7s 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
paratively so little use for it, and withhold it from the mar-/, to whom it 
would be a help and a guide? 
We look to Europe for precedents, and blindly adopt some that are pre¬ 
judicial, as well as many that are good. We forget that we are a new 
people in government, manners and laws, and that there is no country 
which will serve as our model in all cases The education bestowed up 
on the working classes in Europe is designed to qualify them for the su¬ 
bordinate stations in society—for labor and obedience, as subjects. There 
governments recognize a privileged class—who are the owners of the 
soil, and live upon the labors of the many. The working classes have ve¬ 
ry little to do with the affairs of government. Here all are professedly 
upon a footing of equality. All enjoy political rights, and have political 
duties to perform—and all should be equally favored, so far as the public 
bounty is dispensed in the means of obtaining useful knowledge, and of 
acquiring wealth and honors. We should take care to have good farmers 
and good mechanics, as well as good lawyers and good doctors. We want 
not only good subjects , but intelligent freemen —high-minded, indepen¬ 
dent Ireemen, “ who know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain 
them.” We wish to keep the fountains pure, that the stream of power 
may not become defiled. We wish to base our political and social fabric 
upon a rock, steadfast and sure—upon the intelligence, industry and mo¬ 
ral rectitude of the great working community. When this class shall cease 
to exert a healthful and a controling influence in political affairs, our boast¬ 
ed freedom will be at an end. A privileged class, whom the bounty of 
government has assisted to arm with exclusive power, will control and di¬ 
rect the political machine, as may best subserve their aggrandizing views, 
without regard to the common weal. Ambition is the same in all ages 
and countries. Man loves power, and is corrupted by it; and in its pro¬ 
longed exercise, the servant will everswell into the master. Our freedom 
can only be securely guarded by the vigilance of an enlightened, indepen¬ 
dent, prosperous yeomanry. 
Men have tried all sorts of expedients, for thousands of years, to obtain 
wealth and happiness; and after all, it has become pretty evident, that 
there is no course that wears so well—that is so self-approving—that is so 
certain in its success; that gives so much health, contentment and inde¬ 
pendence—the substantial elements of happiness—as habitual industry, 
tempered, and directed by a cultivated mind,—be it in the learned or la 
boring professions. The consciousness, that we are not only providing 
for ourselves, and those naturally dependent upon us, but that we are do¬ 
ing good to society, and thereby fulfilling one of our highest moral obliga¬ 
tions, is a rich source of enjoyment, to which the indolent and dissipated 
must ever remain utter strangers. 
We say, therefore, that we want schools of moral, industrial and scien¬ 
tific instruction for the working classes of society—that these classes are 
entitled to them—and that their establishment would conduce alike to the 
prosperity of our country, and to the perpetuity of our political and reli¬ 
gious fseedom. 
NUTRITIVE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMAL FOOD CONTAINED IN GRAIN AND 
ROOTS. 
This subject has engaged the attention of chemists for some time. M. 
Raspail has at length announced, as the result of numerous microscopic 
examinations and experiments, that the nutrient matter of grain and roots 
is enveloped in shining, white, smooth globules, quite insoluble in cold 
water, even when immersed for a length of time;—that these globules 
consist of an envelope, or shell, and a kernel; that the envelope is even 
insoluble in boiling water; that the kernel contained in the globular enve¬ 
lope, consists of a gum-like matter;—that when immersed in water at 
122°, the kernel expands, and the envelope bursts at boiling heat, but is 
never decomposed; that in much water the envelopes are detached, and 
subside—but when the quantity is small, they become mutually entangled, 
and form jelly, or the starch of the laundry. The kernel of these globules 
is termed dextrine. The globules differ in size in different grains and 
i oots. In wheat they are 2-1000 parts of an inch. In the potato they are 
double this size; while in buckwheat they are only 1-10,000 part of an 
inch in size. 
During the investigations of M. Raspail, the following facts seem to have 
been established: 
“ 1st. That the globules constituting meal, flour, and starch, whether 
contained in grain or roots, are incapable of affording any nourishment as 
animal food till they are broken. 
«■ 2d. That no mechanical method of breaking or grinding is more than 
partially efficient. 
“ 3d. That the most efficient methods of breaking the globules are by 
heat, by fermentation, or by the chemical agency of acids or alkalies. 
“ 4th. That the dextrine, which is the kernel, as it yvere, of each glo¬ 
bule, is alone soluble, and therefore alone nutritive. 
“ 5th. That the shells of the globules, when reduced to fragments by 
mechanism or heat, are insoluble, and therefore not nutritive. 
“ 6th. That, though the fragments of these shells are not nutritive, they 
are indispensable to digestion, either from their distending the stomach 
and bowals, or from some other cause not understood, it having been 
proved by experiment that concentrated nourishment, such as cane-sugar, 
essence of beef, or osmazome, cannot long sustain life without some mix¬ 
ture of coarser and less nutritive food. 
“ 7th. That the economical preparation of all food containing globules of 
fecula, consists in perfectly breaking the shells, and rendering the dextrine 
contained in them soluble and digestible, while the fragments of the shells 
are at the same time rendered more bulky, so as the more readily to fill 
the stomach.” 
These facts sufficiently explain, what before was but imperfectly under¬ 
stood, why grain, meal and roots develope additional nutritive properties 
by being cooked, or undergoing the process of fermentation; and should 
encourage us to persist in the practice of boiling or fermenting our hog 
feed, if no' the food of ourhorses and neat cattle. The globules, it is true, 
may be partially broken, and the dextrine developed, by the heat and fer¬ 
mentation of the stomach, particularly in animals possessed of powerful 
digestive organs; yet when they are in a manner gorged with food, to has¬ 
ten the fattening process, there is good reason to believe, that without the 
aid of previous heat or fermentation, much of the nutrient properties of 
grain and roots is wasted. This discovery goes, also, to demonstrate the 
utility of the practice, common in many states of the European continent, 
of feeding their horses with bread, instead of meal or grain—the globules 
being completely ruptured in the process of baking. 
FAT ANIMALS AND LARGE CROPS, 
RESULT ALIKE FROM AN ABUNDANCE OF PROPER FOOD. 
The profits of crops, as well as of cattle, depend mainly upon the re¬ 
turn they make for the food and' labor bestowed upon them. The man 
who grows a hundred bushels of corn, or makes a hundred pounds of meat, 
with the same means and labor that his neighbor expends to obtain fifty 
bushels, or fiftv pounds, has a manifest advantage; and while the latter 
merely lives, the former, if prudent, must grow rich. He gains the en¬ 
tire value of the extra fifty bushels, or fifty pounds. This disparity in the 
profits of agricultural labor and expenditure is not a visionary speculation 
—it is matter of fact, which is seen verified in almost every town. Wo 
see one farmer raise 80 bushels of corn on an acre of land, with the same 
labor, but with more foresight in keeping his land in good tilth, and feed¬ 
ing better his crop, that his neighbor employs upon an acre, and who does 
not get 40 or even 30 bushels. This difference results from the manner 
of feeding and tending the crop. 
If the farmer, for the convenience of transportation to market, wishes 
to convert his grain, and his forage, and his roots, and his apples, into 
beef and pork, what is his judicious course of proceeding? Does he dole 
these out to his cattle and his hogs in stinted parcels, just sufficient to 
sustain life, or to keep them in ordinary plight? No. He knows that a 
given quantity of food is necessary to keep them as they are, and that the 
more, beyond this given quantity, which they can transform into meat, 
and the sooner they do it, the greater the profit. To illustrate our remark: 
suppose a hog requires twenty bushels of grain to keep him in plight for 
two years, and that he can manufacture fifteen bushels of this grain into 
pork in six months, if duly prepared and fed to him. In the one case, 
the owner has his lean hog at the end of two years, for his twenty bush¬ 
els of grain; in the other, he has converted fifteen bushels of this grain 
into pork—into money—at the end of six months, saved the keep of the 
hog for eighteen months, and twice or thrice turned his capital to profit. 
Time is money, in these as in all other things appertaining to the farm — 
The proposition may be thus stated— that which will barely keep a hog 
two years, will fatten him well in six months. Therefore, the sooner we 
can convert our grain and forage into meat, with due regard to the health 
of the animal, and the true economy of food, the greater will be the pro¬ 
fits which accrue. The remark applies to milk as well as meat. These 
facts teach us, to keep no more stock than we can keep well; and that, 
one animal, kept well, is of more profit than two animals that are but 
half fed. 
If we apply these rules to our crops, they instruct us to till no more 
land than we can til! well , and to plant and sow no more thatt we can 
feed well; for the fact must not he lost sight of, that our crops, like our 
cattle, live and fatten upon vegetable matters. One hundred bushels 
of corn, or four hundred bushels <-f pofa’oes, maybe giown upon four 
acres of land badly fed and badly tended; and this is probably about a fair 
average of these crops; while the same amount of corn or potatoes may 
be grown on one acre, if the crop is well fed and tended. The product 
being the same from the one acre as from the four acres, and the expense 
but a trifle, if any, more than one-quarter as much, it results, that if the 
crop on the four acres pays for labor and charges, three-fourths of the 
crop on the one acre is nett gain to the cultivator. Estimating the charges 
at $25 the acre, the price of corn at $1, and the potatoes at 25cts. the well 
cultivated acre affords a profit, over and above the charges, of $75— 
while the crop on the four acres gives not a cent of profit, but merely 
pays the charges upon it. Though not in this d gree, the same disparity 
exists in all the operations of husbandry; and the primary cause of the 
difference consists in feeding well, or feeding ill, the crops, as well as the 
cattle, which are the source of the farmer’s profit. 
Let us continue the analogy a little farther. Every one knows, that to 
