yearly, equal in quantity to the crop taken off. position as peculiarly unfortunate and dangerous. Mr. D. raises his own seed and sows with a ma- From the wages which they regarded as so conchine. He procures different varieties of seed each temptible in the country, they could lay aside year, so as to select choice roots for the raising of from seventy-five to one hundred and twenty-five seed for the following year to improve it. dollars a year, as a fund for future indepenAs to feeding with roots, Mr. D. says they are dence, while in the city they find it is about as exceedingly valuable to keep all kinds of stock impossible, as it is unfashionable, to lay by anythriving, healthy and productive. He feeds them thing at all. They become disheartened, reckless, to all his stock in winter, and till they go out to improvident; turn radicals, agrarians, infidels; grass, once or twice a week, as the store will rail against "corporations," the "money-power," hold out, giving about a peck at a time to a cow &c., while they make themselves unhappy by or an ox. He never cuts them except for sheep, brooding over the wrongs of "the working classand then it is easily done with a sharp shovel in es." a box for the purpose. Mr. D. has tried and still Upon the subject of the average of wages earned uses turnips and carrots, and says he would as by mechanics in the city, I have lately made some soon have in his stock five bushels of beets as inquiry, but with small success, so far as respects four bushels of carrots. The beets do much bet- the collection of facts that can be of use in this ter for sheep than turnips. The lambs are strong-place. I regret this, because I believe the truth er and more hardy. But the beets are especially of the case would do more than anything else to valuable for cows giving milk. They increase satisfy country boys with the farm and its hard the quantity and excellence of the flavor more than work and small profits. any other vegetable. Turnips always give a bad flavor. Thus much was written several months ago, So much for the Mangel Wurzel. It may sug- when I stopped with the hope of receiving some gest to those who have not turned their attention statements that had been promised by several city particularly to the subject, what is one of the se- establishments. So few and unsatisfactory, howcrets of raising choice stock, and also the great ever, were the facts obtained, that my article has profit of cutivating well and manuring highly a been delayed, until the question of high or low small piece of land.-Granite Farmer. For the New England Farmer. COUNTRY FARMERS AND CITY ME CHANICS. wages is of little importance in the minds of thousands of city mechanics, compared with that of work or no work. I will, however, here make one or two brief statements in respect to wages. Among my personal acquaintances, there are a few who receive from fifteen to twenty dollars a Country people generally are very much mis-week, at my business, while the journeymen whose taken in their impressions as to the average wages bills I have made out for the last seven years-vaand salaries received by city mechanics, clerks, rying in number from one or two to eight or ten &c. I have often been surprised at the opinions a week-have not averaged over six dollars a expressed by my country friends on this point, and week. am somewhat at a loss to account for so general A shoe-dealer in the city told me his men avermisapprehension. But then so it is in everything. aged rather over six dollars a week; and I have Let twenty men go to the city, to the West, or to been told by men who have worked there, that the California, nineteen shall utterly fail in their ex- shoemakers of Lynn do not average a dollar a pectations of bettering their circumstances, may day. even die among strangers or by the way-side, or A friend of mine, who is engaged in another become wretchedly poor, vicious, criminal; one kind of business, and employs some seventy hands, shall succeed as a merchant prince, a rich farm- boasted that his workmen averaged eight dollars er, or the lucky possessor of a large "pile;"-and a week; which he said was higher than the avin the minds of the people, as on the canvas of erage at any similar establishment in the city. the painter, the nineteen will be placed far in the Where large wages are paid we often find some back-ground-mere pigmies, if seen at all-while reason or qualification, that did not appear at in the fore-ground, and in bold relief, stands out first sight. Carpenters, masons, and some others the twentieth, large as life and "twice as hand- have little to do in the winter season. Some some," filling up the whole picture. Thus it is kinds of business depend on the weather; some with wages. The foreman of a shop or overseer are irregular and fluctuating,-now, in a great of a number of hands, in the city, may get his drive; now, nothing doing. A ship-carpenter told ten to twenty dollars per week, while the work- me that five days' work a week was considered a men under his direction earn from five to ten dol- pretty good average for the season, on account of Lars, and we shall find, in the country, that every-weather, &c. This business, besides, is somewhat body has heard of the twenty dollars a week, unsteady. Before the California demand for shipwhile not a word has ever reached them of poor ping, the business was so dull that a neighbor of five dollars a week. mine went off chopping wood by the cord one This misapprehension, inoffensive and harmless winter, earning seventy-five cents to a dollar and of itself, is a very dangerous one to act upon. a quarter a day,-boarding himself of course,Under its influence many a young man, becoming while his country friends probably supposed he disgusted with the "fifty cents a day" that are was earning two dollars and a half or three dollars offered for his hard labor on a farm, resorts to the every day. Such are all the facts and figures that city with expectations as vague as they are certain I have to offer upon city wages. I might adduce to be disappointed. I have watched the progress almost any amount of "estimates" and "guesses” of many such, and have learned to look upon their by those who have good ortunities of forming ୮ opinions on the subject; but these are so low that acres in wheat, yielding 470 bushels-63 lbs. to I fear to use them, lest my country friends should the bushel. I raised 2,500 bushels of corn, which think I was joking, or suspect me of exaggerating is only worth, at this time, 65 cents per bushel. purposely to keep them away from the city, and My sale this year will amount to about $1,800, from competing with us, for the large wages they including pork, grain, hay, &c. I plowed an old hear of. It was with some such feelings, I well re- and very poor field, last year, for corn, having member, that I listened some twenty years ago, spread over the ground lightly with straw, and to a conversation one Saturday night, in a shop sowing 150 lbs. guano to the acre. I mixed the in the city of New York, where I had then work-straw and guano together, and raised 50 bushels ed but a few weeks. The "candid opinion," of the of corn to the acre, working the land with a culforeman was assented to by most of the hands, tivator.-American Agriculturist. that, counting all those in the city, who claimed to be journeymen at our trade-the good, bad, and indifferent, at work and out of work,-their whole earnings, one week with another, would not exceed an average of three dollars a head! But admitting this to be a wild statement; admitting that city mechanics generally obtain living prices for their labor, there still remains one fact to which I ask particular attention, and that is, our liability of being out of work. "Out of work!" How differently this expression falls upon the ears of country farmers and city mechanics! The one thinks only of a holiday. His crops harvested,-his barn, cellar and woodhouse filled, Out of Work has no terror for him ;-only a brief relaxation, a little spell of enjoyment. To the other it is the sum of all evil, the negation of all conveniences and comforts of life His house is hired by the month or quarter, his provisions bought daily or weekly, and his fire-wood but little in advance, can he look Out of Work in the face, and not shudder? Must his little ones starve, or freeze, or be turned into the street? He trembles at the prospect; but it is not he alone that trembles,-the millionaire | trembles with him, and well he may, for "hunger breaks through walls." The riots which have occurred in London and Liverpool, and the hoarse mutterings which have been heard in our cities, should be studied by farmers' boys as a practical commentary upon their ideas of the wages of city mechanics, and of the city as the place for the enjoyment of life. Long may our country be saved from the disgrace of deeds of violence committed by starving mechanics, and long too may the farmers of our land appreciate the blesings of that independence which saves them from an appeal to the charity and fears of the community for a plate of beans and a bowl of soup. A CITY MECHANIC. Boston, March, 1855. HOME. BY AARON SMITH. There is a simple little word— Wherever we may roam, The dearest, sweetest sound below; The soldier in the battle's hum May all things else forget; The exile, doo:n'd on foreign lands Through hopeless years to toil, I care not where may be its site, So that the hearth-fire burns more bright And hope will far more sweetly sing It may be fancy, it may be MR. EDITOR-I have been a reader of your valuable paper for several years, and with much profit to myself; but among the many able artiWHAT A MECHANIC CAN DO ON A FARM.-You cles it is wont to contain, a reader who resides on or a correspondent asked, in a former number, the cold, rough hills of Massachusetts, cannot but "What a man can do in Virginia.' I will tell think how few of them are adapted to a soil hard you what I have done, not by way of boasting, and stony. Nearly all are inclined to foster the but to answer the question, and perhaps encour- improvement of soils, free from stone and easy of age others. cultivation. This I conclude from the fact that I was born and raised in this county, and never nearly all modern improvements in agricultural had any education more than to read and write. instruments are not adapted to the cultivation of I was bound to a trade when young, and after I stony soil-plows for instance. There is a long was free, lived on a farm, and received $140 a list well adapted to soils free from stone; but put year. When I was twenty-four years old I mar- these implements in a hard, stony soil, and they ried, neither my wife nor myself having any are good for nothing; the old plows of forty or property. We are now worth $10,000, obtained fifty years ago will do better work. Hence the without any speculation, and in a straightforward cry of gentlemen, riding through the country, that course. I have been married about twenty years, the people, at least a large number of them, obstiwork a farm of 238 acres, which I bought, some nately follow the beaten track of their fathers, reyears ago, for $22 per acre. Last year I had 24 gardless of modern improvements. Is not this class grant. mostly those who till a hard soil? If so, the rea- another, growing remarkably fast, and the flowson is plain that they use the best tools. Are ers which first appear in June are deliciously franot a large proportion of the farmers of Massachusetts and other States tillers of stony soil? Why, then, are they overlooked? Is the soil, or tools, incapable of improvement, or are its own- a ers unwilling to accept of improvement? The Purple or Crimson Boursault rose is quite wonder of beauty in the latter part of May, when trained on the wall of a cottage, being then literally covered with blossoms-and it is so hardy that scarcely a branch is ever injured by the My object, at this time, is to ascertain if there is at the present time, in the whole world, a plow manufactured for the express purpose of tilling stony soil. If there is such a thing in cold of winter. existence, you or any one would confer a favor, The Queen of the Prairies is a superb variety, not on one merely, but on many, to let it be and known by some as the Michigan Rose. The known, through the medium of your valuable flowers are of a deep rose color, with a white . paper, where it can be found. Until I know of something better than I now do, I shall for one beg leave to follow the good old way of my fathers in this respect. stripe in the centre of each petal. This variety is the most luxuriant grower of its class, making a surprising growth in rich soil. The Baltimore Belle is another perfectly hardy plant; the flowers are a pale, waxy blush, almost white, very double, and in large clusters. And again, when agricultural writers recommend deep plowing and subsoiling, do they intend it for a soil filled with stone, the soil itself a little softer than the stone, and supported by a hard pan not quite as high as the third rail of The Virginia Creeper or American Woodbine, the fence? Or is it for the soil along river banks is a hardy, rapid growing, and exceedingly ornaand the plains of the west? If the former, we mental plant. It is a native of our woods, and must have different tools, or request the gentle-climbs rocks and trees to a great height. men to come and show us how to use those we The now have. What we want is, a plow that will flower is of a reddish-green, and not showy, not be frightened at the sight of a few stones, as which is succeeded by clusters of dark-blue, nearthe power to move it is easily supplied. Any in- ly black, berries when mature. At the same peformation concerning the above will be thank- riod the fruit-stalks and tendrils assume a rich fully received by A TILLER OF HARD and STONY SOIL. New Marlboro', Jan. 20, 1855. crimson or red color. The leaves are not evergreen like those of the ivy, yet in autumn, they far surpass those of that plant in the rich and gorgeous colors which they then assume. The reader is referred to Emerson's work on the Among our readers there are thousands of per- Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts, for a full desons who are not farmers, but who, at some day, scription of this interesting and beautiful climbintend to be, and who are earnestly interested in er. CLIMBING PLANTS. all that pertains to rural employments. They We have now spoken of eight varieties of are active business men, with intelligent families, climbers, all hardy and exceedingly ornamental partaking largely of their tastes for country life, when vigorously grown. These would give charand not enjoying that, beautifying the town or acter to any garden of considerable pretensions, city home with such fruit trees, shrubbery and and any three or four of them would render our climbing plants as the limits of their crowded po- rural gardens or lawns highly attractive. They sition will allow. Our suburban towns are an- require no uncommon skill in their cultivationnually increasing their attractions through this the soil that would produce a good hill of corn, taste for the beautiful; and something of it is will sustain any one of these climbers. They finding its way into the country, where grim la- should be pruned cautiously, always being carebor alone has heretofore held undisputed domin-ful not to use the knife and scissors too much. The dead wood should be removed. In his ex ion. All persons, of all ages and conditions, express cellent "Book of Flowers," Mr. Breck says that admiration on beholding a noble vine bending "in pruning climbing roses, the operation must with its ripening fruit,-or a porch or piazza be different from that of the common roses, as it covered with the rich foliage of flowers of the is necessary to retain the whole length of the climbing roses, filling the room, whether of cot- most vigorous shoots, cutting out all the old tage or palace, with their rich perfumes-or the wood that will not be likely to produce fine repulsive walls of a building, covered with the sil- flowers, and pruning down the lateral branches to ver or golden striped ivy or Virginia creeper. one eye." But after all, the manner of pruning The Scarlet Trumpet Honeysuckle, the Yellow must be left to the good taste and judgment of Trumpet Monthly, and the Evergreen Scarlet the cultivator, rather than to any strict rulesMonthly Honeysuckle, are hardy and beautiful the proper way will generally suggest itself. climbers for the pillars of piazzas, summer-houses, Roses may be pruned in this climate early in the or trellises. The Chinese twining Honeysuckle is spring, before many warm days have come, or in June. Our practice is, however, to prune nearly effects on my own land during the fore part of all trees and shrubs that require it, in October, the season were strikingly manifest in the deepand it has been attended with good success. er green and more forward growth of the grass, It is seldom the case that so much real beauty bountiful crop. These hopes, however, were but and I had strong hopes, then, of harvesting a and value can be obtained at so cheap a rate, as partially realized, the increase of the crop not by the cultivation of a few of these plants about being worth more than half the expense of the our dwellings. Downing says "the cottage in manure. I may say that most of the land to the country too rarely conveys the idea of comwhich this dressing was applied became too dry after the middle of June to be benefited very fort and happiness which we wish to attach to much by any kind of manure. such a habitation, and chiefly because it stands I design this spring to use some of it on land bleak, solitary, and exposed to every ray of our which is rather wet and not liable to drought, • summer sun, with a scanty robe of foliage to and hope to succeed better. In connection with shelter it. How different such edifices, however superphosphate, I used it on cabbages and turnips with satisfactory results. I also used it on humble, become when the porch is overhung with about four acres of potatoes, generally in the hill climbing plants,-when the blushing rose-buds or drill, according as the potatoes were planted; peep in at the window sill, or the ripe purple sometimes it was used alone, and at other times clusters of the grape hang down about the eaves, made a brief memorandum of the manner in with plaster or some other fertilizing agent. I those who have seen the better cottages of Eng- which it was applied, in the hope that the expeland, well know. Very little care, and very rience of that season would furnish me some data trifling expense, will procure all the additional by which I might benefit myself or others in fubeauty; and it is truly wonderful how much so ture. Vain hope! My crop, which appeared little once done, adds to the happiness of the promising at first, was nearly ruined by drought. inmates. Every man feels prouder of his home, have been under ordinary circumstances. Of course I cannot say what the effect might when it is a pleasant spot for the eye to rest upon, I also used guano on corn in various ways, but than when it is situated in a desert, or over-applied too much of it on or near the surface to grown with weeds. Besides this, tasteful embel- realize the greatest amount of benefit from it in lishment has a tendency to refine the feelings of so dry a season. I have no doubt that much of it is yet in the every member of the family; and every leisure ground, and will show itself the coming season. hour spent in rendering more lovely and agree- But instead of taking up more space in detailing able even the humblest cottage, is infinitely better past experiments, I will briefly give you some of employed than in lounging about in idle and the conclusions to which I have arrived as the useless dissipation." Now is the "time to result of observation and experience, in the use of this and other highly concentrated manures. work"-let one beautiful climber, at least, be added to your grounds this spring, even if you have but a square yard to occupy. For the New England Farmer. "ALL ABOUT GUANO." a crop. 2. Everything depends, so far as human instrumentality is concerned, on the use that is made of them, not alone, but in connection with such other constituents and appliances as are adapted to secure the desired result. 3. A very rich soil, or one that abounds in My experience in regard to this fertilizer, like vegetable and organic substances, does not need that of most of your readers, is quite too limited them; unless it be to give the crop an early start for furnishing reliable information on so impor- in the spring or to hasten its growth and matutant a subject; but such as it is, it is at your dis-rity. Such soil possesses of itself resources, posal. which only need to be properly developed in or I have made some use of guano for the two der to render the production of a crop, under orlast seasons-the first was on a very limited dinary circumstances, more economical and profscale but so, beneficial were its results that I was itable without, than with extraneous applicainduced last spring to purchase two tons of it, at tions. a cost, delivered by railroad, of about $112. 4. A soil that has become so impoverished as I made use of it on various field crops, and also to be almost, or entirely, destitute of vegetable on garden vegetables. About half a ton of it was and carbonaceous matter, has also become unapplied as a top-dressing to some four or five fitted, while in such condition, for the economiacres of old meadow land, after having first been cal use of guano or any other powerful fertilimixed or composted with about an equal weight|zer. of plaster, and some twelve cart loads of rolled This last remark does not apply so strictly to turf. This was applied in April, and a short those plants which derive their supply of food time after its application, a powerful rain com- largely from water and atmosphere, as to others pletely inundated nearly all the ground on which which depend mainly on the constituents of the it had been spread, and remained on it or con- soil, in connection with water and the atmostinued to flow over it for two or three days. An phere. Such crops as onions, carrots and parsadjoining field of my neighbor's bore ample testi- nips, it is true, feed largely on water, but only mony to the enriching properties of the water when they can obtain it principally, along with which flowed from my land on to his. But its the soluble portions of earthy matter of which they are composed. It should be borne in mind were four boys and four girls, and they were exthat in the production of a plant, not an atom of ceedingly gifted. Not one of them was there matter is called into existence, but merely a who did not rank in beauty, intellect and pertransfer of atoms from one condition or mode of sonal physical power a good way above mediexistence to another. As man has not the con- ocrity. They all had more then common educatrol of the atmosphere, his only alternative is to tional acquirements, for they learned easily. The provide for the wants of animal or vegetable life girls all married early, and to young men of in the soil. If nature has not made such pro- high promise. The men all married-and to revisions, it will certainly be found to be a very spectable women. Yet all remained poor. Their expensive way of doing it by the use of guano failure was directly attributable to a want of alone, especially for the cereals, which require order. Not one of them was ever known to do a vegetable matter for the production and perfec- thing in its time, nor have a thing in its placetion of their kind. I will here venture a few with one exception, and he is the hero of my stosuggestions for the use of guano. ry. Of one of the girls I may say truthfully 1. If your corn ground is cold and heavy the that for over thirty-five years she has never seen fore part of June, and the plants appear yellow the sun rise, always going to bed past midnight and sickly, apply a little of it directly to the and rising past midday. But to my story. Erashill; if a little of it falls upon the plant, it will tus Wilson was a farmer-a shiftless, slovenly, seldom sustain any injury. The gain in the crop disorderly, slip-shod farmer. The winds and the will probably be three or four times the cost of waters, the sun and rain, darkness and broad the application. day, all conspired to do him harm. His gates 2. If you wish to raise corn-stalks for fodder, were unhung, his hogs' noses were unwrung, his by all means use guano, and save your barn- sheep could leap his fences like wild deer, his catyard manure for other crops. I do not think tle were seen with boards over their eyes, great guano as good as yard and compost manure for spiked chains on their necks, pokes on, and "tied making ears, but it certainly is good for mak- head and foot." His horses were as thin as a ing stalks. If you apply it to some remote cor- Rhode Island spare rib-you could see sunrise ner of your farm on to which you cannot con- through them. His windows had old hats, old veniently cart other manure, all the better, wheth- coats, old newspapers, and shingles, instead of er for this or other crops. glass. His corn was stunted, his meadows half 3. For potatoes, a compost, made of guano covered with grass, and around and about him and well pulverized muck, would, in my opin- the spirit of decay seemed to brood. Yet he ion be preferable to barn manure, and less liable worked hard, did not drink, nor gamble, nor to the rot. Will you try it in some of these ways, quarrel. In fact, he was a pious man, but he and then give us the result of your experience? did every thing at the wrong time and in the Bristol, Ct. C. BLAKELY. HOW A THRIFTLESS FARMER WAS REFORMED. [We copy the following story from one of Dr. Glen C. Haven's Letters to his Son, published in Life Illustrated :] wrong way. Thus he lived until his hair turned gray, and of his family. One cold December day he was poverty sat at his table an acknowledged member going to his barn, and it happened that he lifted up his eyes, and afar off in one of his lots he saw something that looked to him like deer-horns sticking through the top of a snow-drift. He was all alive. He would make a conquest-so If you have a place for every thing, and keep over the fence he leaped and made for the deer. it in its place, if you have a time to do business, He waded the drifted and undrifted snow till he and do it in its time, you will find that you will reached the spot, when, behold! instead of the "drive business" instead of business driving you, horns of a buck, there stuck up the two handles and so will have leisure instead of constant worry. of his plow. He was very angry, and started to It pains me to see some men undertake any busi- go back, when he said he heard a voice as audibly ness of moment. They are as sure to become en- as ever a voice spake, say, "Erastus Wilson, you tangled, and thrown on to their backs, their busi- deserve a good flogging for leaving your plow out ness a-top of them, as they are to undertake it. in the snow. It is by such heedlessness you have Take farming for instance. Now I venture the come to poverty. Pick up your plow and take it assertion that two-thirds of all the farmers in this to the barn." State are burning green wood this terrible cold He immediately set about it, and by what weather. Go into their houses, and you hear the means he did it he never could tell. But through sisisng of the beech, or maple, or elm, as like to that deep snow and over the drifts he dragged the death-dirge of a cockroach as can be. Out the implement to the barn. Once there, he took of the chimney tops comes forth smoke dark as a raw hide, stripped himself naked, and addressed Tartarus, and there wives and hired girls are himself: cross as bedlam. These men could not find time "Erastus Wilson, you are a mean, dirty, povto cut there wood and have it seasoned. Now I erty-stricken man. All your long life you have charge it on you, that you fail not to have time been too lazy to save what you have earned, or to do all that you undertake-in order. Every too careless to do it. You deserve a flogging. day accidents, casualties, catastrophes, provi- Here is your plow whose handles you could nevdences are taking place, because men, women and er see, till you thought them the horns of a deer, children have not time to do things as they ought then you could wade drifts waist deep to get to be done. I must tell you a story-which is a them. You deserve a good flogging, you careless fact. When I was a boy, there lived in my native blockhead, and you shall have it; and he laid village a family by the name of Wilson. There the raw hide on to his body, legs and feet, till he |