A Reform Needed. 
The time has been when the farmer’s life has been 
regarded as- almost an insuperable bar to respectability, 
by certain broad-cloth and kid glove devotees. Hence 
the reason that ambitious farmers’ sons so frequently 
sought “ learned professions,” (although we regard agri¬ 
culture properly understood as the most learned of all,) 
in order that they might be enabled the better to become 
fine gentlemen. We think farmers have been partly 
to blame for the prevalence of this feeling. They have 
not attended sufficiently to the cultivation of rural 
taste, nor oven to personal cleanliness—they have not 
studied to make their homes pleasant and attractive 
bj r ornamental planting—gardening:—fruit raising—■ 
by neat and well-furnished dwellings, well provided 
with literary and scientific foodand if any of them 
have aimed higher than the common, level, they have 
rather sought for splendid emptiness, than compact 
comfort. No class of persons have such ample resour¬ 
ces at hand for the beau ideal of cheap and real do¬ 
mestic enjoyment, as the rural resident. 
There is however one great drawback on the com¬ 
forts and attractions of country life, in the labor and 
drudgery to which farmers’ wives are generally sub¬ 
jected. The occupant of the one to three hundred acre 
farm, must hire from two to ten men, and the farmer 
thinks-it cheapest to board and lodge them in bis fam¬ 
ily. There are some men of this class who are neat 
and respectable ; but the great mass of “hired men” 
give little attention either to cleanliness or mental cul¬ 
tivation. In the evenings, the intervals during the 
day or meal times, and often on the Sabbaths, the 
house is largely occupied by these hired men, and the 
owner and his wife, with their young children, or with 
their grown up daughters, have no seclusion whatever 
for conversation, study, or writing, for it is next to im¬ 
possible to prevent in ordinary farm-houses a pretty 
thorough intermixture of individuals of all sorts and 
sizes. This evil falls heaviest on the female part of 
the farmer’s family,—for besides the inconvenience to 
which they are subjected by this unwelcome occupance 
of the house, there is a still greater inconvenience in 
the amount of. drudgery which they are compelled to 
perform,, in providing food for so large and. hungry a 
family. There are many farmers’ wives and daugh¬ 
ters, well provided with prfipe-rty,. whose time is wholly 
and closely occupied from the earliest dawn of every 
morning till long after dark, with a constant and labo¬ 
rious round of baking, and boiling, and stewing, and 
roasting—washing, scrubbing, and so forth, besides the 
large supplies which must be laid in far in advance 
for so heavy a consumption, in the shape of lard, can¬ 
dles,, soap, dried apples, butter, sausages, and many 
things else to make slaves of women. It is no wonder 
that we so often see such women bent down and fur¬ 
rowed with premature old age, while the merchant’s 
and mechanic’s wive3, and the city resident, at the 
same period of life, remain straight, vigorous, bloom- 
ingj and active. We have heard a most worthy and 
intelligent woman, who at fifty, looked old enough for 
CULTIVATOR, 
seventy, remark that at a fair estimate she had cooked 
at least fifty tons of food for laboring men. No won¬ 
der the town ladies regard' it as a sort of state-prison 
punishment to be compelled to marry young farmers. 
Now, what i3 the remedy for this great and' general 
■evil? It is simple, cheap and effectual, as we know 
both by observation and experience, and consists njere- 
ly in providing good laborers’ cottages, so that all the 
farm workmen may board and lodge at home. This is 
cheaper and more convenient and comfortable in every 
respect, for all parties concerned'. It relieves at once 
the farmer’s family, and' gives the laborer the privi¬ 
lege of enjoying his own. He can board himself more 
■ cheaply than another can Board him, by purchasing 
just such articles as best suits his wants and rules of 
economy, which his wife prepares at no cost to himself. 
The farmer, by agreement, furnishes these supplies 
from his farm, instead off paying money, only to single 
men. Men with families are usually more faithful and 
steady at their employment, and are always near at 
hand. “We cannot get married men that are worth a 
straw!” exclaims some one who has never provided 
any thing for them But comfortless shanties, Into which 
no decent man could ever be induced to take his fami¬ 
ly ; but let neat, commodious, and tasteful cottages be 
built, ornamented with a few square yards of door- 
yard shrubbery, or mantled with climbing roses and 
honeysuckles,' with a small and productive vegetable 
garden, and no difficulty will be found in getting men 
of the right stamp. Such cottages, with two rooms be¬ 
low, and two chamber bed-rooms, may be built by us¬ 
ing upright siding with battens, rough and whitewash¬ 
ed outside, and lathed and plastered inside, for two 
hundred and fifty dollars; and by a little architectural 
taste (hut no ornament) will contribute much to the 
appearance off the estate. The- small farmer who needs 
but one hired man, has hut one such cottage to erect; 
the more wealthy land owner can well afford to build 
half a dozen to relieve his family from a troop of la¬ 
boring men. Nothing, we are satisfied, would tend so 
much as this to make the condition of the farmer in 
every way both comfortable and respectable, and to 
lessen the dislike which some farmer’s sons and daugh¬ 
ters acquire for this eminently desirable off all occupa- 
A Kentucky Coen Crop. —Kentucky ha3 long 
been famous for extraordinary crops of Indian com. 
If we remember rightly, a crop was reported there, 
some years ago, as producing 194 bushels per acre—• 
some 20 bushels more than we have seen reported from 
any other state- Mr. S. F. Tebbs, of Cynthiana, in¬ 
forms us that he cultivated forty acres of cor# on his 
farm near that place the past season, and sold the 
whole crop to a miller, who weigaed/ifc at his-mill, and 
that the whole yielded ninety, bushels (56 lbs. to the 
bushel) per aore. The work expended upon it was 
as follows i—“ Plowed deep (8 or 9 inches) early in the 
spring—planted 1st to 10th May, 3 feet by 3—^-gave it 
two furrows each way, and hoed part, where the grass 
(foxtail) interfered. All done and laid by before joint¬ 
ing.” 
