while they are not tied in the stable at all. The farmer who wishes to manufacture his manure of an even quality will give as much of the month of May as possible to the absorbents already in the yard, and will also endeavor to clean and replenish the second time as near the first of September as practicable. By this method he may get two crops of manure yearly.

MOWING MACHINES ON SMALL
FARMS.

true that the grasshopper is not a burden to him yet, but he does not feel like cutting his acre before dinner; he stops to whet oftener than he did twenty years ago, and rests longer in the shade of the big apple tree! In fact, his "mowing machine" does not work as it formerly did. There is plenty of will, but less power, and the work progresses slowly, while he looks painfully around to see what he can call in to his aid, to secure the crops which beneficent Heaven has matured for the support of his family.

The mowing machine comes to such a man as a real blessing. It enables him to keep up with his younger neighbors; to cut his crops in season and secure them without loss. He is relieved, encouraged, and feels comparatively young again, because he can carry on his farm as rapidly and

In one of the Legislative Agricultural meetings which took place at the State House in March last, when the topic under discussion was that of Farm Implements, one or more of the speakers stated that they thought mowing machines were profitable on large farms, but on small ones would hardly pay. We thought, at the time, that this was an erro-successfully as he did in his younger and stronger neous view of the matter, and upon farther reflec-days! tion, we think so still. The farmer who, has a large farm, is presumed to have capital corresponding with his acres, and to devote his whole time to the management of his estate. He is never single-handed and alone. If sick, or disabled in any way, he has strong backs and stout arms to depend upon, in his hired men, still to carry on the cultivation of the crops, or to secure the harvests. He can even visit the seashore or the mountains, and be absent for several days in succession, without any special detriment to his farming operations. His corn and roots are hoed and kept in a flourishing condition, and his hay, and wheat, and rye crops, carefully secured, so that he finds loaded scaffolds of golden grain, and bursting bays of aromatic hay, all safely housed, to gladden him on his return.

If he has used a mowing machine, all this labor has undoubtedly been greatly facilitated, and the crops have been economically secured. But suppose he has not availed himself of this labor-saving implement-he has had, and always can have, a force, in athletic men, equal to all the demands upon him. If there is any class of our farmers who can dispense with the mowing machine, and not most sensibly feel its absence, it is this that we have described. This class may be independent of the machine if it will, but not without loss. Such, however, is not the case with the small farmer. His whole success is centred in his own judicious management, aided by his own muscular power. The hard jobs, as well as the easy, and all the duties that incessantly come, both late and early, are also his. His sons may be in the army, factory, or behind a counter, all but the youngest, who is only fourteen, and yet has swung the scythe the two previous years.

Perhaps the farmer is considerably past middle life, and although in good health, his cheek is furrowed, and grey hairs sprinkle his temples. It is

Perhaps the small farmer is in feeble healthnot really sick, but unable to take the lead in laborious work-but with the aid of a mowing machine and a good horse-rake, he is more than a match for the best five men in the county. But this is not all. Somehow, he feels better than he did. His appetite is sharp-he has gained fleshstands up straighter than for many years before, and with these blessings, another has come, more valuable than all, in a cheerful, trusting, hopeful spirit, which brings a new sunshine and joy to his whole homestead! Wonderful! And the doctor says, "All this has come because you do not work so hard!"

We

There are other reasons why the small farmer should use a mowing machine, but we have pursued the subject too far to give them now. have said enough to suggest many more reasons to those who are willing to think about it, and so we leave it at present for their own pleasant thoughts and, we trust, judicious conclusions.

QUANTITY OF FOOD FOR OXEN.-Frequent observations have shown that an ox will consume two per cent. of his weight of hay per day to maintain his condition. If put to moderate labor, an increase of this quantity to three per cent. will enable him to perform his work, and still maintain his flesh. If he is to be fatted, he requires about four and a half per cent. of his weight daily in nutritious food.-Michigan Farmer.

LARGE sums of money are paid away every year, by the colonial governments in Australia, to boys for the destruction of thistles. These boys, like the rat-catchers, take care not to exterminate their means of living. In order to save this expense, and effectually destroy the thistles, it is proposed to introduce the goldfinch, the brown linnet, the red-poll and the German siskin into Australia, all of which birds live on thistle seed in the season.

DESIGNED AND ENGRAVED EXPRESSLY FOR THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER.

In this design we have endeavored to provide accommodation for a small family of cultivated taste, either in the country or village. The provision of a dairy would indicate that it was designed for a Farm House, while it possesses some other features which, though not out of keeping with the uses of such a house, seem to adapt it to some prominent situation and make it something of a show house; hence we think it would be especially suitable for a small milk farm, located in the vicinity of some city or large town, to which the owner might carry his milk every morning for a market a business from which, we are inclined to think, one might reap quite a profit, besides having the satisfaction of feeling oneself a benefactor-for rich, pure milk is a luxury that would be highly appreciated by dwellers in the city, accustomed, as a great portion of them are, to using a liquid that has been brought for miles in the cars, and encountered several processes which do anything but improve its quality.

This plan we think would be well suited to such a business as that, yet by converting the dairy into a store-room we have a convenient plan for a common suburban or country residence.

ACCOMMODATION.-From the drive-way in front three easy steps rise to the portico, A, and from this portico we enter the hall, H. This hall measures seven feet by sixteen, and contains the front stairs to the chambers. On the right is the parlor, B, a pleasant room fourteen by sixteen, and opening out of this room on the south-eastern side is a conservatory, G, for plants and flowers. It measures fourteen by eighteen feet, and is fitted up with wide shelves at the sides and a broad stand in the centre for fall plants, with a passage of three feet in width all around it.

This conservatory is designed to be heated in a manner described by Downing as the Polmaise system, namely: by means of a furnace made of a common air-tight stove placed in a brick air-chamber underneath the floor, the heat passing up through a single pipe running from the top of the chamber to the floor-while from the floor at the farther end of the conservatory, near the door, another pipe extends downwards, and terminates in the bottom of the air-chamber, thus producing a thorough circulation of air all the time, with a regulated supply of fresh air from out of doors conducted by means of a box like a common fur

nace box, to the chamber. We have seen this method tried, and can recommend it as being the cheapest and most effective way of heating a small green-house like this.

The six upper sashes of the roof have pulleys and cords, by which means they may be lowered and raised at pleasure.

At the farther extremity of the front hall, a glazed door opens into the back entry which extends along back of the parlor and opens out upon an umbrage, I, on the eastern side of the house. This back entry contains stairs to the chambers and cellar, and opens into the parlor and the kitchen. The dining-room, C, is fourteen feet square, and communicates with the kitchen, D, by means of a small passage, fitted up with shelves. On the right of the chimney is a good-sized china closet, with drawers, and shelves for china. The kitchen is twelve by seventeen-is well lighted by three windows, and has a fire-place with an oven and boiler. Opening out of it is a pantry, E, six feet by eight, furnished with hooks, shelves, sink, pump, cupboard, &c., and opening out upon a platform

der the shelves, and of about the same width, closed by a board with hinges precisely like a trap door.

Near the ceiling, and opening outwards and upwards on the north side of the house, is a similar trap door three or four feet long and about a foot wide, which an elevating stick with notches cut into it enables an attendant to raise to any desired degree.

When the upper ventilator is opened, the heated air passes out by reason of its specific levity, and the cold air from the cellar rushes in to fill its place, in the same way that water rises in a pump when the air is withdrawn from above. A ventilated space surrounds the room, (here, of about seven inches in width, though in Mr. Wing's it is twelve or more,) and prevents the heating, so often resulting from confined air in the adjacent walls. The shelves are not flat boards, as usually constructed, but are formed of two narrow strips of board set on edge and notched into standards placed about five feet apart, by which means we get a free circulation of air on every side. The

C

principal floor is
nine and a half.

strips for shelves are nine inches apart outside, and each strip one by two inches. The shelves are eight inches apart, with six inches of clear space between them for pans. In the room on our plan there are accommodations for about eighty common pans.

The umbrage is six feet wide, and is latticed on the eastern side.

a

The second floor of the house contains two front chambers, each fourteen feet square; kitchen chamber, twelve by fourteen; another chamber over the pantry and entry, nine feet square; and a small room over the dairy.

The attics are unfinished. The ten feet high, and the second is

The house is designed to be built of wood, and covered in the vertical and battened manner; to be finished with white walls for papering, and a plain wood finish for all the rooms; the kitchen, pantry, dairy and back entry may be grained or stained; the rest of the house may have two coats of paint inside and outside. Cost, about $2500.

at the rear of the house. A large closet opens out of the pantry where shown on the plan. The dairy, F, is an important feature. It is on the eastern corner of the house; the umbrage shielding it from the sun on that side, while a window on the north side admits cold air, and other provisions for ventilating keep the air continually fresh. The room is constructed on a principle invented by Mr. HARVEY WING, of Morris, N. Y., and successfully applied to his own house. It is thus described: The room is situated directly MADNESS CAUSED BY HONEY.-In Mesopotaover a cold cellar, from which the air may be taken mia a peculiar kind of honey is found, which is at pleasure by means of ventilators, for the perfect said, if eaten in any considerable quantity, to make regulation of the temperature of the room. These noxious quality of the honey is thought to be demen mad, though only for a short time. The ventilators consist of simple slits or openings, rived from the blossoms of the rhododendron, running nearly the entire length of the room un-which is abundant there.

For the New England Farmer. LETTER FROM THE HOMESTEAD.

was gospel truth, to be sure, and as he had introduced the subject, and I recognized on his head Chester, N. H., June 5, 1862. the same wig which was there thirty years ago, I MY DEAR MR. BROWN:-Coming in the train could not forbear to reply, that I did not see the from Manchester, this morning, I stepped off at least change in his hair, since I first knew him! Derry, about six miles from "home," thinking a Whereupon, with a hearty laugh, we said good-by. draft of my native air, another from the iron- The country was in its full glory. The sky was bound bucket that hangs in the well, a glimpse of just clearing away, after a gentle, steady, summer my beautiful trees planted in the days of my rain, all night long, and every bird, and leaf, and youth, and a day with my kindred, who still re- blade of grass, was thankful. There is a great main, might be pleasant and good for soul and deal to see in such a morning. There are the birds. body. I fancied that it would be very easy to I knew every one of them. They have not changed walk across, but difficulties, unforeseen, beset me a feather since I first knew them. When I was at every step. You need not pause to moralize a boy I skinned and stuffed specimens of all that over the decay of my strength, or my premature could be found, and they are now here at the old age, for the obstacles were not in that direc- homestead, a hundred of them, as perfect as when tion. People in the country do not walk so much first mounted. I suppose birds do not improve as in the city, and the reasons are, that every one much. Those that came out of the ark probably in the country has a horse, and that, much of the made just as good nests, and wore just as fine year, the roads are snowy, or muddy. A walk of feathers, and sang just as good songs, as these six miles about the city, is no great exertion even about us. Agassiz says, that an examination of for young ladies, but in the country, we never the coral reefs of Florida shows that they have thought of getting over so much space on foot. It been in process of formation seventy thousand was difficult to convince the men about the sta- years, at least, and that there has been, in all that tion, that I was really going to walk to Chester, period, absolutely no change in the different spewhen I requested to have my valise sent over by cies of coral insects. A class of writers like the the stage. Finally, I got off, and called at the author of "The Vestiges of Creation," insist that Bank, about twenty rods on my proposed journey, species progress from one into another, so that, where my good friend, the Cashier, insisted on bye-and-by, gorillas may become Christian men, sending me over with his horse. I declined his just as tadpoles become frogs, or worms become civility, with the explanation that I really wanted butterflies. These latter, however, are not changes to walk over the road I had so often travelled of species, from generation to generation, but only when a school-boy at the Derry Academy. Once the perfection of the species in its own life. more I set forward, like the pilgrim in the Progress, and had gone about a quarter of a mile, when a stranger gentleman in a handsome chaise overtook me, and evidently esteeming riding far above walking, saluted me with, "Are you going to the village, Sir ?" and made room for me, as if it were matter of course that no sane man would walk, when he might as well ride. I really preferred to walk, but as I had just come out of Court, and did not want to argue, or discuss the question, nor yet to decline without a reason, I stepped in and rode nearly a mile, as the easiest way of disposing of the matter. Once more I was on foot, reflecting for the moment upon the difference between the habits of city and country. I might walk a hundred miles about Boston, and nobody offer me a ride, but here every man insists on doing me a kindness.

Give me country life, thought I, where people know, and care for each other. The first man I met after leaving the chaise, was a gentleman whom I had known when I was a boy, though he was not. He greeted me very warmly, and gave me a little specimen of the frankness of rural manners, by remarking, "Your hair begins to show that you are not so young as you once were." This

The thrush and catbird sang this morning the same songs, I have no doubt, that they sang in Paradise, and though you might possibly teach one to whistle Yankee Doodle, her descendants would not inherit the gift. One advantage which observers of nature possess over mere lovers of mankind is, that the world never grows old to them. They have the same stars by night, wheeling in their constellations grandly over the firmament; the same hills, and valleys, and birds, and trees, and flowers by their wayside, all their life long; while they who depend on society, see young faces become old, or new faces take the places of those that have vanished from sight. But we must pass on, for there is a great deal to see in six miles in the country in the first week in June.

A WORD ABOUT LAWNS.

In front of the farm-houses, where there are no fences, and where cattle and horses daily crop the grass, we see thick green turf, really better lawns than any kept under the scythe. Indeed, there is great difficulty in this hot, dry, unequal climate, in keeping a lawn green and close through the hot season. I tried to see what this roadside turf is made of, as I walked along. It seems to be