife. 
Onondaga, N. Y., Aug. 1845. 
CURE FOR THE BARBER’S ITCH. 
Mr. Tucker —Perhaps the following recipe may be 
as useful to some of your readers as it has been to me, 
and I therefore communicate it for publication: 
Take a tea-spoon even full of salt-petre with an equal 
quantity of salts, dissolve them in a tumbler of water and 
drink the same in the morning before breakfast, and con¬ 
tinue to do so three mornings in succession before break ¬ 
fast, then omit three mornings, and so repeat and omit 
three mornings, till nine doses are taken in the space o 4 ’ 
fifteen days. 
The above named humor or disease I obtained at some 
barber’s shop where I was shaved on my way from this 
place to New-York city, in April, 1843. I tried a great 
many prescriptions to no effect, ami when I set out on 
my return, via the lakes in September following, my 
face, chin, and neck were grievously afflicted with run¬ 
ning sores and hard tumors, attended with considerable 
fever. I was obliged to resort to poultices to allay the 
inflammation during the whole passage from Buffalo. A 
passenger on board the steamboat in which I came up 
the lakes, recommended the above, he having had a 
troublesome humor of the blood cured by it some years 
before. I had faith in the salt-petre as a purifier of the 
blood, and when I arrived at my own house I followed 
the prescription. The progress of the disease w r as check¬ 
ed at once—the itching subsided, the hard tumors gradu¬ 
ally disappeared, and sores dried up in a few days after 
the last dose of salt-petre was taken. Some one remark¬ 
ed to me that the disease was hard to cure, and that it 
would be likely to break out again. In about six months 
it again made its appearance. I applied the same pre¬ 
scription. The disease soon disappeared, and has not 
shown itself since, although this was more than a year 
ago. 
The salt-petre and salts are far from being a palatable 
dose, but they may be made more so, by wetting the 
mouth with and swallowing a small quantity of sharp 
vinegar, both before and after taking them. 
It becomes all who get shaved in barbers’ shops, or 
with other men’s shaving utensils, to look to it that they 
do not get inoculated, nor inoculate themselves, with 
this or any other troublesome humor of the blood, and 
which in this instance stated was worse than an ordinary 
case of the small pox. G. G. S. 
Brunswick, Peoria Co., Illinois, July 24, 1845. 
Filberts. —They do not require a very rich soil, but 
grow well in that which is rocky or gravelly. The 
ground is kept clean around the trees, which are placed 
about twelve feet apart. They are very carefully pruned, 
and one stem only is left to branch out a few inches 
above the ground; the branches are trained and pruned 
in the shape of a punch bowl, and are not allowed to run 
above four or five feet high; thus they will bear abun¬ 
dantly, and be very profitable. When the filberts are 
, gathered, they are laid to dry in the sun, or under a shed 
! exposed to the air. If they are well dried, they will 
keep good for several years. Penny Cyclopedia. 
The above refers to England; but would not this tree 
I succeed in the United States and prove profitable to the 
cultivators of it. It seems to me that some trials on the 
culture of it in this country, ought to be made, as also 
on the English walnut, so termed, which has proved 
profitable in some instances at least. W. Jennison. 
