SHEEP HUSBANDRY. AMONG the many inducements to the keeping of sheep in New England may be mentioned the improvement of our pastures and what are called "worn out lands." There can be no doubt of this result. You have pastures overrun with hard-hacks, huckleberry bushes, and sweet-fern. Put on sheep. Mow the bushes. Stock rather hard at first, and thousands of the young shoots will be eaten off again and again. They will grow less and less till the better grasses take their place, and you find the pasture gradually improving. This has been the case on many a farm that I could name, and there is no reason why it should not be on yours. It matters little, of course, what kind of sheep you get to effect this object, though if near a market some of the prolific mutton breeds may be preferred. The Southdowns, for instance, or some of the coarser wools, are more easily managed than the merino, especially for beginners. Well begun is half well done, you know, and many a man who has begun with any sheep that he could pick up, has ended in having some of the well-established breeds, and making a business of it. And that is the way to make money at any branch of farming. Make a specialty of it, and you will carry it to a higher degree of perfection than if it comes in only incidentally. For the mountains of Vermont, and the hill farms of Western Massachusetts and New Hampshire, nothing probably can surpass the merino for profit. As a fine wool sheep this surpasses all others. But wool can be brought from Minnesota, Texas, and South America, at about a cent a pound. The features of the new law of Massachusetts, passed in 1864, for the protection of sheep, ought to be satisfactory in the main to any grower of sheep. It requires the officers of towns, under a penalty of one hundred dollars for neglect, to enforce the law, and fine all male dogs two dollars, and all female dogs five dollars; to put the money into the county treasury for the payment of all losses of sheep by dogs within the county, the damage to be assessed by a jury taken from the neighborhood where the loss occurs. Constables are allowed one dollar each for every dog they kill or cause to be killed. This law, it will be perceived, offers a very complete protection to the sheep farmer, and it ought to be the means of multiplying the sheep upon our hills. ROADS. EVERYBODY is interested in having good public roads, and yet few can realize how miserably deficient we are in New England as compared with many other countries where the general traffic is no greater than it is on many of our highways, probably not so great. It has appeared to other countries to be the most direct mode of promoting the public interests to make good roads, and to keep them constantly in complete repair. "All the carriage roads of Switzerland are admirable," says the Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture. "After travelling very many miles over them in all parts of the country, by carriage, on horseback, and on foot, many of them in sections requiring the utmost scientific skill to overcome difficulties, I must say that nothing astonished me more than the splendid roads everywhere in that free country. I do not remember to have seen a road in Switzerland which would not put to shame the best among us. If any board of county commissioners or the surveyors of highways in our towns should attempt to build such roads, I am sorry to say they would be likely to lose their office at the next election. I might almost say that the best of our roads do not compare at all favorably with the poorest I saw in Switzerland." A few years ago a surveyor of roads, in a town near Boston, took special pains with two or three miles of road, draining and bridging it up, macadamizing it, carefully screening all the gravel used. All the town were in arms against him, and wanted to oust him from office before his term expired. That was the end of his service; but the road he built has been, on the whole, the cheapest the town ever made, as it has not required a cent's expenditure for repairs since. It is time to look into the best systems of constructing public highways. CRANBERRIES. THE first object of attention, after selecting a location for the cultivation of cranberries, is the means of drainage. The piece ought to be capable of being drained at least a foot and a half below the surface. It is not absolutely essential to be able to flow the plantation, yet to have water at command, so as to flash it over as occasion may require, is of great advantage. Sometimes the effects of a frost, when the plant is in blossom, may be guarded against in this way, and a thorough flooding will often destroy the insect. In fact, bogs that are kept flowed till the 20th or 25th of May are seldom molested by insects. But drainage is more essential than flowage, and, where this is imperfect, it is very difficult to keep out the wild grasses and water-rushes that choke up the vines and make them unproductive. I could name large pieces whose value has been destroyed by bad drainage. After fixing upon a location, the first step, of course, is to level it off. With a piece of plank a dozen feet long, a common carpenter's level, and a lot of stakes a foot long and cut square at the tops, you can begin by driving a stake leaving the top just even with the proposed surface of the piece, and then running several lines of stakes through and across the lot. The stakes show at a glance where thé surface is to be taken off and where it is to be filled in, so as to bring up the whole to a uniform level. A little calculation will enable you to level up from the spots where material is to be removed. The advantage of getting this perfect level is very great, because it requires much less water to flow a piece having a level surface than it does an uneven one; so that nothing is lost by spending some time in engineering. A certain amount of sand is best for surface filling, as it is generally free from weed seed, and gives a clean, nice surface; but if it is too thick, the vines will be slower in coming to bearing. If the peat or bog is only a foot or two deep, the sand need not be deeper than from three to five inches. A small admixture of vegetable matter with sand will make them more productive, but too much of it brings in wild grasses and weeds, and makes too much work. The spring is the best time for setting, but the vine is hard to kill, and will generally do well set at any season. Punch holes a foot and a half apart each way, and stick in two or three vines, and press the sand down hard about them. Some make a shallow furrow with a cultivator, and lay the vines in along the furrow, leaving out the ends, and so covering the roots. As to soil, avoid loam, clay, and gravel. The alluvial soil, as sand and fine pulverized quartz, like the deltas and intervals near the outlets of streams, the mud of narrow bogs and creeks, and the salt and fresh swales or meadows, formed of deposits of mud and by decayed vegetable matter, is of this description. All peat and mud soils, whether originally fresh or salt, are practically of the same character so far as regards the growth of the cranberry. Where beach or quartz sand lies under a foot or so of turfy peat, the best way is to subsoil, throwing up about three inches of the sand. If the peat is deep and covered with rushes and bushes, the cheapest way, in the end, would be to pave over the whole surface, down to the bottom of the roots, and top-dress with sand, when a thick coating will be required to prevent trouble from weeds. On rich interval lands, and on a deep, pure black peat, the vine will grow with great rapidity, and perhaps bear one or two years, but then the vines will become barren. They seem to incline to run too much to wood, and become too rank. The wood will be soft and flimsy, and not tough and hard as that on productive vines. There is a great and well-marked difference between these two kinds of vine. The miller, that produces the cranberry worm, so destructive to this fine fruit, appears about the time the berry sets, and punctures a hole in it, laying its eggs just under the skin. If small fires were set at night near the bog, at this season, it is probable that myriads would be destroyed and the fruit saved. As the period is only a week or ten days, the experiment need not be an expensive one to try. When picked, which should be carefully done by hand, cranberries should be spread out not over five inches deep on platforms, made by laths left open so that the air that can draw through. They may remain three weeks or more in a dry and airy place, and will ripen up fast. Then, before packing for sale, they should be winnowed and the unsound berries picked out. The barrels or boxes in which they are packed for market should be dry and clean. POETRY, ANECDOTES, ETC. THE FARMER'S CHOICE; A little house, well filled a little wife, well willed-a little land, well tilled. Give me a snug little farm, with sufficient learning; a cheerful wife, that can milk the cow and rock the cradle; that can sleep all night and work all day; that can discourse music on the spinning wheel, and that can eook, wash, and tend the poultry and the dairy, instead of dressing at the toilet, or playing on the piano. The present times are too annatural, fashionable, and luxurious. Our ancesters lived on bread and broth, And woo'd their healthy wives in homespun cloth; Our mothers, nurtured to the nodding reel, Gave all their daughters lessons on the wheel; Though spinning did not much reduce the waist, It made their food much sweeter to the taste! They plied, with honest zeal, the mop and broom, And drove the shuttle through the noisy loom. They never once complained, as we do now, "We have no girls to cook, or milk the cow." Each mother taught her red-cheeked son and daughter To bake and brew, and draw a pail of water; No dainsel shunned the wash-tub, broom, or pail, To keep unsoiled a long-grown finger-nail. They sought no gaudy dress, no wasp-like form, But ato to live, and worked to keep them warm; No idle youth, no tight-laced, mincing fair, MAXIMS FOR HUSBANDS. Resolve in the morning to be patient and cheerful during the day. Laugh heartily on finding all the buttons off your shirt-as usual. Say, merrily,," Boys will be boys," when you discover that the children have emptied the contents of the water jug into your boots. On gashing your chin with a razor, remember that beauty is but skin deep; and in order to divert your thoughts from the pain, recite a speech from Hamlet, or indulge in the harmonies of our native land. If breakfast is not ready for you, chuckle and grin at the menials, remembering that a merry heart is a continual feast, and depart to your daily business, imagining yourself a sufferer from indigestion. COMPENSATIONS. WHITTIER. A BIT OF ADVICE FOR BOYS. "You are made to be kind," says Horace lf Maun, generous and magnanimous. there is a boy in the school who has a club foot, don't let him know that you ever saw it. If there is a poor boy with ragged clothes, don't talk about rags when he is within hearing. If there is a lame boy, assign him some part of the game which gry one, give him part of your dinner. If does not require running. If there is a hunthere is a dull one, help him to get his lesson. If there is a bright one, be not envious of him; for if one boy is proud of his talents, and another boy is envious of them, there are two great wrongs, and no more talents than before. If a larger or stronger boy has injured you, and is sorry for it, forgive him, and request the teacher not to punish him. All the school will show by their countenance how much better it is than to have a great fist." Always have a good book handy, to take up and read at odd, unemployed minutes: if you have read all you own, borrow of some friend or of a library-but have a good book, and thus read it. It will save you from many a temptation, and you will be surprised to Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom see how much information you will acquire And light is mingled with the gloom, In sweet relief. by persisting in this plan. THE CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN. He is above a mean thing. He cannot stoop to a mean fraud. He iuvades no secrets in the keeping of another. He betrays no secrets confided to his own keeping. He takes selfish advantage of no man's mistakes. He uses no ignoble weapons in controversy. He never stabs in the dark. He is ashamed of innuendos. He is not one thing to a man's face and another at his back. If by accident he comes into possession of his neighbor's counsels, he passes upon them an instant oblivion. He buys no office, he sells none, he intrigues for none. Ho would rather fail of his rights than win them through dishonor. He will eat honest bread. He tramples on no sensitive feeling. He insults no man. THE PREACHER OF THE DEED. LONGFELLOW'S WAYSIDE INN. A Theologian from the school Of Cambridge, on the Charles, was there; COURAGE AND COWARDICE. No one can tell who the heroes are and who the cowards, until some crisis comes to put us to the test. And no crisis puts us to the test, that does not bring us up alone and single-handed to face danger. It is nothing to make a rush, with the multitude, even into the jaws of destruction. Sheep will do that. Armies might be picked from the gutter, and marched up to make food for powder. But when some crisis singles one out from the multitude, pointing at him the particular finger of Fate, and telling him "stand er run," and he faces about with steady nerve, with nobody else to get behind, we may be sure the hero stuff is in him. When such a crisis comes, the true courage is just as likely to be found in people of shrinking nerves, or in weak and timid women, as in great, burly people. It is a moral, not a physical trait. Its seat is not in the temperament, but the will. ANECDOTES. A gentleman, dining at a hotel, asked one of the waiters, an Irish girl just from the Emerald Isle, and as green as grass, for a napkin. She not knowing what he meant, replied, "Not one left-all gone The redheaded man ate the last." "The deuce he did," said the other; "then ask him if he won't have a fried towel in addition." A clergyman was once asked whether the members of his church were united. He replied that they were perfectly united-frozen together. "Going, going, just going!" cried out an auctioneer. "Where are you going?" asked a passer-by. "Well," replied the knight of the hammer, "I am going up to the Zoological Gardens to tell the managers that one of A YANKEE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Sir, I was born and raised in Connecticut, Bolted to sea, and was wrecked in Japan; Quite a respectable figure, I 'spect, I cut, When, coming back, to keep school I be gan. Guess at the saw-mill I proved a top sawyer, When I commanded the Bragg Volunteers. Just for a change, then a paper I edited, Scorched politicians, and pitched into books; That was before I was envoy accredited - ALMANAC PREDICTIONS. Several mornings this year the sun will rise before certain people are aware of it. and set before they have done their day's work. In the course of next spring and summer, many alterations will be made in the form and trimmings of the ladies headdresses, but I think their appearance will not be much improved by the alteration. The public debt will not be paid this year. The same will happen with the private debts. Many people will drink more strong liquor than would be sufficient to keep them sober, and take more physic than would be sufficient to keep them in health. Many young ladies will be married, who are not yet courted; and many who are courted, will have to wait another year. LAMENTATIONS. A poetical feminine, who found the cords of Hymen not so silky as she expected, gave vent to her feelings in the following regretful stanzas. The penultimate line is peculiarly comprehensive and expansive: When I was young I used to earn I never dreamed of such a fate When I, a-lass, was courtedWife, mother, nurse, seamstress, cook. housekeeper, chambermaid, laundress, dairyworean, and scrub generally, doing the work of six, For the sake of being supported. TRUE VALOR. BEN JONSON. Fear to do base, unworthy things, is valor; OCCASION. SHAKSPEARE. We must take the current when it serves, ANECDOTES. A Dutchman was relating his marvellous escape from drowning when thirteen of his companions were lost by the upsetting of a boat, and he alone was saved. "And how did you escape their fate?" asked one of his hearers. "I tid not co in te pote," was the Dutchman's placid reply. A lady was once declaring that she could not understand how gentlemen could smoke. It certainly shortens their lives," said she. "I don't know that," exclaimed a gentleman; "there's my father smokes every day, and he is now seventy years old." "Well," was the reply, "if he had never smoked he might have been eighty by this time." PROBLEM X. A ruralist bought a flock of geese and also a flock of ducks (containing, in all, 128), for which he paid $45.60. He paid one half of his money for geese and the remaining half for ducks, and by so doing his geese cost him 19 cents apiece more than his ducks. Now, he requests some of his brother ruralists to inform him for how much he must sell his geese and ducks apiece to gain $4.80 on each flock. PROBLEM Y. What must be the length of a rope tied to a horse's neck, that he may feed upon 7,854 square feet of new feed every day, for four days; one end of the rope being each day fastened to the same stake? PROBLEM Z. Not long since, an elderly woman entered a railroad car at one of the Ohio stations, and disturbed the passengers a good deal with It is required to find two numbers whose complaints about a "most dreadful rheuma- less increased by the square of the greater tiz" that she was troubled with. A gentleman is equal to 14, minus the greater; and also present, who had himself been a severe suf- the product of their second powers increased ferer with the same complaint, said to her, by the product of the less by the square of "Did you ever try electricity, madam? I the greater, plus the product of the two tried it, and in the course of a short time it numbers, is equal to 600 diminished by the completely cured me." "Electricity!" ex-product of the greater plus 2 multiplied by claimed the old lady-"y-e-s, I've tried it to the square of the less into the cube of the my satisfaction. I was struck by lightning greater. about a year ago, but it didn't do me a morsel of good!" POETICAL ENIGMA. For your dear sakes, ye lovely fair, I'm made, Through you my brightest virtues are displayed; Soon as you deign my presence to command, In grateful sense of this high honor, bend; CHARADE. My first's the last destructive foe THE FIGURE 9. Any number multiplied by 9 produces a sum of figures which, added together, continually makes nine. For example: All the first multiples of 9, as 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, sum up 9 each. Each of them multiplied by any number whatever, produces a similar result; as 8 times 81 are 648, these added together make 18,1 and 8 are 9. Multiply 648 by itself, the product is 419,904 --the sum of these digits is 27, 2 and 7 are 9. The rule is invariable. Take any number whatever, and multiply it by 9, or any multiple of 9, and the sum will consist of figures which, added together, continually number 9. As 17 multiplied by 18 equals 306, 3 and 6 are 9; 117 multiplied by 27 equals 3,159, the figures sum up 18, 8 and 1; are 9; 4,591 multiplied by 27 equals 330,552. the figures sum up 18, 8 and 1 are 9. Again, 87,363 multiplied by 54 equals 4,717,422 added together, the product is 27, or 2 and 7 are 9, and so always. |