Chapter VI: Preface: To the First Edition (6)

I speak to those who have cellars. If not already done, thoroughly purge this subterranean story of your house. Every decayed onion, cabbage stump, potato vine or tuber, turnip, parsnip, carrot, and all the dirt they have made, all straw and rubbish, rake them up and out with them. The cellar is no place for them at any time of year. If you still retain a few potatoes for table use, let them be picked over and all decayed ones removed. One of the best housewives of our acquaintance, greeted us not long since, with an invitation to come and see her cellar: “I have swept down every cobweb, whitewashed the walls, swept up the floor, and sowed it with salt.” Decayed vegetable matter is a fertile cause of disease, and there is enough of it out of doors, in this country, without heaping it up in the cellar for the special purpose, it would almost seem, of breeding fevers. Whitewash the walls, for lime purifies as well as beautifies. Rake down the cobwebs, they are the infallible marks of a _slattern_. Every spider that is allowed to peer out of his corner in a house, up-stairs or down, undisturbed, points his long black leg in thanksgiving at the housewife, “Hurra for folks that are not too particular.” Old legends represent witches as addicted to riding brooms. I wish that many women would get bewitched enough to do this, something more than they do. Down cellar, then, with your broom. Look now; the window is perfectly covered; there is a great sprawling gaunt spider in the corner and half a dozen empty bugs hung up like scalps to commemorate his triumphs; next to him is a great over-swollen potbellied fellow—for all the world he looks like a huge glutton; then there is a sharp, nimble, enterprising spider, below him, who has just opened an office and is keen for business, preparing to inherit, like many other fellows, his neighbor’s custom, who, having got rich fraudulently, will soon burst; there, too, are several pale and shadowy spiders, who look as if the cobwebs had kept them from the light until they had become quite sallow and emaciated; then there are several little round, shining-black, pestilent fellows, whose legs are so long in proportion to their bodies, that they make one think of a little potato with yard-long sprouts all over it. I say nothing of crab-spiders on the window-sill, who, like metaphysicians, run backward just as easy as forwards. Just look, too, my dear madam, at the various patterns of their webs. Here is one from point to point resembling a sheet-like shelf of dusty cotton, and running like a tunnel, into a knot hole, where stands the venomous old fellow waiting for flies, like a usurer waiting for customers. Another corner is filled up with a web like a skein of tangled silk; then there is a beautiful wheel, worked more beautifully than any lace-work, while there are a multitude of base and lazy little spiders who, like many of their betters, live on other folk’s webs. Well, we have talked long enough; dash your brush into that spider-village, give it a dextrous twirl, and with the whole population on the end of it, run to the door and crush them! So much for spiders.

As to salt; the only advantage of salt in a cellar, that occurs to us, is its effect in destroying snails, bugs, and that fungus vegetation called mold. It will do this. But it attracts moisture from the atmosphere and renders a cellar damp. If your cellar is very dry and sandy, you may use salt without detriment. But if too damp it will make the matter worse.

WHEN IS HAYING OVER?

In a trip through the country last summer we saw several fields of timothy, out of blossom, which had become dry, seedy, and snuff-colored. Haying was not over, it seems. Cattle that had been hardened to eat iron-weed stems, jimpsum stalks, and packing straw, would probably be willing to eat this hay.

We saw another sight. Hay which had been cut and partly cured, was cocked up and had been left, probably for a week or two already; and, doubtless, was to stand thus much longer, for there is a fashion with some to let their hay lie about the field in little three-feet cocks, _until it is convenient_ to haul it to the stack. This may be in August, or September, and sometimes we have seen a farmer (so called) with a little sled and rope hauling his hay in October. Now, hay thus served is good for nothing but for litter. The bottom of each little heap molds; the sides are, by sun and rain, spoiled, and the little wad in the middle does not, after subtracting the sides and bottom, amount to much.

I’ll venture my head that these are not “book farmers.” I have no doubt that “book farmers” do some foolish things, but farmers without books do a great many more. No book farmer, none but a farmer utterly without books, would think of leaving his hay in cocks for six weeks or two months. We see enough of such hay offered for sale every winter, of a dingy, lack-lustre, straw-colored look, without fragrance, or odor of any sort except a faint smell of old wood, or more pungent odor of mold.

We say, in conclusion, grass should not be left so long that it will be already dry and cured before it is cut; and, after grass is once down, it is not to be treated like flax, and left to bleach and rot, but should be got in _as soon as possible_. Farmers whose hay is on the stack or in the mow may laugh at this article; those whose hay is not stacked or in the barn had better do something besides laugh.

LAYING DOWN LAND TO GRASS.

We shall speak of the kinds and quality of seed, and of the time and manner of putting them in.

We think our farmers err in not sowing enough kinds of seed together.

The objects to be secured are very early grass in the spring, a heavy body of hay, a rapid after-growth, and the greatest amount which the soil can yield. No one grass can be found capable of meeting all these ends. Some are very early, but not heavy enough or sufficiently nutritious for the main crop; others are admirable for hay, but do not start readily again after cutting. By judiciously mixing different sorts of grasses, any one of these objects may be secured and the meadow be admirable both for the scythe and for pasturage. Nor can the soil be made to yield all of which it is capable in any other way; for a square foot of ground may be able to sustain but a certain number of roots of any _one kind_ of grass, and yet many support, in addition, as much more of another kind, since different species of grass draw their nourishment from different portions of the soil—the fibrous-rooted grasses from the surface, and tap-rooted plants from the lower strata of the soil, while broad-leaved vegetation, as clovers, lucerne, etc., draw very much of their support from the air. Indeed, this is the lesson which Nature teaches us, for a dozen kinds of grass may oftentimes be found growing wild on a single square foot.

The English farmer sows from four to seven or eight kinds of grass-seed, and sometimes as high as twelve or fourteen, each one of which is destined to answer some special end, and the whole taken together constitute as it were, a perfect grass.

We subjoin the quantity and kind of seed per acre recommended by English authorities, that our readers may have an idea of the English method, and derive such benefit from it as their circumstances will admit of:

Smooth-stalked poa, 8 quarts.
Rough-stalked poa, 8 “
Meadow fescue, 12 “
Meadow fox-tail, 8 “
Crested dog’s-tail, 6 “
Rib-grass, 4 “
Timothy-grass, 4 “
Yellow oat-grass, 4 “
Perennial rye-grass, 12 “
Cock’s foot, 4 “
Yarrow, 4 “
Sweet-scented vernal, 2 “
White clover, 6 lbs.
Cow-grass, 4 “
and annual meadow-grass.

These seeds may, for the most part, be had of eastern dealers, though not probably in the West.

With blue grass we should join orchard grass, say a bushel to the acre—white clover five pounds, red clover ten pounds, and sweet-scented vernal (_anthoxanthum odoratum_) say three pounds.

This last grass is remarkably early in the spring, and peculiarly fragrant; indeed, it is supposed that the famous spring butter of Philadelphia derives its peculiar flavor from this grass, and we should include it in every mixture to be sown for pasturage. The orchard grass is one of our most valuable; for hay it may be inferior to timothy; but it is decidedly superior to it for pasturage. Colonel Powell, of Pennsylvania, after growing it ten years, declares that it produces more pasturage than any cultivated grass he has even seen in America. It should be spread on a floor and sprinkled with water a day or two before sowing, it being very light, not weighing more than twelve or fourteen pounds to the bushel.

The following table exhibits the quantity of seed, by _weight_, and also on the three kinds of soil:

FOR PERMANENT PASTURE, PER IMPERIAL ACRE.

+----------------------+---------------+----------------+---------------+
| | LIGHT SOIL. | MEDIUM SOIL. | HEAVY SOIL. |
| +------+--------+-------+--------+------+--------+
| |With a|Without |With a |Without |With a|Without |
| | Crop | a Crop | Crop | a Crop | Crop | a Crop |
| +------+--------+-------+--------+------+--------+
| | lbs. | lbs. | lbs. | lbs. | lbs. | lbs. |
|Perennial rye-grass | 12 | 24 | 12 | 24 | 12 | 24 |
|Meadow fox-tail | 1¼ | 2½ | 2 | 4 | 3¼ | 6½ |
|Timothy-grass | — | — | 1½ | 3 | 3¼ | 5½ |
|Meadow fescue | 2½ | 4 | 2½ | 4 | 2½ | 4 |
|Cock’s-foot | 5 | 8 | 3¼ | 6½ | 2½ | 4 |
|Rough-stalked poa | — | — | 1¾ | 3¼ | 3¼ | 6½ |
|Smooth-stalked poa | 3¼ | 6½ | 1½ | 3¼ | — | — |
|White clover | 5 | 8 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 8 |
|Red clover | 1½ | 2½ | 1½ | 2½ | 1½ | 2½ |
|Hop-clover, or trefoil| 1½ | 2½ | 1½ | 2½ | 1½ | 2½ |
|Cow-grass | 1½ | 2½ | 1½ | 2½ | 1½ | 2½ |
| +------+--------+-------+--------+------+--------+
| | 33½ | 60½ | 34 | 63½ | 36¼ | 66 |
+----------------------+------+--------+-------+--------+------+--------+

There is a very great difference of opinion respecting the quantity of seed to be sown to an acre. There can be no doubt that the question is to be settled by the character of the soil and climate. In soils and under circumstances where every seed will vegetate and grow off with unobstructed vigor, less seed is needed than where a part will be taken by frosts, a part by drenching rains which are not well drained off, and a part by severe drought. Every farmer must employ his best judgment in this matter; but, it is better to err on the side of too much than of too little seed.

TIME OF SEEDING.—We cannot pretend to decide between the conflicting opinions on this subject. The positiveness of those who prefer spring-sowing is only to be equalled by that of those who prefer fall-planting. Young says of the month of August, “this is the best season of the whole year for laying down land to grass, and no other is admissible for it on strong, wet, or heavy soils.” This, however, is said of humid England. But if the character of the season toward the close of summer favors, there can be no doubt that fall-sowing will advance the crop very early the next year, in all soils where it is not liable to be thrown out by the frosts. If the winter proves severe, it will be prudent to add an additional quantity of seed in the spring. It is objected to spring sowings, that the grass is grown in the shade during the early part of the summer, and is, of course, _tender_, so that when the grain is cut, it is enfeebled by the powerful heat, to which, then, it becomes exposed. On the whole, we are inclined to prefer the month of September, if the season favors, to any other for sowing grass seed. Since writing these lines, one of our best farmers informs us that he prefers August to any other month.

METHOD OF SOWING.—The ground should be very thoroughly prepared by deep and fine plowing, and the want of labor in this respect is want of economy.

If the soil is naturally well drained, no further provision against wet will be required. But if it be flat, it may be well to lay it off into lands, strike a furrow through the centre, and then turn the furrows toward the outer on each side. This will give a slight elevation at the middle and a drain between each land sufficient to answer the purpose of moderate surface draining. The seed should be sown with the greatest _evenness_ possible. The English farmer prefers to sow some of the kinds separately on this account; for although he has to sow the whole ground several times over, experience has taught him, as it will us, that that is the cheapest which is done the best. Let it be covered in well with a harrow, and not with a bush, which last leaves the soil dead, and tends to drag the seed into patches and hollows. As a general rule, grass seed may be planted as deeply as grain. Farmers lose much more seed from shallow than from deep planting. For although shallow-planted seed vegetates sooner, they are more liable to be winter-killed, or to perish by drought than those which are deeply covered.

THEORY OF MANURE.

It is very well known that a young orchard will not, usually, flourish on the site of an old one; for the older trees are supposed to have withdrawn from the soil certain elements necessary to their growth; and as necessary to the growth of the young tree, should it be planted there. There is no “like” or “dislike” of the soil to the tree; it is a plain case of starvation. The tree needs, and the soil cannot supply certain elements of its wood.

But if, after a plant has abstracted from the soil certain ingredients, the whole plant is decomposed and returned to the earth, the soil repossesses itself of the lost elements, and is ready to yield them up again to a plant of the same kind. If the straw of wheat be burned upon the field, annually, the soil would yield fine crops for a thousand successive years, that is so far as the _straw is concerned_. But if the grain is removed, and nothing resupplies the drain of phosphates which it makes from the soil, the soil will in due time, according to the original quantities in the soil, cease to yield _grain_, although the straw may be admirable. But if both straw and kernel were every year burned upon the field, as grass and its seed is upon the prairies, wheat would grow for a thousand years in succession. The same is true of corn, of potatoes, and of any annual crop. When the annual growth is restored to the soil, it is repossessed of all its treasure which had been loaned for a season. If a part of the crop is removed, the soil is poorer by just so much as the portion removed contained within it of the elements necessary to that crop, and it must be restored artificially, _i. e. by manuring_; or by allowing the earth to prepare (by disintegration or decomposition of its minerals) a new supply; _i. e. by fallowing_. A forest will grow for ages on the same spot, for it returns annually its leaves, and, gradually, by force of accidents and the elements, its twigs, branches, trunks, etc., to the soil again. But let the whole product be gradually removed, and the soil would soon be unable to supply the trees their nourishment, except in cases where the soil was very rich in the materials of growth. The forests of Germany, like our mines, are under the management of the government. It was customary, for a time, to allow the peasants the use of the _twigs_ and _smaller branches_; but analysis has shown that in these, especially, resides the large proportion of potash entering into the composition of trees; the annual removal of it debilitated the trees to an extent that obliged the Conservators to change their mode of proceeding.

On the other hand, in one of Mr. Horsford’s letters from Germany, we have the question of growing plants upon their own ashes, brought, by the ablest chemist of the age, directly to the test of experiment.

“In the spring preceding my arrival in Giessen, Professor
Liebig planted some grape scions under the windows of the
laboratory. He fed them, if I may use such an expression,
upon the ashes of the grape vine—or upon the proper
inorganic food of the grape, as shown by analyses of its
ashes. The growth has been enormous, and several of the
vines bore large clusters of grapes in the course of the
season. Indeed, I know not but all, as my attention was
drawn to them particularly only since the fruit has been
gathered. The soil otherwise is little better than a
pavement—a kind of fine gravel, in which scarcely anything
takes root.

“I was shown pots of wheat, in different stages of their
growth, that had been fed variously—some upon the inorganic
matters they needed, according to the analyses of their
ashes—others had merely shared the tribute of the general
soil. The results in numbers I don’t yet know. In
appearance, no one could be at a loss to judge of what might
be expected.”

The fact that depopulated forest-grounds change the character of their growth, is quite familiar to all; and the reasons of it have been variously debated.

FODDER FOR CATTLE.

Although the practice of soiling cattle, _i. e._ of cutting their food daily and feeding it to them in a green state, would be profitable to many small farmers, it is especially to be recommended to those living in towns, where pasturage is distant and expensive. Where an immediate supply is required, corn may be sown broadcast, and cut as wanted, until it begins to tassel, when all should be cut and cured, and the ground sown again, and a third time in the same summer.

But if half that is said of lucerne is true, and we see no reason to doubt it, it is valuable far above all other kinds of green fodder. It starts very early in spring; may be cut four times in a summer, yielding from four to nine tons to the acre, acccording to the condition of the land. It is much relished by cattle, imparts no bad flavor to milk, is a very fattening food, and one sowing will last ten years. One acre is sufficient for four or five cows. It may be sown in drills, if the land is foul, and kept clean by hoeing, the first year; but on clean ground it may be sown broadcast. It is hardy under the infliction of severe frosts; and surpasses all grasses in endurance of drought, its enormously land roots affording it moisture from a great depth. An English writer says, its roots have been found from ten to fourteen feet below the surface; and an American writer says, that it made, on his land, roots three feet long the first summer.

Where it is sown broadcast, it is difficult to get it through the first year. But if sown in drills ten inches apart, and hoed once or twice, it may be cut twice or thrice the first season, and be entirely established before winter.

A light, sandy soil is the best; it should not be put upon heavy and non-friable soils, though it will flourish on even these, when fully established. Ten pounds of seed to the acre is enough, if drilled; fifteen pounds, if sown broadcast.

The only reason, that we can imagine, why this plant should not be extensively cultivated, is, the disrelish which our farmers too often have to any crop requiring much care. To slash along with a plow is all well enough; but to hoe and weed is rather tedious. But these operations are required only during the first part of the first year.

* * * * *

CAMPHOR FOR FLOWERS.—Two or three drops of a saturated solution of camphor in alcohol, put into half an ounce of soft water, forms a mixture which will revive flowers that have begun to droop and wilt, and give them freshness for a long time.

THE SCIENCE OF BAD BUTTER.

We once took occasion to give our opinion of the butter which was largely brought to our market. The article was deemed severe; but if they who think so had eaten of the butter they would have regarded _that_ as the more pungent of the two. We have waited a year; and are now prepared more fully to testify against that utter abomination, slanderously called butter, so unrighteously exchanged in our market for good money. Far the most part, the cream is totally depraved at the start, and churning, working, and packing are only the successive steps of an evil education by which bad inclinations are developed into overt wickedness. We determined to keep an eye upon the matter; and now give, from life, the natural history of the butter sold.

Before doing this, we will express an opinion of what is _good butter_.

_Good butter_ is made of sweet cream, with perfect neatness; is of a high color, perfectly sweet, free from buttermilk, and possesses a fine grass flavor.

_Tolerable butter_ differs from this only in not having a _fine flavor_. It is devoid of all unpleasant taste, but has not a high relish.

Whatever is less than this is bad butter; the catalogue is long and the descending scale is marked with more varieties than one may imagine.

_Variety 1._ BUTTER-MILK BUTTER.—This has not been well worked, and has the taste of fresh buttermilk. It is not very disagreeable to such as love fresh buttermilk; but as it is a flavor not expected in good butter, it is usually disagreeable.

_Variety 2._ STRONG BUTTER.—This is one step farther along, and the buttermilk is changing and beginning to assert its right to predominate over the butteraceous flavor; yet it may be eaten with some pleasure if done rapidly, accompanied with very good bread.

_Variety 3._ FROWY OR FROWSY BUTTER.—This is a second degree of strength attained by the buttermilk. It has become pungent, and too disagreeable for any but absent-minded eaters.

_Variety 4._ RANCID BUTTER.—This is the putrescent stage. No description will convey, to those who have not tasted it, an idea of its unearthly flavor; while those who _have_, will hardly thank us for stirring up such awful remembrances by any description.

_Variety 5._ BITTER BUTTER.—Bitterness is, for the most part, incident to winter-butter. When one has but little cream and is long in collecting enough for the churn, he will be very apt to have bitter butter.

_Variety 6._ MUSTY BUTTER.—In summer, especially in damp, unventilated cellars, cream will gather mold; Whenever this appears, the pigs should be set to churn it. But instead, if but just touched, it is quickly churned; or, if much molded, it is slightly skimmed, as if the _flavor_ of mold, which has struck through the whole mass, could be removed by taking off the colored portion! The peculiar taste arising from this affection of the milk, blessed be the man who needs to be told it!

_Variety 7._ SOUR-MILK BUTTER.—This is made from milk which has been allowed to sour, the milk and cream being churned up together. The flavor is that of greasy, sour milk.

_Variety 8._ VINEGAR BUTTER.—There are some who imagine that all milk should be _soured_ before it is fit to churn. When, in cool weather, it delays to change, they expedite the matter by some acid—usually vinegar. The butter strongly retains the flavor thereof.

_Variety 9._ CHEESY BUTTER.—Cream comes quicker by being heated. If sour cream be heated, it is very apt to separate and deposit a _whey_: if this is strained into the churn with the cream, the butter will have a strong cheesy flavor.

_Variety 10._ GRANULATED BUTTER.—When, in winter, sweet cream is over-heated, preparatory to churning, it produces butter full of _grains_, as if there were meal in it.

_Variety 11._—In this we will comprise the two opposite kinds—_too salt_ and _unsalted butter_. We have seen butter exposed for sale with such masses of salt in it that one is tempted to believe that it was put in as a make-weight. When the salt is coarse, the operation of eating this butter affords those who have good teeth, a pleasing variety of grinding.

_Variety 12._ LARD BUTTER.—When lard is cheap and abundant, and butter rather dear, it is thought profitable to combine the two.

_Variety 13._ MIXED BUTTER.—When the shrewd housewife has several separate churnings of butter on hand, some of which would hardly be able to go alone, she puts them together, and those who buy, find out that “Union is _strength_!” Such butter is pleasingly marbled; dumps of white, of yellow, and of dingy butter melting into each other, until the whole is ring-streaked and speckled.

_Variety 14._ COMPOUND BUTTER.—By compound butter we mean that which has received contributions from things animate and inanimate; feathers, hairs, rags of cloth, threads, specks, chips, straws, seeds; in short, everything is at one time or another to be found in it, going to produce the three successive degrees of dirty, filthy, nasty.

_Variety 15._ TOUGH BUTTER.—When butter is worked too long after the expulsion of buttermilk, it assumes a gluey, putty-like consistence, and is tough when eaten. But, oh blessed fault! we would go ten miles to pay our admiring respects to that much-to-be-praised dairy-maid whose zeal leads her to work her butter too much! We doubt, however, if a pound of such butter was ever seen in this place.

Besides all these, whose history we have correctly traced; besides butter tasting of turpentine from being made in pine churns; butter bent on travelling, in hot weather; butter dotted, like cloves on a boiled ham, with flies, which Solomon assures us causeth the ointment to stink; besides butter in rusty tin pans, and in dirty swaddling clothes; besides butter made of milk drawn from a dirty cow, by a dirtier hand, into a yet dirtier pail, and churned in a churn the dirtiest of all; besides all these sub-varieties, there are several others with which we have formed an acquaintance, but found ourselves baffled at analysis. We could not even guess the cause of their peculiarities. Oh Dr. Liebig! how we have longed for your skill in analytic chemistry! What consternation would we speedily send among the slatternly butter-makers, revealing the mysteries of their dirty doings with more than mesmeric facility!

And now, what on earth is the reason that good butter is so great a rarity? Is it a hereditary curse in some families? or is it a punishment sent upon us for our ill-deserts? A few good butter-makers in every neighborhood are a standing proof that it is nothing but bad housewifery; mere sheer carelessness which turns the luxury of the churn into an utterly nauseating abomination.

Select cows for quality and not for quantity of milk; give them sweet and sufficient pasturage; keep clean yourself; milk into a clean pail; strain into clean pans—(pans scalded, scoured, and sunned, and if tin, with every particle of milk rubbed out of the seams.) While it is yet sweet, churn it; if it delays to come, add a little saleratus; work it thoroughly, three times, salting it at the second working; put it into a cool place, and then, when, with a conscience as clean and sweet as your butter, you have dispatched your tempting rolls to market, you may sit down and thank God that you are an honest woman!

CINCINNATI, THE QUEEN CITY.

Whatever may have been the squealing celebrity of Porkopolis, Cincinnati seems destined to merge the glory of that name in the more agreeable title, City of Vineyards. That she is the Queen City none denies. But on account of what single excellence, it might be difficult, for some, to say. A queen of slaughter-pens might he a hearty buxom lass, but, withal, not exactly the personage for which knights (Sancho always excepted) love to break lances. A queen of foundries and stithies, she might be, and not necessarily, on that account, a ruddy brunette; inasmuch as Sir Vulcan was, once before, the husband of Venus—queen of beauty. A blushing queen of strawberry beds would be quite romantic; but yet more appropriate if her jurisdiction were extended over vines and purple clusters and vineyards and orchards. But whether it be pork, or iron, or gardens, or vineyards, or observatories, Cincinnati is acknowledged on all hands to be the Queen City.

Leaving her commercial glories out of view, we think Cincinnati has done more for horticulture than any American city, taking into the account her recent origin and her means. In all other cities horticulture has been the child of wealth and leisure. It has _followed_ commercial or manufacturing prosperity. But in this city, it began with them and kept pace with them; so that one wonders which most to admire, the thrift of industry and skill, or the elegant taste which is so generally evinced in the cultivation of fruit, and shrub and flower.

The first volume of the Transactions of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society, is eminently worthy of that enterprising corporation.

The thoughts of several principal friends of horticulture seem much directed to the subject of vine culture, and the manufacture of wine. There are more than eighty-three vineyards in the vicinity of the city containing not far from 400 acres of land! From 114 acres during the season of 1845, more than 23,000 gallons of wine were manufactured, and there was not more than half a crop obtained in that season. The average yield of wine per acre, for five years in succession, is stated to be from 450 to 500 gallons per annum.

Many think the culture of the grape will be the finishing stroke to the temperance enterprise; affording a wholesome beverage from our hills in place of “corn juice” from our bottoms, and beer from our hop and barley fields.

The arguments urged by some with great sincerity, are the often-quoted facts, that the inhabitants of wine-making countries are favorably distinguished for temperance; and that a palatable and wholesome beverage—pure wine—would supersede the use of violent liquors. If we thought that our people would become temperate upon such conditions, we should be glad to see a vineyard on every hillside, and a wine-vat to every farmhouse. But there is no reason to expect any such result. Vineyards in Europe exist among a quiet, comparatively unenterprising peasantry. They have been _trained_ to moderation; necessity has made them temperate in all things—in food, in dress, in expense, and in drink. The popular habits are not so excitable as with us; business runs in quiet streams, and politics are unknown. With us, business is boisterous, pleasure obstreperous, and politics outrageous. Our people are anything but quiet; they are hot, hot in tongue and blood. It is wide enough of the mark to suppose that the same cause existing among two entirely dissimilar people, would, of course, produce the same results. We might as well say that vineyards would make our people eat less meat, less corn and pork, because the residents of wine districts were known to be addicted to a vegetable diet. The probable consequences of abundant cheap wine must be judged, not by what would happen in France, among abstemious peasants, nor on the Rhine, among economical and sober Germans; but by the tastes, habits, and tendencies of our own people. In this land everything tends to excitement. Men live upon a higher key, and live faster and live much more full of exhilaration than the same classes do in foreign lands. Our people drink not for the _taste_ but for the _excitement_ of liquor; and, so that wine, beer, or whisky will bring them up to the right key, the question of wholesomeness is quite unimportant. Our people are free and therefore have a right to live in the violation of natural laws; and a right, constantly exercised, of having fevers on account of surfeitings, and of dying early and by thousands by reasons of gross excesses.

Pleasures and business are esteemed by the volume of blood which they can drive, the pulse they can raise, the heat of excitement which they can produce. So long as affairs are fresh and piquant they are stimulants enough. But in the inequalities and intervals and fatigues of life, something else is required to hold the spirits up to the high level upon which everything proceeds. As soon as a man resorts to alcoholic stimulants to do this, he has embarked upon a course where all experience shows that he will drink deeper and deeper to final downright intemperance.

Some people think that cheap and wholesome beverage for the “masses,” for laboring people, is desirable. While it may be well enough for every gentleman of leisure, it is to be the poor man’s special blessing, saving him from the swill of the brewery and the fire of the still. Facts will stand on the side of the reverse reasoning. If wine is to be harmless at all, it will be with men who are not prone to enterprising heats; but given to the relishful pleasure of sipping just for the delicate flavors, for the aroma, for the fine _bouquet_ of wine—men who need to have their blood up, and kept up, and resort to wine to supply the flagging stimulus of affairs; such men will not drink for the flavor, but for the feeling.

It is for the sake of being roused; it is to be stimulated; it is, in plain language, to have the first exhilarations of drunkenness that laboring men drink, will drink, and have always drank cider, beer, wine, and brandy. The result of affording wine in abundance to such people as ours, will be to prepare them for a stronger drink just as soon as wine, by frequent use, is no longer stimulating enough. Wine will play jackal to brandy for the rich, and to whisky for the poor. We have some facts on hand touching this popular wine-drinking, which, if necessary, we shall employ at another time. Meanwhile, we are glad to see grape-culture spreading for the production of table-grapes; for the manufacture of wine, in so far as a supply of pure wine is needed for medicinal purposes. Further than that, we are opposed to wine-making. And as to cheating whisky out of its authority over “the dear people” by the blandishments of hock and champagne, or redeeming our barley and cornfields from the abominable persecutions of the brew-tub and the still, by the conservative energy or evangelizations of grape juice, we shall believe it when we see it; and we shall just as soon expect to see fire putting out fire and frost melting ice, as one degree of alcoholic stimulus curing a higher one.

* * * * *

TO PRESERVE GARDEN STICKS.—It is desirable when one has prepared good sticks for supporting carnations, roses, dahlias, etc., to preserve them from year to year. The following preparation will make them last a man’s lifetime: When they are freshly made, allow them to become thoroughly dry; then soak them in linseed oil for some time, say two or three days. When taken out let them stand to dry till the oil is perfectly soaked in; then paint with two coats of verdigris paint. No wet can then penetrate.

CARE OF ANIMALS IN WINTER.

The wisest man has said that “the righteous man regardeth the life of his beast; but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” If any one is at a loss to know the meaning of the latter part, he cannot have made good use of his eyes. Lean cattle, leaner horses, anatomical specimens of cows, half fed, dirty, drenched by every rain, and pierced by every-winter wind, these are an excellent comment on the passage.

It is time for every merciful man to make provision for every dumb animal which is dependent upon him.

_Cows_ should be provided with a comfortable stable at night. No feeding will be a substitute for good shelter. Both the quantity and quality of the milk will depend upon bodily comfort in respect to warmth and nutritious food. Such as are becoming heavy with calf should be specially cared for. Many farmers let their cows shift for themselves as soon as their milk dries away. But the health of the coming calf and the ability of the cow to supply it, and her owner, copiously with milk depend on the condition in which she is kept during the period of gestation.

_Cattle_ should have a good shed provided for them, under which they may be dry and sheltered from winds. It is the curse of western farming that cattle and fodder are so plenty that it is hardly a loss to waste both.

Where the amount of stock is too great for comfortable home-quarters, and they are wintered in a stock field, there should be places of resort for them, so high as to remain dry, well turfed with blue-grass, and sheltered with cheap sheds, or by belts of forest.

_Sheep_ should receive special attention. They abhor wet. They should be permitted to keep their fleece dry, and to eat their food in a dry stable. The flock should be sorted. The bucks and wethers by themselves, the ewes by themselves; lambs and weak sheep in another division; and a fourth compartment should never be wanting for the sick, where they may be nursed and medically treated.

_Horses_ are more apt to be taken care of than cattle. But even they are often more indebted for existence to a stubborn tenacity of life, than to the care of their keepers. The horse is a more dainty feeder than ruminating animals. He should be supplied with a better article of hay: his grain should never be dirty or musty.

Hardy farm-horses may even rough out the winter without blanketing or any other care than is necessary to supply good food and enough of it. But carriage horses, and those highly prized for the saddle—aristocratic horses—should be more carefully groomed. It is not wise to blanket a horse at all, unless it can be _always_ done. If he is liable to change hands; to be off on journeys under circumstances in which he cannot be blanketed at night, it will be better not to begin it.

Winter is a good time to kill off spirited horses. They are easily run down by a smashing sleigh-ride pace. Boys and girls, buzzing in a double sleigh like a hive of bees, think that the horses enjoy themselves, at the exhilarating pace of six or eight miles an hour, as much as _they_ do. But this is not ordinarily the worst of it. The horse stands out, after a trip of ten or fifteen miles, at a post for an hour or two until thoroughly chilled; then home he races, and goes into the stable, steaming with sweat, to stand without blankets all night. Horses catch cold as much as men do. And a horse-cold is just as bad as a human cold. As there has been some difficulty, in the construction of fanning mills, to gain a strong enough current of wind, we would advise the builders of them to study the construction of a good stable.

WINTER NIGHTS FOR READING.

As the winter is a season of comparative leisure, it is the time for farmers to study. It is a good time for them to make themselves acquainted with the nature of soils, of manures, of vegetable organization—or structural botany. Farmers are liable to rely wholly upon their own experience, and to despise science. Book-men are apt to rely on scientific theories, and nothing upon practice. If these two tendencies would only court and marry each other, what a hopeful family would they rear! How nice it would look to see in the papers:

MARRIED.—By Philosophical Wisdom, Esq., Mr. Practical Experience, to Miss Sober Science. [We will stand godfather to all the children.]

FEATHERS.

The quality of feathers depends on their strength, elasticity and cleanness; and these, again, depend upon the condition of the bird, its health, food, and the time of plucking its feathers. _Down_ is the term applied to under-feathers—most abundant in water fowl, and in those especially which live in cold latitudes, being designed to protect them from wet and cold. The eider-down, from the eider-duck, is of the most repute. It is brought from extreme northern latitudes, and is used for coverings to beds, rather than for beds themselves, as, by being slept upon, it loses its elasticity.

_Poultry feathers_, as those of turkeys, ducks, and chickens, if assorted and the coarse ones rejected, afford very good beds; but they are not so elastic as geese-feathers.

Everybody knows that live geese-feathers are _the_ best. Every one does not think of the reason; which, as it is the key to the art of having good feathers, we shall propound.

So long as a bird is alive, the feathers are as much an object of nutrition as the flesh, the bones, or any other part of the body.

When dead, put them into hot water to make the feathers come easy. In pulling, take out large handfuls at a time, so as to have scraps of meat and shreds of skin adhere to the quill; let them lie for several days in wet heaps to ferment a little. Then dry them suddenly by violent heat, cram them into the bed-tick, and jump on, and if you have not an odorous bed, and, in a month or two, a bedful of visitors seeking food, then there is no truth in the laws of nature.

_The care of beds_ is not understood, often, by even good housewives. When a bed is freshly made it often smells strong. Constant airing, will, if the feathers are good, and only new, remove the scent.

A bed in constant use should be invariably beaten and shaken up daily, to enable the feathers to retain their elasticity.

It should lie after it is shaken up, for two or three hours a day, in a well ventilated room. The human body is constantly giving off a perspiration; and at night more than usual, from the relaxed condition of the skin. The bed will become foul from this cause if not well aired. If the bed is in a room which cannot be spared for such a length of time, it should be put out to air two full days in the week.

In airing beds, _the sun should never shine directly upon them_. It is _air_, not _heat_, that they need. We have seen beds lying on a roof where the direct and reflected rays of the sun had full power, and the feathers, without doubt, were _stewing_, and the oil in the quill becoming rancid; so that the bed smells worse after its roasting than before. _Always air beds in the shade, and, if possible, in cool and windy days._ And now, if any of our attentive housewife-readers, and we have not a few, are disposed to reward us for all this advice, let them give us a bed to sleep on, when we next visit them, made of growing feathers, from live and healthy geese, carefully picked, well cured, daily shaken up and thoroughly aired; and if we do not dream that the owner is an angel, it will be because we are too much occupied in sound sleeping.

NAIL UP YOUR BUGS.

“The words of the wise are as goads and as nails fastened by masters
of assemblies.”—SOLOMON.

After a great pother about canker worms, peach-tree worms, and other audacious robber-worms; after smoke, salt, tar, and tansy, bands of wool, cups of oil, lime, ashes, and surgery have been set forth as remedies, to the confusion of those who have tried them bootlessly, it now appears that we are about to _nail_ the rascals. The Boston _Cultivator_, contains an article “On Destroying Insects on Trees,” from which we quote:

“I did not intend to give it publicity until I had fully
tested it, but as the ravages are very extensive in the
West, I cannot delay giving you the experiment, hoping that
some of your western readers may now give it a fair trial
and report the result. I will give one case which may induce
the experiment wherever the evil is felt. In conversation
with a friend in Newburyport, Dr. Watson, last fall. I
mentioned the experiment; he invited me to his garden, where
last year a fruit-tree was infested with the nests of
caterpillar or canker-worms, as were his neighbors’ trees;
he showed me a board nailed for convenience of a
clothes-line upon one of the large limbs of the tree; he
said he noticed a little while afterward that the nests on
that limb dried up, and the worms disappeared, though the
cause did not then occur to him though apparent as it will
be to any scientific mind.

“Drive carefully well home, so that the bark will heal over
a few headless cast iron nails, say some six or eight, size
and number according to the size of the tree, in a ring
around its body, a foot or two above the ground. The
oxidation of the iron by the sap, will evolve ammonia, which
will, of course, with the rising sap, impregnate every part
of the foliage, and prove to the delicate palate of the
patient, a nostrum, which will soon become, as in many cases
of larger animals, the real panacea for the ills of life,
_via Tomb_. I think if the ladies should drive some small
iron brads into some limbs of any plant infested with any
insect, they would find it a good and safe remedy, and I
imagine in any case, instead of injury, the ammonia will be
found particularly invigorating. Let it be tried upon a limb
of any tree, where there is a vigorous nest of caterpillars,
and watch it for a week or ten days, and I think the result
will pay for the nails.”

Let our farmers take their hammers and nails and start for the orchard; if they see a bug on the tree, drive a nail, and he is a bug no more! If they see a worm, in with a nail, and the “ammonia evolved” will finish his functions!

The _Southern Planter_ is out with a backer to the Boston _Cultivator_:

“A singular fact, and one worthy of being recorded, was
mentioned to us a few days since by Mr. Alexander Duke, of
Albemarle. He stated that whilst on a visit to a neighbor,
his attention was called to a large peach orchard, every
tree in which had been totally destroyed by the ravages of
the worm, with the exception of three, and these three were
probably the most thrifty and flourishing peach-trees he
ever saw. The only cause of their superiority known to his
host, was an experiment made in consequence of observing
that those parts of worm-eaten timber into which nails had
been driven, were generally sound; when his trees were about
a year old he had selected three of them and driven a
tenpenny nail through the body, as near the ground as
possible; whilst the balance of his orchard has gradually
failed, and finally yielded entirely to the ravages of the
worms, these three trees, selected at random, treated
precisely in the same manner, with the exception of the
nailing, had always been vigorous and healthy, furnishing
him at that very period with the greatest profusion of the
most luscious fruit. It is supposed that the salts of iron
afforded by the nail are offensive to the worm, whilst they
are harmless, or perhaps even beneficial to the tree.”

We do not wish to interrupt any experiments which the enterprising may choose to make. To be sure we regard the facts with some incredulity, and the chemical explanations with something of the mirthful superadded to unbelief. But if nails _are_ an antidote to worms—a real vermifuge—let them be administered, whatever may be the explanations; whether they are an electric battery, giving the insects a little domestic, vegetable lightning, or whether they afford “salts of iron” to physic them, or “evolve ammonia” in such potent, pungent strength that vermicular nostrils are unable to endure it!

While one is fairly engaged in a campaign of experiments, we heartily hope that war will be carried to the very territory of ignorance, and we will propound several other important questions of fact and theory, which, if settled, will crown somebody’s brow with laurels.

It is said that hanging a scythe in a plum-tree, or an iron hoop, or horse shoes, will insure a crop of plums. This ought to be investigated.

It is said that pear-trees that are unfruitful, may be made to bear, by digging under them, cutting the tap root, and burying a black cat there. We do not know as it makes any difference as to the sex of the cat, though we should, if trying it, rather prefer the male cat.

Lastly, that we may contribute our mite to the advancement of science, we will state that, in our youth, we were informed, that, if we would go into the wood-house once a day and rub our hands with a chip, _without thinking of red fox’s tail_, the warts would all go off. We have no doubt that it would have been successful, but every time we tried the experiment, whisk came the red fox’s tail into our head and spoilt the whole affair. But might this not cure warts on trees?

ASHES AND THEIR USE.

Some soils contain already the chemical ingredients which wood ashes supply. If lime be applied to a calcareous soil, it will do no good; there was no want of lime there before; if potash be added to a soil already abounding in it, no effect will be seen in the crops. Ashes contain lime and potash (phosphate of lime and silicate of potash). If a soil is naturally rich in these, the addition of ashes would be useless. Such cases show the true benefits of a _really_ scientific knowledge of soils and manures. Every plant that grows takes out of the soil certain qualities. Wheat, among other things, extracts largely of its potash; Indian corn abstracts but little; potatoes extract phosphate of magnesia, etc. A chemist would say, at once, apply that kind of manure which is rich in the peculiar property extracted by your wheat, corn, or potatoes! What manure is that? Here again science must help. It analyzes manures—gives the farmer the choice among them. The soil being known, the properties required by different crops being known—the farmer applies that manure which contains what the soil lacks. Experiments have seemed to show, that, for purposes of tillage, _leached_ ashes are just as good as the _unleached_. So that housewives may have all the use of their ashes for soap, and then employ them in the garden. Leached ashes become better by being exposed for some time in the air absorbing from the atmosphere fertilizing qualities (carbonic acid?)

So valuable are ashes regarded in Europe, that they are frequently hauled by farmers from twenty miles’ distance—and on Long Island they bring eight cents a bushel.

The ashes of different kinds of wood are of very unequal value—that of the oak the least, and that of beech the most valuable. The latter wood constitutes two-thirds of the fire-wood of this region, and the ashes are therefore the very best.

A coat of ashes may be laid, in the spring, over the whole garden and spaded in with the barnyard manure.

They may be dug in about gooseberry and currant bushes.

They are excellent about the trunks of fruit-trees, spreading the old each year, and renewing the deposit.

They may be thinly spread over the grass-plat in the dooryard, as they will give vigor and deeper color and strength to the grass.

We have usually added about one shovelful of ashes to every _twenty_ in making a compost for flowers, roses, shrubs, etc.