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Dutch and Holstein Cattle.

WRITERS for agricultural papers and officers of agricultural societies sometimes use these terms as if they were synonymous, or as if they did not know the difference between them. If a man should say Devon or Ayrshire, in speaking of a par ticular animal or family of animals, we should infer that he did not know to which of those great families the animal or animals he referred to belonged. If it were a Devon of which he was speaking, and he called it Devon or Ayrshire, it would be absurd, and we should set him down as wholly ignorant of cattle. It is equally improper to use the expression "Dutch or Holstein." They are quite different, both in their origin and characteristics. The Dutch are found in their purity only in Holland, except so far as they have been exported and bred in limited numbers in other countries, while the Holsteins are native to Schleswig and Holstein alone. and belong to a different race. The Dutch are strictly a lowland race, — - large, coarse boned, heavy, built up by the luxuriant feed of a moist climate and low grounds. The Holsteins are smaller, and quite distinct from the Dutch in size, color, and quality.

The Dutch might with just as much propriety be called Hungarians, or Devons, or Ayrshires, as Holsteins, since they resemble either of these classes of cattle about as much. It is always wiser, and better, and more honest to call things by their right names; and after a term has been appropriated and applied for a long series of years, time out of mind, to a particular class of objects or animals, no one has a right to adopt and apply it to another and quite a different class.

To claim that the Dutch are Holsteins, and to call them so, is to claim what is not true; and if it were trae, it would only prove them to be mongrels, a mixed and impure breed; whereas, they are admitted to be one of the old and well estab #shed races of the continent. Neither the Dutch nor the Holsteins, nor any other continental race, can lay any claim to be an improved breed in the sense in which that term is applied in England; but the Dutch have long been celebrated for their remarkable dairy qualities, their great reputation being due in part, no doubt, to the luxuriance and watery quality of the feed.

The Dutch are usually black and white, but not uniformly so. Red and white are by no means uncommon, and in some parts of Holland the "blanketed" cattle prevail, the fore and hind quarters being black or red, with a broad band of white surrounding the whole body. On the whole, the Dutch may be regarded as among the best of the lowland or marsh races of cattle of continental Europe. Let them be known and appreciated as such.

New England Drainage Company.

DRAINAGE, without doubt, lies at the foundation of good farming. It would be for the interest of most farmers in New England to practise it to a much greater extent than they have yet done. But the expense and the difficulties attending it constitute serious obstacles. To enable everybody to overcome these difficulties, it has been suggested that a company should be formed, with an act of incorporation, if need be, which should undertake such work, wherever it is required, at per haps a certain price per rod. Such a company could not only do the work much cheaper, because they would of course have all the best appliances, tools, &c., but they could do it much better, because they could employ skilled and experienced workmen who understood it. A skilled engineer to lay out the work would save much unnecessary labor, and the economy would appear in the saving of time from knowing just how to do it as it ought to be done.

Such a company would be of great advantage to the agriculture of New England. It would furnish tiles at a less cost, probably, than any individual farmer could buy them; and then the confidence that the operation was being rightly performed would remove the element of doubt and uncertainty that must always attend the performance of any work that is little understood, would lead many to undertake the drainage of their farms who now shrink from it on account of the difficulties to be encountered.

Drainage, also, lies at the foundation of all good road building, and most of our common roads require to be drained as the first step in any permanent improvement. It would be of immense advantage to all our towns to be able to call upon a company which could do this work where it ought to be done, and at the least! cost. The great want of our towns, so far as the management of their roads is concerned, is skilful laborers, and these the company would have it in its power to furnish. It could, therefore, not only advise where advice is so much needed, but it could do the work cheaper and better than it is possible to get it done nOW.

On the other hand, we do not see why a company of the kind would not succeed, nor do we think it would be long before it would have enough to do at remunerative prices. It might be of somewhat slow growth; but that it would eventually meet with eminent success does not appear to admit of a doubt. We hope, therefore, the time is not far distant when such a company will be formed; and when it is, we bespeak for it the patronage and the confidence of the farming community.

Printer's Ink for Canker-worms.

THE canker-worm has made such havoc with the apple and elm trees in many localities that it becomes a matter of importance to know how to protect ourselves against it. The habits of the insect are somewhat peculiar, and ought to be understood. The female is a clumsy grub, and wingless. The male is winged. The only efficient way of contending against it is to prevent the female from ascending the tree. The grub begins to come up out of the ground towards the end of October in ordinary years, and continues to ascend the tree through the mild weather of the fall till the ground freezes hard. Occasionally, during a continued period of mild weather in winter, it will ascend, but not generally in very great numbers till about the middle of March. Probably a very large proportion ascends at this time, much larger than in the fall, but it usually ceases about the first of April, or soon after.

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Various methods have been devised to arrest the progress of the grub, and prevent her from reaching the branches of the tree to lay her eggs. The most com mon has been the application of tar around the trunk of the tree, frequently, so as to keep it fresh. Tar, however, soon hardens so that the insect can pass over it. If it is put on often enough after the grub has begun to ascend in the fall, it is a sure preventive, and wherever it has failed to effect the object, it has been from neglect to begin early enough, or to apply the tar at such mild seasons in winter as admit of leaving the ground to run up the tree.

The use of printer's ink instead of tar has been adopted recently, and applied with great satisfaction. A strip of tarred paper is first tacked around the trunk of the tree, after scraping off the rough bark, so as to make it fit tight, and prevent the grub from running up under it. If there are uneven places. stuff in a little cotton batting. Then, with a brush, the ink is put upon the paper, care being taken to prevent it from running down upon the bark of the tree. It must be applied, like tar, as often as the surface dries and hardens; but the advantage of it is that it will retain its freshness much longer than tar. It must, however, be the best quality of ink. The poorer qualities are less adhesive or sticky, and they dry quickly, leaving a hard surface. With the best of ink, a little diluted with whale oil or coal oil, so as to make it easy of application, the labor of protecting an apple orchard is comparatively slight. The ink will last from three to ten days, according to the state of the weather, when it must be daubed on again.

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The average cost of protecting an orchard completely will not ordinarily exceed ten cents a tree. The chief point is to begin early enough, say not later than the 20th of October, and to attend to the repetition of the application when the weather is such as to permit the grub to run up, and especially to see that the ink is of the best quality.

To renew Grass without Ploughing.

MANY lands are so situated that it is desirable to keep them in grass without ploughing. The renewal by the ordinary process of cultivation is expensive and laborious, to say nothing of the time it takes to break up, and plant, and cultivate some hoed crop in the regular line of rotation. When the grass on such lands is "bound out," as they say, something more than a top dressing is needed, though a liberal application in season would have kept it along, perhaps, for some years. When this has been neglected, and the grass has become thin or run out for want of seed, what shall be done to renew it without the cost and time which the ordinary process requires? We know of no more effective way than to harrow the piece twice, diagonally or crosswise, at right angles, with the Nishwitz harrow. This implement is somewhat new in principle, differing from other harrows in having a series of sharped-edged circular revolving disks, nearly a foot in diameter, concave on one side, and convex on the other. It is drawn precisely like the ordinary harrow, and cuts the surface into innumerable squares, leaving it mellow, with the grass roots cut into many pieces, from which new shoots will start forth, and thus greatly increase the crop.

The application of grass seed may then be made with a reasonable prospect that but little of it will be lost. A common brush harrow may then be used to cover the seed, and a top dressing will then gradually work into the soil around the roots, and give the seed and the old grass a fresh start and a fresh lease of life. For this operation no time, perhaps, is better than the early part of September, though if this time has passed, and it seems desirable to do it in the spring, the ground would be softer, and the operation quite as effective, the old grass serving as a sufficient protection of the newly sown seed against any injury from drought, effectually shielding, also the compost applied from loss and waste from the same

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Both the Shares and the Nishwitz harrows are in many respects a great improvement on anything we have heretofore had for pulverizing the soil after the plough has left it. They do not tear up the old sod, or uncover the manure, like the ordinary tooth harrow, while they mellow the surface, and prepare it for the reception of seed more completely than any other implement. Their invention may be said to constitute a new era in this class of implements.

Annual Forage Crops.

THE opinion seems to be gaining ground that it is for the interest of the farmer in this part of the country to adopt the practice of cultivating annual forage crops more extensively, instead of relying so exclusively upon the perennial grasses. Our seasons are peculiarly fluctuating, sometimes excessively dry, parching up every green thing, and injuring our old grass lands to an extent beyond calculation, at others wet and "catching." Old sward lands soon become what is termed "bound out," and so unproductive, unless they are often top-dressed with some enriching compost, and this cannot well be spared from the hoed crops. It would seem to be our true policy, therefore, to plough often in order to keep up the highest productiveness. But to plough often, and to go through with the ordinary rotation of crops, manuring sufficiently to meet the wants of such crops, is generally impracticable.

To meet this difficulty many farmers have adopted the plan of turning up old sward land and applying whatever manure can be spared upon the surface of the upturned sod and sowing Hungarian grass, or some variety of millet, and often clover, which is cut and cured, when the land is either left to grow another similar annual crop again, or immediately sown down to give other lands a like chance the next year. In this way all the lands on the farm come often under the plough, and the possibility of raising an abundance of winter feeding-stuff is greatly increased. Old run out plain lands, ploughed up in September and left through the winter, and frequently harrowed over in the spring to keep down the weeds and the couch grass, may be sown to millet in June, and will cut from two to three tons of capital hay early in August, three or four times as much as they would have yielded with the treatment ordinarily given to them. The chief expense is the operation of plough. ing, for they should be turned up deeply in order to get a sufficient depth of mould on the surface, without disturbing the old sward or turf at the bottom of the furrow. To avoid this difficulty a Shares or a Nishwitz harrow is better than the common tooth harrow, which will tear up much of the sod, however carefully it is used, and this, not being rotted or mellowed down as it is under a longer term of cultivation, will cause great trouble, and make it very hard to get an even surface when it is again seeded down.

Millet can be cut green and used as a soiling crop, or cured as hay, and stored for winter use. To feed it green it will make more milk than green fodder corn, though the weight per acre is not so great. The difference, however, in this respect is less than would be supposed, since millet is sown broadcast, and grows on light, warm soil, moderately manured, very rank and thick, while fodder corn should be sown in drills to give it the sun and air, prime requisites of a healthy growth.

It is plain that the cost of labor under this system of cultivation is less than that required by the regular system of rotation, where hoed or cultivated crops take the lead in point of importance, while the land can be kept in a constantly productive condition, supporting more cattle than where the old fields are allowed to lie year after year, cutting often less than a ton of hay to the acre. The production of the largest amount of annual forage crops appears to be the interest of every farmer in New England, since grass and hay, which mean stock, lie at the foundation of successful farming.

The Meadow Mole.

ALMOST every farmer's boy has a sort of spite against this curious animal, judging from the practice of trying to kill every one that is seen in the hay field-the general impression being that he lives on the roots of grasses and does great injury. That he is injurious to some extent may be true, for in burrowing under and forming paths through the grass he must destroy a certain amount, but a naturalist of Switzerland, feeling certain that the prejudice against the mole was unfounded, carefully examined the stomachs of fifteen moles caught in different localities, and found no vestige of roots or plants, but plenty of evidence of earth-worms. He then shut up several moles in a box, with sods and turf, and put into the box, also, a smaller box of grubs and earth-worms. In nine days two moles ate three hundred and forty-one white grubs, one hundred and ninety-three earth-worms, twentyfive caterpillars, and a whole mouse. He then put in meat, cut up small with vegetables, when the moles ate the former and left the latter. After this they were given vegetables only, and soon died of starvation.

If this account of the habits and food of the mole is true, it shows that this little creature ought to be protected rather than destroyed, and that by this eternal war upon it the farmer is reducing the number of his friends. Let us rather protect and defend the insect-eating birds, the toads, that frequent our gardens and fields and live on insects, most of which are injurious to our crops, and the moles that inhabit our mowing lots and help to keep down the grubs and the worms. It shows, also, the importance of studying the nature and habits of the animals that we meet with every day upon the farm. Thus the study of natural history is of daily practical utility, and it ought to form a part of the education of the young.

POETRY, ANECDOTES, ETC.

TWO PICTURES.

An old farm-house, with meadows wide,
And sweet with clover on each side;
A bright-eyed boy, who looks from out
The door with woodbine wreathed about:
"O, if I could but fly away

From this dull spot the world to see, How happy, happy, happy,

How happy I should be!"

Amid the city's constant din,

A man who round the world has been,
Who, mid the tumult and the throng,
Is thinking, thinking all day long:
"O, could I only tread once more
The field-path to the farm-house door,
The old, green meadows could I see,
How happy, happy, happy,
How happy I should be!"

MARIAN DOUGLAS.

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RECOVERING FROM ILLNESS.

I did but dream. I never knew
What charms our sternest season wore.
Was never yet the sky so blue?

Was never earth so white before?

Till now I never saw the glow
Of sunset on yon hills of snow,
And never learned the bough's designs
Of beauty in its leafless lines.
Did ever such a morning break

As that my eastern windows see?
Did ever such a moonlight take
Weird photographs of shrub and tree?
Rang ever bells so wild and fleet,
The music of the winter street?
Was ever yet a sound by half
So merry as yon schoolboy's laugh?
O Earth! with gladness overfraught,

No added charm thy face hath found; Within my breast the change is wrought, My footsteps make enchanted ground. From couch of pain and curtained room Forth to thy light and air I come, To find in all that meets my eyes The freshness of a glad surprise.

J. G. WHITTIER.

READING.

Get a habit, a passion for reading; not by flying from book to book with the squeamish caprice of a literary epicure, but read systematically, closely, thoughtfully, analyzing every subject as you go along, and laying it up carefully and safely in your memory. It is only by this mode that your information will be at the same time extensive, accurate, and useful.-WIRT.

GOOD BY, PROUD WORLD. Good by, proud world! I'm going home; Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.

Long through thy weary crowds I roam, A river ark on the ocean brine;

Long I've been tossed like the driven foam,

But now, proud world! I'm going home.
Good by to flattery's fawning face,
To grandeur with his wise grimace,
To upstart wealth's averted eye,
To supple office, low and high,
To crowded halls, to court and street,
To frozen hearts and hastening feet,
To those who go and those who come,-
Good by, proud world! I'm going home.
I am going to my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone, -
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned,
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod, -
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the
pines,

Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned

clan;

For what are they all in their high conceit,

When man in the bush with God may meet?

R. W. EMERSON.

Plutarch tells a good story of Philip, king of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. An old woman importuued him with a petition, to whom he several times replied, "I have no leisure." "Do not reign then," at last cried out the old woman, out of patience. Struck with this answer, the king at once gave his attention to her case.

SLANDER. - Believe nothing against another but on good authority, nor report what may hurt another unless it be a greater hurt to another to conceal it.WILLIAM PENN.

TRUE BEAUTY.

He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires,
As old Time makes these decay,

So his flames must waste away. But a smooth and steadfast mind, Gentle thoughts and calm desires, Hearts with equal love combined,

Kindle never-dying fires: Where these are not, I despise Lovely cheeks, or lips, or eyes. T. CAREW, 1589-1639.

VARIETIES.-Look most to your spending. No matter what comes in, if more goes out you will always be poor. The art is not in making money, but in keeping of it: little expenses, like mice in a barn, when they are many, make great waste. Hair by hair heads get bald; straw by straw the roof goes off the cottage; and drop by drop the rain comes into the chamber. A barrel is soon empty if the tap leaks but a drop a moment.

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STICK TO IT.

"Therefore, if any young man has embarked his life in the pursuit of knowledge, let him go on without doubting or fearing the event; let him not be intimidated by the cheerless beginnings of knowledge, by the darkness from which she springs, by the difficulties which hover around her, by the wretched habitation in which she dwells, by the want and sorrow which sometimes journey in her train. But let him ever follow her as an angel that guards him, and as the genius of his life. She will bring him out at last into the light of day, and exhibit him to the world, comprehensive in acquirement, fertile in resources, rich in imagination, strong in reasoning, prudent and powerful above his fellows in all the relations and in all the offices of life."-SYDNEY SMITH.

LIFE AND DEATH.

Life! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me's a secret yet.
Life! we've been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy
weather;

'Tis hard to part when friends are dear;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear.
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;

Say not good night, but in some brighter
clime,
Bid me good morning.

MRS. BARBAULD.

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I will listen to any one's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.

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