84 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Feb, 
he had employment and the reward, which the exigen¬ 
cies of the times, whether “ good or bad/’ would bring. 
In due time he purchased a piece of land, to the cul¬ 
tivation of which he directed his energies, and after a 
while another and yet another accession was made to his 
territory, until his domain became as ample as reason¬ 
able desires could demand. 
When Judge Buel started “ The Cultivator, to im¬ 
prove the mind and the soil ,” a service it has never ceased 
to perform, agricultural papers were not so common as 
they are now. They were comparatively few in number 
and limited in circulation. Consequently agricultural 
reading was not found at every fire-side. As these pa¬ 
pers sprung forth, however, too many looked upon them 
as “ strange innovations” and “sad humbuggery,” 
something that “fellows wrote that could write, but 
that they did not know nothing about.” The farmer 
under consideration, was not of this class however, for 
he saw that there was much to learn, in the management 
of the farm as well as in other professions, to insure the 
highest success, and if this knowledge came to him in 
print it furnished no particular objection in his mind to 
its utility. He of course became a subscriber to number 
one volume one of Buel’s Cultivator, and if any of the 
readers of this paper or the doubters of the benefit of 
agricultural papers would visit him now, they would find 
all the volumes of the work, up to 1851, in his library. 
They would also, as they looked upon his fields of suc¬ 
cessful labor and upon his convenient and tasteful barns, 
his lai'ge flocks and antic herds, scattered over the hills 
around him, hear him quote this work, as the source 
from which he had gathered such and such information 
upon the various subjects on which it treats, and the 
benefits derived threfrom. Nor have his labors ended 
here. He has induced many others, by telling them 
through his improved system of farming, as well as 
orally, of the value of the work, to become subscribers 
for it, and thereby rendered them an essential service. 
Now, when a hue and cry is raised, as it sometimes is. 
even in this progressive day, against agricultural papers 
and agricultural knowledge, acquired from books, who 
shall we believe? Shall it be men like this, born and 
brought up farmers, and who yet, in spite of all the ex¬ 
perience that labor and personal observation can bring, 
call for more knowledge at the same fountain for long 
successive years, so well satisfied with the present amount 
it issues, as to rely upon the same source for more? Men 
who go on profiting by what they read, as this farmer 
says he has done, and as his neighbors give assurance 
of doing by entering upon the same path he is pursu¬ 
ing? Or shall it be those restless, unsatisfied spirits, 
who never read, unless it be some newspaper story in¬ 
vented to add folly to the nonsense of fools, and who 
look upon all improvements as useless innovations, satis¬ 
fied by doing as their fathers did, with out one-half 
the prospect, through the failure in the soil from the 
skinning system, of success? Which man, we say, 
shall we believe, for when two so great opposites are 
found, one must approach much nearer to the right than 
the other? We have no misgiving, when we say, that 
the voice of the people will come up in favor of the man 
who has taken for a long course of years the agricultural 
paper. Admitting the fact, there is no question of their 
general utility, for if they are a benefit to one farmer, 
they may become so to every one. Hence the inference 
is that every farmer should take and read at least one 
agricultural paper, such a one as is purely and wholly 
devoted to the subject, and can be conveniently kept in 
preservation. 
Now that not one-half—probably not one-tenth of the 
farmers take such a publication, even in districts where 
they are most accessible, we believe no one will doubt. If 
they do, the post-office will probably teach them their er¬ 
ror. But who shall stir up the people to their own interest 
by urging them up to the work? Publishers and editors 
cannot do it, for we expect them to be devoting their ener¬ 
gies to make the paper as good as possible, therefore they 
have enough to do. Traveling agents cannot do it effec¬ 
tually, for they are most of the time passing in regions 
where they are unknown, and so numerous are agents 
and the characters of the papers for which they operate, 
that many look upon the whole mass with suspicion, and 
get rid of them with a frown and a no as soon as possible. 
The work, then, of getting up these subscribers and 
extending the progress of truth and improvement, must 
fall upon individuals in their several towns and neighbor¬ 
hoods. It is not a hard service. Men often meet in 
their daily operations and as often speak of the successes 
and disappointments in their ordinary business. How 
natural at such times to tell of the knowledge gained, 
and where it was found, and call the attention of others 
to the particular source. In this way the circulation of 
agricultural papers may be greatly increased and the 
cause they advocate receive many a new and successful 
impulse. ¥m. Bacon. Richmond, Mass., Dec. 28. 
Pitching Hay by Horse-power. 
Eds. Cultivator —I have used a horse pitchfork 
similar to that represented by a correspondent of the 
Cultivator for 1848, page 122. It operates as well as 
there recommended. My object in referring to it here, 
is to furnish occasion to add, that I have not only suc¬ 
ceeded as well as I expected in the barn, but also in 
pitching on stacks. My method of arranging the ma¬ 
chinery for pitching on stacks, is as follows:— 
I procured three poles, and chained the small ends 
together in a proper manner, and raised them in the 
form of shears, (with a pully suspended at the top,) over 
the spot where I wanted the stack. The rope to which 
the fork is attached, is put over the pully before the 
poles are raised; then under another pully, in the but- 
end of one of the poles, about two feet from the ground. 
A stake is then driven into the ground at the foot of 
this pole, to prevent it from being pulled out. Hitch 
a horse to the rope, and all is ready. 
Two of the poles should be about 33 feet long, and the 
other 39 feet. The object in having one poll longer than 
the others is this: When the fork is stuck in the load, 
and the horse is pulling on the rope, the poles are likely 
to be pulled towards the load, if they are of equal length; 
but if one pole is a few feet longer than the others, the 
load can be driven between the stack and the long pole, 
and the pole acting as a brace, will make it impossible 
to pull the three over by pitching. The poles should be 
as small as can be had of sufficient length, and of some 
light timber. Mine are bass-wood, about five inches in 
