raised great wales, he skipping around the floor ment it is excellent, and its topics are treated naked and screaming, while he would say, with so much delicacy, good taste and poetic "Leave your plow out! will you? Pretty farmer feeling, as to give the whole a bewitching charm. you are, aint you? I'll see if I can't teach you If any young lady will look over its pages for better." Thus he flogged himself most soundly, dressed himself, and went in. From that flogging half an hour, and then confess that she has no he came forth a changed man. He was prompt, taste for a garden and flowers, why, then, she orderly, saving, and up with the times. His isn't fit to have the care of children, that's cerneighbors were surprised. His family were won- tain; at any rate, we would not let her teach der-struck. He began to thrive, and in less than three years his farm, his flocks and herds all ours! Printed and bound beautifully. bore the evidence of being under the guidance of a spirit whose energies were of the amplest order. About this time he sickened and died." NEW BOOKS. For the New England Farmer. ABOUT GUANO AND SUPERPHOS PHATE, I took pains early in the spring, when the rain The Practical Fruit, Flower and Vegetable Gar-was pouring down in torrents, to go about four dener's Companion, with a Calendar. With ele- miles to an old dry pasture to sow some guano gant Illustrations. This is another work from superphosphate and plaster. During the sumI often went to see its effects, but saw no the distinguished agricultural publishers, SAXTON effect at all. On a piece of moist pasture, with & Co., New York. We have examined it with clay bottom, I sowed some phosphate, and it some care, and believe it will be found serviceable caused the clover to come in very thick; but to every man who cultivates a garden. plaster would do equally as well, if not better, as mer, season. It treats, in the first place, of the fruit and it is plainly to be seen half a mile distant, where kitchen garden in general,-of situation, shelter, was pleased with its effects. The best corn I the plaster was sown thickest; but on corn I water, soils and manures. Then of the fruit raised was on a piece that was spread lightly garden,―of the propagation of fruit trees by seed, with common manure, and then a small handful by layers, by grafting, and planting and training of phosphate put in the hill. It was not meas of fruit trees. Something, also, of the grape vine, the best piece of corn in these parts-far better ured, but was pronounced by good judges to be fig, peach, nectarine, &c., and of the small fruits, than my other pieces that were spread and the currant, strawberry and blackberry. It then dunged in the hill liberally. briefly describes nearly all the vegetables usually A gentleman of our town had an acre of worncultivated in the kitchen garden, and the manner out, sandy land, which he did not consider worth of sowing and tending them. The flower garden cultivating; on this I sowed, on the 12th of June, 200 lbs. of guano, and plowed in deep. I is also described, its soil, walks, edgings, &c., then planted it with an early kind of corn, putting and many of the flowers enumerated adapted to 75 lbs. of phosphate in the hill, and the result the various seasons. The forcing garden comes was a very good piece of corn, and ripe in good next, and the construction of furnaces, the modes of heating by steam or hot water, and the adIn September last I seeded down some land, Sowing part with phosphate and a part with mission of light and air minutely described and guano; the result you shall have in due time. illustrated by cuts, so that the whole process is As I said last year, so I say this, for corn, give plain. me a tablespoonful of phosphate in preference to To these is added a calendar of horticultural any other manure in the hill; but you want to duties for each of the months, and a select list spread some other manure and plow in deep, that the corn roots can feed upon in August and of fruits. The modes of grafting, budding, of September. This is of more special benefit to espalier training, training of wall trees, and those who have moist, hilly land, that cannot be horizontal and fan training are all illustrated by worked early. If the manure is put in the hill, good engravings. the heat of the sun causes it to burn up and leave a dry mass at the roots, and thus not only "The work is pre-eminently suggestive. The the virtue of the manure is gone, but it retards reader will be surprised at the amount of valu- the growth of the corn during the whole season; able thought and accurate information herein while, on the contrary, if this had been plowed embodied." It was prepared by Patrick Neill, in and phosphate put in the hill, the latter would Secretary of the Royal Caledonian Horticultural have given it a good start, and the former would Society, and adapted to the United States by G. the roots in autumn. have been incorporated with the soil, ready for EMERSON, a gentleman eminently qualified for the work. Price $1.25. Yours truly, L. W. CURTIS. Looking Breck's Book of Flowers. J. P. JEWETT & Co., Boston. By JOSEPH BRECK, Seedsman and PRICES THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO. Florist, and a gentleman who knew what he was over our file for 1817, we cast our eyes upon the about when he prepared this agreeable and useful prices current of February of that year; and as work. In its comprehensiveness and arrange-an evidence that the present prices of many lead ing articles have not come up to that time, we give minister to each a severe flagellation; reminding a few samples. The prices given, it must be re- them, if they demurred on the score of innocence, collected, are the wholesale; the retail were of that they would merit it before the close of the course higher. week. Bacon, 15 cents; barley, $1,25 to $1,50; Like begets like. Be gentle to the ox, treat beans, $4 to $4,50 per bushel; butter, shipping, him kindly, and he will be gentle in turn, and No. 1, 24 cents, No. 2, 22 cents; corn, $1,90 to will draw all he can, and bear with patience all $2,10; coffee, 19 to 21 cents. Virginia coal, good burdens. A good teamster, with no whip from $9 to $15; flour, $14 to $15; hay $21 to but a corn stalk or an oat straw, and without 24; molasses, 48 to 54 cents; peas, $2,50 to $3; noise, will make his team do all he desires, and rice, 7 cents; rye, $1,75 to $3; sugar, loaf, 23 that with alacrity. to 25 cents; brown, 11 to 15 cents; teas, hyson, $1,70, hyson skin, $1, souchong, 68 to 75 cents. -Portsmouth Journal. The whip-ster on the other hand, making so many and such unearthly noises, that in the days of our grandfathers, his approach would be mistaken for an incursion of savages, and poundFor the New England Farmer.ing and punching and pricking all the spirit, animation, courage and strength out of his team, CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. getting "stalded," as they say in Virginia, at every tight place, accomplishes nothing but the ruin of his team and his own disposition. "A merciful man is merciful to his beast." Tried by this test, the number of those who can appropriate the promise made to the "merciful" must be few indeed. written in vain. R. B. H. If I shall have induced one individual to adopt a more humane and more rational course in the Touching this matter, there is a lamentable de- management of working oxen, I shall not have fect in our education. Children are not taught, as they should be, that brutes have nerves and are subject to pain, for aught we know, as acute as human beings; and that to needlessly inflict pain even upon a worm, is inhuman, not to say sinful. LECTURE ON AN IMPROVED FIRE Reported for the New England Farmer, BY WILLIAM W. HILL. Inhumanity to man everybody condemns. And who does not know, that the boy who can re- In lieu of the usual discussion on agricultural morselessly rob a bird of her eggs, and destroy her nest, has taken the first step in his education matters, the attendants upon the Legislative Agtowards heartless tyranny? ricultural Meetings were on Tuesday evening last, Working Oxen.-There are various modes in treated to a well-written and interesting lecture which this tendendy to ignore the feelings of upon an improved system of protection from fires, brutes manifests itself. The patient ox who tills our ground and bears our burdens, laboring when by JOSEPH BIRD, Esq., of Watertown. and where the interest or caprice of his owner The lecturer opened with an eloquent portrayal may dictate, till, by reason of age, he is worth of the characteristics of fire as witnessed in the more for the butcher than for the team, deserves destruction of human dwellings, and often of huwhile he lives, to be well-fed and kindly treat- man life, and remarked that no subject was more ed. How seldom, alas, is this his fate! We oc- important to the community, either socially or casionally see a man driving oxen, who seems to be conscious that they can feel. But oftener financially. In support of the financial view of far, the teamster seems to regard skill in the use the matter, he read an extract from Silliman's of his implements of torture, as the perfection of Journal, in which it was stated that great fires his art. Consequently he is incessantly belabor- had invariably preceded the periods of great coming the faithful, submissive beast with his cudg mercial distress in this country, and the theory el, whip, or goad, whenever he thinks his blows will occasion the most pain. was broached that they exerted a vast, if not a In some parts of New England, especially in controlling influence upon the financial condition Maine, teamsters use what they call "goads." of the community. In proof of this the great fire This consists of a rod with a spike in one end in New York in 1836, and the numerous fires about half an inch in length. With this they which occurred in the United States the last year, perforate the skins of the poor animals, as often were cited. It was estimated that the annual loss as they need exercise or recreation. The savage who fills the flesh of his victim from fire is $18,000,000, but the speaker believed with barbed arrows and lighted pitch pine splin- that the losses were nearer $25,000,000. ters, may plead his belief that thereby he shall He then proceeded to discuss two points-first, propitiate the Great Spirit. For this wanton is our present system for the prevention of fires, cruelty of the teamster, no apology can be found efficient? And second, can it be made efficient in Pagan, much less in Christian ethics.. Then the idea of whipping an ox to make him without too great an expenditure of money? To draw, seems to me unphilosophical. As with chil- the first proposition he replied no. In the coun dren, it may sometimes be necessary to inflict try, the engine is often a mile or two from the bodily pain in order to bring the will into subjec-burning building, and time is required before the tion. But this whipping an ox by way of prep firemen can assemble to take the engine to the aration to draw, reminds me of the provident father who, being much from home, was wont to fire, and after they get there no reservoir of wacall his boys together Monday morning, and ad- ter is at hand for their use. Their efforts are MAY consequently almost useless, and the building is for their own premises-so that the number will destroyed. The same is true in a great measure be indefinitely increased, and the chances of loss in regard to cities. This displays the inefficiency by fire consequently vastly lessened. Captain of the present system. Before the department Barnicoat, the late veteran chief of the Boston can get to work, they are powerless before a sea Fire Department, had told. the lecturer that he of fire. Our engines are so large and costly, and considered the present engines in that city as too it takes so many men to handle them, who also large, and that smaller ones would possess great want compensation, that it is put out of the pow- advantages over them. er of nearly all country towns to keep a sufficient number to meet all emergencies. Another consideration urged by the lecturer was, that our numerous school-houses, academies, Taking up the second proposition, the lecturer colleges, alms-houses, &c., are entirely unproforcibly argued that the present system could tected from sudden fire, and thus the lives of the be made more efficient, and cheaply too. By the inmates are greatly hazarded. This danger could substitution in Cambridge, for instance,-where be obviated by having a small engine in the they maintain several large engines at an annual building. expense of $11,400, and valued $20,000,-of Upon the conclusion of the lecture, some re100 small engines costing $25 each, with thirty marks were made by Mr. Wм. HALL, Representafeet of hose, which would throw a three-eighths tive from Bradford, who commended the views inch stream upon the roof or into the windows advanced by Mr. BIRD, and cited cases where his of any ordinary dwelling house, having them dis-observation corroborated the statements made by tributed in different parts of the city, they would him. He also alluded to the bad moral influences in less than one year pay for themselves by the which cluster around the present fire system, and decreased losses from fire which would follow by which operate so unfavorably upon the young such a system. Nearly every dwelling would be in men connected with them, and lead often to inthe immediate neighborhood of one of these en-cendiarism. Mr. BUCKMINSTER, of the Ploughman, suggested gines, which could be worked with less than half of the labor now expended upon the large ones, that hogsheads of water might be kept on hand and half a dozen of them could be upon the in farm houses, as a precaution against fire. On ground in a very few minutes after the alarm his own place, he kept a pail of water in each was given. They would also tend to lessen the room in the second story, and although a simple losses by fire, in the obstacle which they would precaution, it might, notwithstanding, prove very be in the way of the incendiary through the ce- effective in an emergency. lerity with which fire can be extinguished with them. They would put out ten fires where a large one does one. Numerous cases were cited to sustain these views. Mr. DARLING, of Boston, made some statements illustrative of the immoral character of fire companies, under the present system. He advocated the feasibility of using small engines, and thus diminishing the number of large fire companies, On Tuesday evening next, the present series of agricultural meetings will be brought to a close. It is understood that Governor GARDNER will preside on the occasion. The subject for discussion has not been announced. There are more than one hundred towns in this commonwealth, which are entirely unprotected, while the whole farming interest is in a helpless condition in case of fire. The small engines, the speaker said, had been tested, and found fully competent to do all that large engines could do, and more than that, would put out a fire before For the New England Farmer. large engines could be brought to the spot. Their WASTE OF MANURES-MUCK-HOPS. efficiency has been witnessed by great numbers MR. EDITOR:-Though a pastor, I have ever of people. The lecturer's plan is to have a fire endeavored to impart important instruction to department including both small and large enmy people on agriculture. Nor do I consider this gines, the former to act chiefly as preventatives a departure from my appropriate sphere, any of destructive fires, and the latter on lofty build-more than when I advocate and endeavor to illusings and where the fire has made great headway trate the importance of improvement in schools. before being discovered. By the use of one small When I see my people suffering loss from exposing engine upon the first breaking out of the disas-manure to all the winds of heaven, and all "the peltings of the pitiless storm," I feel it my duty trous fires which have occurred in San Francis- to expostulate with them. And when I see them co, millions of dollars might doubtless have been utterly regardless of the kind provisions of Provsaved. Another argument in favor of small engines is, that where a town introduces ten or twenty, the citizens, witnessing their efficiency and cheapness, will introduce others as a special protection idence in the inexhaustible beds of what Dana calls "vegetable cow manure," abounding in this section of Vermont, I cannot fail to charge them with being recreant to the duties they owe to themselves, to the community and to religion. The greatest mistakes of farmers in this county are in the two particulars above mentioned. same service, if the grass be cut and fed out. Another prominent error is too shallow plowing. Where the price of land is high, it will take but The soil in this county is generally very deep-in few figures to show that the interest on the cost many tracts two to three feet-and should be of the extra nine acres, far exceeds that of cutplowed to the depth of ten or twelve, instead of ting and feeding out the grass on the one acrefour to six inches. The farmers who plowed to to say nothing of the great saving of manure by the greatest depth, suffered the least from the the soiling process. It is, I believe, the unidrought of the last summer. versal testimony of English farmers that soiling In one or two of our towns, hop growing is is the cheapest process, aside from the fact that becoming "the mania," one of the results of it is a conservative mode of farming, and greatly which is already being experienced-an obvious increases the productiveness of land from year to deterioration of the soil, and a deficiency in bread- year. It is but fair to presume that cattle stuffs and fodder. To say nothing of hop growing trample down quite as much grass in the pasture in its relation to temperance, I must regard it as as they eat, while the too frequent croppings a serious, evil to the true wealth of every agri- binds the sod and hardens the surface of the soil. cultural community. Whatever tends to lessen If soiling cattle is, in the end, cheaper than the the quantity of manure, or to use up the strength of the soil, must in the end prove injurious. Respectfully yours, SAMUEL W. HALL. Brownington, Vt., 1855. For the New England Farmer. pasturing of them, then the thirty-five millions worth of hay, used up of a winter in New England, is well expended. I really wish some of our milk-farmers in the neighborhood of Boston would try the experiment of soiling their cows, and give us the results. It is an experiment which cannot be tried fairly in one year or five; but I candidly believe In the Farmer of March 31, HENRY F. FRENCH, that, in ten years, any farmer trying the experiEsq., gives us his "Thoughts on Climate," in ment, would be astonished at the increased aggrewhich he assumes that the expense of keeping gate productiveness of his land. cattle, horses, sheep, &c., during our New Eng- Somerville. E. C. P. land winters, exceeds that of keeping the same P. S. In regard to my article on the subject of number of animals in a southern climate, where growing fruit trees, you expressed regret that I they obtain their own forage, by the total amount did not give my experience as to the proper time of our hay crop. This crop in New England is for trimming them. The cause of the omission estimated at thirty-five millions of dollars; and, lies in the fact that I have not fully made up my if the assumption be correct, it is certainly a own mind on the subject. From what experipretty large expenditure in the competition of ence I have, I incline to the opinion that about climates. I hope, however, that none of our the time of the fall of the leaf, is the best for New England farmers will be induced, by this trimming off all small shoots or suckers, and that array of figures, to emigrate to the south-at the fore part of June is the best time for cutting least, not until they have looked a little below off larger limbs, where such amputation is deemed the surface of the calculation. Mr. French must necessary. The question, however, is a very imbe aware that it requires land, and a good deal portant one to fruit-growers, and I dislike to of it, to pasture cattle during the winter, and hazard a positive opinion until I feel positive. that lands thus grazed the whole year round, without opportunity to rejuvenate, must gradu- REMARKS.-We think the remarks of Mr. French ally deteriorate, though they be composed of the agree with those of "E. C. P."-that, upon the richest alluvions of the southern valleys. It may whole, it is best to remain in New England awhile be true that the wild cattle of the great pampas of South America are raised more cheaply than longer. are parcelled out into farms, it will be time custom. our domestic cattle; but we do not learn that We believe there is no one operation in which those who catch and kill them for their hides the farmer acts so much in direct opposition to his and tallow, become more wealthy than our New interests, as in that of pruning his orchards. The England farmers. When those immense plains axe and the saw are now daily mutilating and enough to settle the question whether cattle can giving mortal wounds to many a fair and promising be raised cheaper because there is no winter. tree, and this is done against the laws of vegeIt is not, however, with a view of discussing table physiology, and contrary to the plain printhe relative advantages of different localities in regard to the hay crops, that I have taken Mr. ciples of nature, merely to conform to an old French's remarks for a text. My real object is to say a few words upon a subject which those remarks indirectly involve-namely, the soiling of cattle. In England, where the price of land Cowles, of this place, informs us that he and his is exceedingly high, (although the pastures are brother, Chester Cowles, have thoroughly tried more productive than ours,) this mode is fast the soaking of seed-corn in soap over night and becoming one of almost universal practice. It rolling in plaster before planting, as a means of consists simply of mowing the grass and feeding securing quick and vigorous growth, and as a it out to the cattle, both summer and winter, remedy against crows and hens; and he says that instead of pasturing them through the summer. It takes about ten acres of our common pasture land to keep a cow well through the summer; while one acre, well cultivated, will perform thej SOAP VERSUS HENS AND CROWS.-Mr. Levi D. nothing will give the corn a better start, and that neither hens nor crows will touch the corn when so treated. We have often heard of this before. The Messrs. Cowles say it is positively so. Nash's Farmer. HIGH PRICES. test, uncertain when they may be called on to Within the memory of every grown up man, engage in it, and it would not perhaps be an eighty dollars was considered a high price for a over-estimate to say that a quarter of a million horse that now sells at two hundred, and sixty of men are, at the present time, called away from dollars would buy a likely yoke of six and a half laboring on the earth by the pending war! foot oxen, which will now bring a hundred and Again, emigration from Great Britain, and twenty. A good cow which used to be thought especially from Ireland, has materially lessened dear at twenty-five dollars, now cannot be bought the productive force of that nation. Much of for less than fifty, and so through all the prices this labor has gone to Australia, where it is emof live stock. Again, the prices current, at re-ployed in digging gold, and in the preparation tail, in all the principal towns of New England, for a new mode of life. Emigration to Kanzas show that butter is worth thirty cents a pound, and the West generally, has, in some localities beef from ten to fifteen, potatoes a dollar a in New England, been so extensive as to lessen bushel, hay about twenty dollars the ton, and the value of farms thus deserted, and the labor the rest of our products in proportion. These of those emigrants, thus interrupted, cannot for prices are nearly double those of the average some years be applied to the soil so as to return prices of the last thirty years, though we are to the markets its former amount of products. not forgetful of the high prices of 1836 and 7, The unusual influx of gold into this country and which, by the way, are readily accounted for, by Europe, has doubtless an effect to produce an the general inflation of the paper currency and apparent increase of prices. We say apparent, credit system, and the speculating mania of those because an influx of gold, like an inflation of the times. paper currency, adds nothing to the real value It concerns the farmer, now, to inquire a little of property. Its effect is merely to make money into the causes of the present extraordinary less valuable, so that more of it is given for artiselling value of commodities, with a view to de- cles of real value, as the products of the earth ciding, if possible, what course is best for him to and of the arts. So far as this cause has operated pursue, in the production of them, for the market. to raise prices, we can apprehend no sudden If such prices are to continue, he may well con- change, for the production of gold seems to be sider, whether he may not take such advantage already a regular business, as uniform in its reof them, as to turn his labor and his land to sults as other pursuits, and will probably so better than usual account. We can afford to continue. expend two dollars a ton, beyond our usual There seems to us no immediate prospect of amount, to produce our crop of hay, when it peace among the nations. The labor which may be sold at six or eight above its common should go to feed the hungry and clothe the price; and we may hire a little more help in the naked, is desecrated in mutual destruction, and dairy profitably, when butter is worth thirty another harvest, at least, must be gathered, beoents a pound. fore the poor survivors of the battle-fields find What causes the present high prices? We their way to their native lands, to renew their will not pretend that we can answer this question accustomed employment; and many years will with entire satisfaction to ourselves, yet there pass, before the effect of this awful violation of are facts, within the knowledge of all, which, no the beautiful system of Providence, which gives doubt, tend to produce this state of affairs. The bread for labor, will cease, and the regular laws war in Europe may be named as one of them. of demand and supply be again established. Eighty thousand men, it is said, have already We believe that the products of the earth must perished on the side of England and France, continue to bear a high price, at least through before Sebastopol. Add to this number, those another winter. It becomes the farmer, then, to who have been enrolled in the armies of the make his plans, so as to have little to buy, and allies, above the number of the regular standing to make his products large, even at an unusual armies of those nations, and those who are indi- expense. rectly turned from their accustomed pursuits, to We are no advocates for lavish expenditures, convey troops, carry provisions, attend the sick, but we believe that the farmer may safely employ and the like, and we have probably an hundred more labor than usual this season, and may juthousand men, in England and France alone, with- diciously expend for manure, both of the stable drawn from the business of cultivating the earth. and for guano and superphosphate of lime, and Add to those an equal number, engaged in the plaster and ashes, more freely than heretofore. service of Russia, and the vast increase of the He may feel assured that his own labor, skilfully armies of Austria, and of most of the European applied to his farm, will be, this season, liberally powers, who watch, with drawn swords, in pre-rewarded. paration for battle, the issue of the pending con- Let not the farmer be behind other men in |