THE CULTIVATOR. 
August 
versation, however, he had not directly asked me a 
question as from where I came, and yet succeeded 
eventually in ascertaining from me the place of my 
residence. I frequently rode in this method of con¬ 
veyance, which is among the cheapest of any in which 
I ever travelled, and I always felt amply rewarded for 
my ride by the rich humor of the driver, as well as the 
fund of useful information ever at hand in answer to 
my inquiries, however unneeessary they may have been. 
A brighter day, I trust, is dawning upon the 
down-trodden millions of Great Britain and Ireland, 
or rather for their children and successors. The sub¬ 
ject of education, and that too of the masses, is one 
of the great measures of reform which is attracting 
attention everyweere in the kingdom Lord John 
Russell, the present premier, put this forth as one 
of the great whig measures, on taking the seals of 
office. Sir Robert Peel, in his masterly speech on re¬ 
signing his position as premier, and one of the ablest 
speeches ever made before the British Parliament by a 
retiring minister, when alluding to measures for „the 
relief of Ireland, after saying that equal laws and pri¬ 
vileges with England must be secured to her, added, 
and the education of her entire population must be se¬ 
cured, in order to give to Ireland what most of all she 
needed. 
The following remarks before the Mechanics’ Insti¬ 
tution of Hastings and St. Leonard’s, by a distinguished 
gentleman, J. H. Maw, Esq., on the subject, are wor¬ 
thy of consideration. “ In every Christian country, it 
must be desirable that all classes should, as far as pos¬ 
sible, be united by ties of genuine fellowship ; but it is 
probable in no country are wide severing distinctions 
so conspicuous as in our own. Attempts have of late 
been made by certain chivalrous spirits among the 
great ones of the land, to break down some of these bar¬ 
riers; and it is allowed in such a place as Lord’s 
cricket ground a mechanic may match himself with a 
Lord. Still we find in all other places the noli me 
iangere —the “ touch me not ” feeling, may remain as 
strong as ever. The fact is, that cricket is not the 
right remedy for the evil complained of. There 
is little if any virtue in it. But there is great virtue 
in such pursuits as ours, which have a direct tendency 
in many desirable respects, to assimilate the lower to 
the higher classes of society, and by assimilating, gra¬ 
dually to approximate, if not eventually to unite them.” 
The ball which has been set in motion, like that 
started by the corn law league at Manchester, will 
never rest until the work is accomplished. When this 
is done, some of the iron barriers that now separate 
the classes will be snapped in sunder, and they will 
find it a very different thing to govern minds from what 
it has been for centuries to govern mere machines. 
The extension of suffrage, the abolition of monopolies, 
and many other things, will follow. These things will 
move slowly, as everything does there but steam en¬ 
gines and race-horses, but they are sure to come; the 
decree has gone forth; and when they do come, the 
condition of millions will be improved beyond all cal¬ 
culation. They who do the labor, instead of being 
mere machines, will have become intelligent, and will 
see to it, that they too have something to do with the 
avails of their labor. H. 
SKETCHES OF FARMING IN WESTERN NEW-YORK. 
Ir the latter part of June and beginning of July last, 
we had the opportunity of taking some hasty glances 
at some of the farms in Cayuga, Tompkins, Seneca, 
Ontario, and Onondaga counties. 
Stopping at Auburn, we were accompanied by Col. 
Sherwood on a very pleasant excursion up the eastern 
shore of Cayuga Lake. Our first call was at the 
beautiful village of Aurora, where we attended an ex¬ 
hibition of the Aurora Horticultural Society, some no¬ 
tice of which will be found in another part of our work. 
From Aurora we proceeded up the shore to Lake 
Ridge, Tompkins county, where we passed the night 
with our friend L. A. Morrell, Esq. Mr. M. has 
been for some time engaged in sheep-husbandry, and is 
well known as the author of the valuable work entitled 
The American Shepherd. His home farm consists of 
600 acres, and in connection with his brother he owns 
another farm, a few miles distant, of 400 acres. The 
home place is very pleasantly situated, forming, for 
the most part a gradual slope to the shore of the lake. 
The dwelling is near the centre of the farm, com¬ 
manding an extensive view of the rich and beautiful 
country on both sides of the lake, in the counties of 
Tompkins, Cayuga, and Seneca. 
Cultivation is not very extensively practiced, by Mr. 
M., a considerable portion of his farm not being natural¬ 
ly well adapted to the production of grain crops. He has 
now, however, commenced under-draining, a judicious 
execution of which will no doubt enable him to raise 
good wheat on fields where that crop has not hitherto 
been grown to advantage. The farm is particularly 
arranged for sheep, and is divided mostly into eight 
acre lots. The fences are of rails, of which there is 
from twenty-five to thirty miles ! The sheep-pastures, 
on those portions of the farm which are best suited to 
tillage, produce, after having been grazed a few years, 
excellent crops of wheat; and we here saw some of' 
the best fields of that grain that we have met with the 
present season. On the whole farm there are about 
fifty acres of wheat, twenty of oats, and ten of Indian 
corn. 
Mr. Morrell’s flock of sheep consists of 1,100. 
The blood is mostly Saxon, and the wool is considered 
of superior quality. We regret we did not see it— it 
had been just shipped for Mr. Blanchard’s depot, at 
Kinderhook. Mr. M.’s reputation for cleansing and 
putting up fleeces, is of the best character. The ave¬ 
rage weight of the fleeces of his flock is about 2f lbs. 
He has lately purchased several rams from Mr. Samuel 
Patterson, of Washington county, Pa. They are of 
rather small size, but well formed, and produce very 
fine wool. Mr. M. has very confident expectations of 
improvement from the use of these animals in his flock. 
He has several lambs from them out of his best ewes, 
which look well. The management of his sheep in 
general, especially in regard to their feeding, shelter, 
&c., appears to be very judicious and economical. 
Care is taken that they have just the kind and quanti¬ 
ty of food required to keep them in proper condition— 
neither too fat nor too lean. Both these extremes 
should be avoided. The former tends to a grossness 
of staple which deteriorates the value, and the latter 
to weakness of fibre, lightness of fleece and feebleness 
of constitution. 
After leaving Mr. Morrell, we called at Mathias 
Hutchinson’s, King’s Ferry. He has about 400 
acres of prime land, and is a very snug and systematic 
farmer. Our stay was too short to admit of so minute 
an examination as we would have given, but from what 
we saw, it was evident that order is here the “ first 
