Part 8

GARDEN.—Transplant flowers; destroy all weeds; get out cabbages; more lettuce; get ready celery trenches; layer favorite roses, vines, etc.; examine and remove from the peach-tree root, the grub which is destroying them. Sow salt under plum-trees—put on a coat two inches thick.

Transplant flowers; bud roses with fine kinds; see that large plants are tied neatly to frames or stakes. Every morning examine your beds of cabbage, etc., for cut-worms, and destroy them if found; plant succession crops of peas, corn, radishes, lettuce, etc.

7. WORK FOR JULY.—Great difference of practice and opinion exists as to the methods and time of harvesting. Some cut their grass while the dew is on it; others cut it when perfectly dry, and say that if so cut it need not be spread, but will dry in the swath in one or two days. As to the _time_ of cutting grass, we should avoid both extremes of very early or very late. Just before the seed of _timothy_ is ripe, is, upon the whole, the best time for this best of grasses for the scythe. Clover should be cut when in full blossom; instead of spreading, the best farmers make it into small cocks and leave it there to cure, which it will do without shrivelling or losing its color.

GARDEN WORK.—As soon as your roses are done blooming, if you wish to increase them, take the young shoots, and about eight inches from the ground, cut, below an eye, half through, and then slit upward an inch or two through the pith; put a bit of chip in to keep the slit open; bend down the branch and cover the portion thus operated on with an inch or two of earth and put a brick upon it. It will soon send out roots, and by October may be separated from the parent plant. Quinces, gooseberries, and almost all shrubs which branch near the ground, may be propagated in this way. Still keep down weeds. Sow successive crops of corn, peas and salads, for fall use. Begin to gather such seeds as ripen early. Take up tulips, hyacinths, etc., as soon as the tops wither.

8. WORK FOR AUGUST.—If during this hot month you will clear out fence corners, and cut off vexatious intruders, the sun will do all it can to help you kill them. If your wheat is troubled with the weevil, thrash it out and leave it in the chaff. It will raise a heat fatal to its enemy without injuring itself. Every farmer should have a little nursery row of apple, pear, peach and plums of his own raising. Plant the seed; when a year old, transplant into rows eight inches apart in the row and two feet between the rows. During July, August, and September, you may bud them with choice sorts, remembering that a _first-rate_ fruit will live just as easily as a worthless sort. This is a good month to sow down fallow fields to grass. Plough thoroughly—harrow till the earth is fine; be liberal of seed, and cover in with a harrow and not with a bush, which drags the seeds into heaps, or carries them in hollows. The early part of the month should be improved by all who wish to put in a crop of buck-wheat or turnips. If your pastures are getting short, let your milch cows have something every night in the yard. Corn, sown broadcast, would now render admirable service.

If you have neglected to raise your bulbs, lose no time now. Take cuttings from roses and put in small pots, invert a glass over them; in two or three weeks they will take root, and by the next spring make good plants. Gather flower seeds as soon as they ripen.

9. WORK FOR SEPTEMBER.—You should finish seeding your wheat grounds in this month. If sown too early, it is liable to suffer from the fly; if too late, from rust. Those who sow acres by the hundred, must sow early and late both. But moderate fields should be seeded by the middle of this month. In preparing the land, if the surface does not naturally drain itself, it should be so plowed as to turn the water into furrows between each land. Standing water, and, yet more, ice upon it, being fatal to it. See that your cattle are brought into good condition for wintering. Fall transplanting may be performed from the middle of this month; _take off every leaf_—re-set, and stake.

By the latter part of the month, or early in October, according to the season, it will be necessary to raise and pot such plants as you intend to keep in the house; to raise and place in a dry and frost-proof room your dahlias, tuberoses, amaryllis, tigridia, gladioli, and such other tender bulbs as you may have. Let your seed be gathered, carefully put away where it will contract no moisture. Go over your grounds and examine all your _labels_, lest the storms which are approaching should destroy them. Sow in some warm and sheltered part of your garden, early in this month, for spring use, spinage, corn salad, lettuce, etc. As soon as the leaves fall, take cuttings from currant bushes and grapes, and plant them out in rows. They will start off and grow earlier by some six weeks, the next season. Fill in your celery trenches every ten days.

10. WORK FOR OCTOBER.—Push forward your hogs as fast as possible. If they have had a good clover range in the summer, they will be ready to start off vigorously from the moment that you begin to put them upon corn. See that good paths are made in every direction from your house; and be sure to have walks through your barn-yards raised so high as never to be muddy. Your cattle-yards should slope toward the centre in such a way that horses and cattle need not wade knee deep in going in and out.

Frosts will now begin to strip your trees and stop the growth of garden shrubs, and all your preparations should be made for protecting tender trees and shrubs. For cherry and pear-trees, especially, you should provide good covering for their trunk, until they have grown quite large. A good bundle of corn-stalks set round the body so as to keep out the sun, but not the air, will answer every purpose. For beds of China and tea, and dwarf roses, we advise a covering of three inches of half-rotted manure. Cover this with leaves about six inches. Moss is better, if you will take the trouble to collect it; and straw will do if you have neither moss nor leaves. Half cover the part that remains exposed, with fine brush, or pine branches. For single plants, drive a stake by their side, and tie the plant to it; wind loosely about it a wisp of straw or roll of bass matting, or cloth, so as to exclude the sun and not the air. The _sun_, and not the _cold_, usually destroys plants.

11. WORK FOR NOVEMBER.—During this month, if the ground is not locked by frost, you may plow stiff, tenacious clay soils to great advantage. By being broken up and subjected to the keen frosts, your soil will become mellow and tender. See that every provision is made for sheltering your cattle and horses; be sure that your sheep are not obliged to lie out in drenching rains.

IN THE GARDEN see that your asparagus bed is dressed if neglected last month. House all your brush, poles, stakes, frames, etc., which will be fit for use another season. If your tulips, hyacinths, etc. have not been planted, you had better reserve them for spring, as they will be liable to rot in the ground if planted so late in the year. Cover with brush, or leaves, or straw, your lettuce, spinage, and other salad plants designed for spring use. If tender plants, roses, vines, etc., have been left unprotected, cover as directed last month. If you have no cold frame for half-hardy plants, they may be _laid in by the heels_, i. e., taken up, and the roots laid into a trench, the tops sloping at an angle of about twenty degrees, and then covered with earth. The soil should cover about half the stem.

It is now a good season for cutting grafts. Take them from the outside of the middle of the tree; let them be done up in small packages, and set up endwise in the cellar, and covered with about half-dry sand. Roots may be taken from pear and apple-trees, and packed in the same way for root-grafting.

12. DECEMBER.—The year is about to close. Look back upon your toil. In what respect will your year’s labor bear an approval when calmly examined? Can you honestly acquit yourself of indolence and carelessness? and as honestly take credit for enterprise, activity, and a desire for improvement? Your barns are full—your granary is heavy with grain—the year’s bounty has followed a year’s labor, and if you have the heart of a man you will not forget the source whence your blessings have come. You have perhaps done well by your stock, and in so far as the body is concerned, for your children; but what have you done for their education? What have you done to promote popular education? Are you doing anything to make your neighborhood better? What good newspapers do you provide for your family? Do you lay out as much money for books as you do for tobacco? In looking forward to the next year, you ought to mark out your personal course by good resolutions, and your business course by a definite plan of operations. It would be well if a farmer should know beforehand everything he means to do; and afterwards, if he has kept such an account that you can tell anything that you have done.

Sleighing for the young and gay, and warm fire-sides for the aged, are what are now most thought of. Those who are best provided with the comforts of life should remember their less favored brethren.

EDUCATED FARMERS.

It is time for those who do not believe ignorance to be a blessing, to move in behalf of common schools. Many teachers are not practised even in the rudiments of the spelling-book; and as for reading, they stumble along the sentences, like a drunken man on a rough road. Their “_hand-write_,” as they felicitously style the hieroglyphics, would be a match for Champollion, even if he _did_ decipher the Egyptian inscriptions. But a more detestable fact is, that sometimes their morals are bad; they are intemperate, coarse, and ill-tempered; and wholly unfit to inspire the minds of the pupils with one generous or pure sentiment. We do not mean to characterize the _body_ of the common schoolmasters by these remarks; but that any considerable portion of them should be such, is a disgraceful evidence of the low state of education.

Farmers and mechanics! this is a subject which comes home to you. Crafty politicians are constantly calling you the _bone and sinew_ of the land; and you may depend upon it that you will never be anything else but bone and sinew without education. There is a law of God in this matter. That class of men who make the most and best use of their _heads_, will, in _fact_, be the most influential, will stand highest, whatever the theories and speeches may say. This is a “nature of things” which cannot be dodged, nor got over. Whatever class bestow great pains upon the cultivation of their minds will stand high. If farmers and mechanics feel themselves to be as good as other people, it all may be true; for _goodness_ is one thing and _intelligence_ is another. If they think that they have just as much mind as other classes, that may be true; but can you _use it as well_?

Lawyers, and physicians, and clergymen, and literary men, make the discipline of their intellect a constant study. They read more, think more, write more than the laboring classes. The difference between the educated and uneducated portions of society is a _real_ difference. Now a proud and lazy fellow, may rail and swear at this, and have his labor for his pains. There is only one way really to get over it, and that is to rear up a generation of well educated, thinking, reading farmers and mechanics. Your skill and industry are felt; and they put you, in these respects, ahead of any other class. Just as soon as your _heads_ are felt, as much as your _hands_ are, that will bring you to the top.

Many of our best farmers are men of great natural shrewdness; but when they were young they “had no chance for learning.” They feel the loss, and they are giving their children the best education they can. Farmers’ sons constitute three-fifths of the educated class. But the thing is, that they are not educated _as farmers_. When they begin to study they leave the farm. They do not expect to return to it. The idea of sending a boy to the school, the academy, and the college, and then let him go back to farming, is regarded as a mere waste of time and money. You see how it is even among yourselves. If a boy has an education, you expect him to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a preacher. You tacitly admit that a farmer does not need such an education; and if you think so, you cannot blame others if they follow your example.

There is no reason why men of the very highest education should not go to a farm for their living. If a son of mine were brought up on purpose to be a farmer, if that was the calling which he preferred, I still would educate him, if he had common sense to begin with. He would be as much better for it as a farmer, as he would as a lawyer. There is no reason why a thoroughly scientific education should not be given to every farmer and to every mechanic. A beginning must be made at the common school. Every neighborhood ought to have one. But they do not grow of themselves, like toad-stools. And no decent man will teach school on wages which a canal boy, or a hostler would turn up his nose at. You may as well put your money into the fire as to send it to a “make-believe” teacher—a great noodle-head, who teaches school because he is fit for nothing else! Lay out to get a _good teacher_. Be willing to pay enough to make it worth while for “smart” men to become your teachers. And when your boys show an awakening taste for books, see that they have good histories, travels, and scientific tracts and treatises. Above all, do not let a boy get a notion that if he is educated, he must, of course, quit the farm. Let him get an education that he may _make a better farmer_. I do not despair of yet seeing a generation of honest politicians. Educated farmers and educated mechanics, who are in good circumstances, and _do not need office for a support_, nor make politics a trade, will stand the best chance for honesty. But the Lord deliver us from the political honesty of tenth-rate lawyers, vagabond doctors, bawling preachers, and bankrupt clerks, turned into patriotic politicians!

AN ACRE OF WORDS ABOUT AKER.

Our spelling _acre_ according to Webster’s former method[1]—_aker_, has attracted no little attention, in a small way, both far and near. It is very difficult to fix on any rule for anything in our language. Etymology is chiefly useful in settling the primitive signification, and is, or ought to be, scarcely at all authoritative in orthography. Where two languages are very different, it is absurd to attempt the forms of the one in the other. In respect to _idiom_, no one dreams of transferring it from one to another. Oftentimes it is equally absurd to transfer mere literation, as in the Greek-blooded word _Phthisic_ for Tisic, or as Walker would have spelled it, _Phthisick_! Who rebels because _demesne_, as it is written in our best authors until within a little time, is now spelled _domain_? We see no reason why Anglicized words should, against all our notions of sound, retain a cumbrous foreign spelling. Words adopted into a language by the _ear_, which are spoken before they are written, generally conform, on being written, to our modes of spelling. But words introduced first by the eye, as they are written, for a long time wear the original spelling. Thus some foreign words are spelled by one method, and some by another.

Custom is usually regarded as determinate, in the matter of spelling, pronunciation, idiom, purity, etc. But, in respect to spelling, custom is not long the same. If one will examine our literature from the time of Henry VIII., he will find a constant succession of changes in spelling, both for good and for bad. _I_ has been generally substituted for _Y_, as in _Lykwyse_, _accordynge_, _beyng_, _certayne_. Sir Thomas More wrote _hym_, _thynges_, _desyer_, _myndes_. Skelton, the Poet Laureat, has _centencyously_, _dyd_, _advysynge_, _hyll_, etc., etc.

There has, too, and wisely, been a constant tendency to drop all _unsounded_ letters. What earthly use is there of lugging along letters which are entirely mute? In old but classic authors we have God_de_ dyd_de_, now_e_, which_e_, pull_e_, best_e_, such_e_, cou_e_rt_e_ (court) be_e_twen_e_, begun_ne_, etc.

Within our own memory the final _k_ is lopped of from words where it had a perfect sinecure, as in music_k_, etc. “_Kan’t kum it_,” does not look any more odd to our eyes than our spelling would have looked to those who wrote one hundred years ago.

If it be asked why we do not spell every word by the same rule that we do some; we reply, that violent, and sudden changes in languages are _impracticable_; and as in everything else, are not desirable. We are glad to see spelling simplified, and shall move along just as fast as we can do it with a reasonable prospect of carrying the public.

It is not a matter of conscience; we have no necessity laid upon us to reform the language; no call to be _literal_ martyrs; it is a matter of _convenience_ and _taste_, to be done or omitted as one pleases. It would be more inconvenient to stand alone with all writers against us, for the sake of spelling consistently, than to spell foolishly and superfluously in conformity to inveterate practice. Therefore, for the sake of company, we still spell quite absurdly.

It is called _inconsistent_; and by men, too, who spell trough, cough, enough, though; through, bought, six dissimilar sounds (_ou_, _ow_, _oo_, _o_, _uf_, _off_), by the same combination of letters! If consistency be the question, every English writer that ever lived, is a mere bundle of inconsistencies. Every continental living language, and the dead classic languages, have thrown in their contributions, and our tongue comprises the scraps, odds and ends, of all lands, with all the diverse peculiarities of each language more or less retained. Under such circumstances, when no man writes a sentence without spelling inconsistently, it is quite ridiculous to oppose a simplification of spelling, because we cannot do, at once, what it is only practicable to do gradually. As fast as the public is able to bear it, we shall be glad to reduce all cumbrous spelling to a consistent simplicity.

An acquaintance declares, that the derivation of AKER from the Latin and Greek, is “without the least foundation in the words as used in the Greek and Latin and in the English, and built entirely on the resemblance of sounds,” etc. The facts are the other way. In the Greek, and in the Latin, it meant simply a field, an open, cultivated spot. Now, this was the meaning of the word in English, until it was by statutes limited to a particular quantity (31 Ed. III.; 5 Ed. I., 24; Henry VIII., as quoted by Webster) and this is the meaning yet, of the word in German (_acker_) Swedish (_acker_) Dutch (_akker_). There is, therefore, ample foundation in the _use_ of the word; and the _sound_ our friend gives up.

In almost all the languages of the Teutonic family, of which ours is one, the word is still spelled with _k_; and so it is in the Asiatic languages, from which, probably, both the Teutonic and the Greek, alike borrowed it.

The spelling a_cre_, as also cent_re_, theat_re_ we, probably, derived from the French; to which language we owe the emasculation of many a noble Saxon word.

In the _New England Farmer_ our orthographical sins are thus set in order before us:

“The _Western Farmer and Gardener_, is an excellent journal—very. It has only one feature that we dislike, viz.—it spells ACRE _a-k-e-r_! We are somewhat surprised at Bro. Beecher, who usually evinces such good taste, as well as such good sense, should adopt such an ugly-looking substitute for an old word of so much better appearance, although supported in it by the prince of lexicographers.

“_A-k-e-r!_ Wheugh! Bro. editors, _hoot_ at it till it shall become obsolete. In Todd’s, Johnson’s, and Walker’s, and Worcester’s dictionaries, _fuel_ is spelled _fewel_, as the most correct way. This is odd enough and bad enough—but it is hardly so unsightly as _aker_.”

Nothing becomes obsolete until it has been in vogue. But pass that: what a sight will the hooting confraternity present! I imagine Maine Farmer Holmes—a plump, short, dapper gentleman, giving a long howl, that sounds so ludicrous, that he draws back from the open window to laugh. Our more sober Breck performs the euphonious duty with such conscientious heartiness, that up starts the man of Buckwheat from his (mis-spelled) Plo_ugh_man’s chair, as also does the Cultivator Cole—a trio not practiced to sing together. The uproar reaches Albany, and surprises him of the Cultivator, who hoots supplementary, with such voice as he happens, in his surprise, to have on hand. Next, toward the west, Dr. Lee shall give a scientific roar or hoot such as will make his laboratory jar again. Down across the lake the hooting (not _hunting_) chorus goes (what will the sailors think is to pay!) to Elliot of the yard-long-named Magazine, who, hoarse with lake fogs and winds, shall put in so bass a hoot, that Wight and Wright of the _Prairie Farmer_ will howl of mere fright, if for nothing else.

Audacious men! we utterly defy you! We shall pass by the whole crowing brood of Polands, Dorkings and what-not; and raise a breed of genuine owls, to be our champions in this dire necessity. We say, peremptorily, that we will not bet on any match between hooting birds and hooting editors. But our serious opinion is, that, in grave solemnity of looks, and in professional hooting, a half dozen well-trained owls will beat the whole of you. However, we are open to conviction.

[1] Two-volume edition, imperial octavo.

FARMERS’ LIBRARY.

It is of the highest importance that farmers should possess _reading habits_; and that they should bring up their children to a love of books. Every farmer should have a library; it may, at first, be small; but it should be select. As soon as a farmer is beforehand enough to own an acre, he is prosperous enough to begin a library. It is said by many, _books won’t make money_. Yes they will. To-be-sure, their best effect is the production of intelligence in the reader; but a man well informed in his own business is just the man to make money. Who ever thought of making money by buying grindstones and whetstones? But they sharpen the scythe, and sickle, and the axe, and _they_ produce money. Books are grindstones and whetstones for a man’s mind.