The Southern field and fireside. (Augusta, Ga.) 1859-1864, December 10, 1859, Page 231, Image 7

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leaf pine on the poor sandy lands of Georgia. By the time its first two leaves have attained a length of 3 inches, its tap-root has descended 6 into the ground, and continues to penetrate into the earth, when unobstructed, any distance from 3 to 9 feet, and how much further we know not. Pines are endowed with a large quantity of foliage, and their leaves annually fall, to decay and form new mould. In 1,000 parts of these leaves when thoroughly dried, we found 40 of incombustible earthy matter; while the same amount of pine wood gave only parts of ash. If the trunks of pine trees consumed as much of earthy minerals as their leaves do, these trees would be very small, and could grow only on land rich in potash, and the other elements found in wood ashes. But while the exceedingly deep roots of this tree find the mineral constituents of vegetation far below the pasture of common plants, and the reach of the farmer’s sub-soil plough, these minerals, instead of being deposi ted in the substance of lengthened roots, in the trunk and branches of the tree, are nearly all contained in its innumerable and peculiarly long leaves, and with them, in the economy of Infi nite Wisdom, go to enrich the surface soil, that it may again become fruitful in bread-bearing plants. No soil naturally poor in potash can grow a dense forest of oak, hickory, walnut, ma ple, beech and elm trees; for all these store up potash in their trunks, limbs and roots, to a large degree. But 100 parts of their leaves, which annually fall to the earth, contain from 7 to 15 times more of incombustible matter than a like weight of their wood. The bark of these forest trees, and of all others so far as known, yields much more ashes than wood. In the tree called hemlock this fact is strikingly illustrated; for while its wood yields very little ash, its bark abounds in incombustible matter. This bark, like that on one variety of hickory, is cast off, and falls to the earth to rot and feed vegetation. Professor Emmons has investigated this subject of the distribution of the minerals in forest trees, in their heart and sap wood, bark, Ac., in a very satisfactory manner, and published the results in his “ Agriculture of New York.” Forest cul ture can be made more profitable in the Uuited States than is generally supposed. There is very little land that will not grow the equiva lent of a cord of good pine wood a year, and much that will produce a cord and a half in twelve months. In connexion with the improve ment of soils, the cultivation of good timber can be prosecuted at a round profit. Wo are col lecting facts on this too much neglected branch of rural economy, and hope to bo able to furnish some useful information on the subject in our next report. A forest cannot be grown in a day, and before seeds planted in 1850 can yield much valuable timber, the United States will contain fifty millions of inhabitants. The overflow of rivers and smaller streams, and artificial irrigation, should not be entirely un noticed in this review of the principal means em ployed by nature and man to impart fertility to cultivated soils. River bottoms like those of the Nile, Euphrates and Ganges, which are annual ly inundated, were doubtless first cultivated in wheat, rice, and other cereals. Under the most favorable conditions, such bottoms or flats re quired neither tillage nor manure of any kind to yield an annual crop of grain. Pliny remarks: “How easy is the husbandry of Egypt; for there the Nile, serving the turn of a good hus bandman, begins to swell and overflow at the first now moon after the summer solstice. He begins fair and gently, and so increases gradual ly, as long as the sun is in the sign of Leo, and rises to his full height. On entering into the sign of Virgo his fury slackons, and then slowly decreases until he regains his wonted channel. “It is always observed that if he rises not above twelve cubits high, the people are sure to have that year a scarcity; and they make their account for the same if he exceed sixteen cubits, for the higher he rises the longer he is before he is fallen to bis level; by which the seed time is past, and men cannot sow the ground in due seasou. It is generally understood that upon the subsidence of the deluge they cast seed up on the flooded land, and turn in their swine to trample it into the soil when moist." Cereals are grown by the above operation without the aid of plough, hoe, or harrow. Tho water stood long enough over the bottoms to kill all ordinary weeds and grass; and the seed wheat trampied in by droves of hogs, had the advantage of all other plants. It is difficult to imagine a more primitive system of grain cul ture. But droves of swine could not always be at hand to tread in seed at the time when their services were indispensable. Some land would become too dry before the grain was covered, and the feet of hogs or cattle would fail to bury it in the earth. In this dilemma, the ancient Egyptian “ sarcle ,” as tho Romans called it, was invented for digging up tho ground. This im plement, from drawings and inscriptions, appears to have been something between a modern hoe and a pick-axe. A slight change in its structure converted it into a rude plough, which was first drawn by men and women. The subduing of cattle to field labor, hauling the plough by their horns or by their tails, was altogether an after thought. Pliny remarks; “In Lower Egypt the straw is never a cubit long ; the reason be ing that the seed lies very dry, having no other nourishment than the mud of the river; and about Thebes, they are far better farmers, and have better harvests; that part being, as indeed most of Egypt is, low and flat." He goes on to say: “The samo husbandry is practiced in Bab ylonia and Seleucia, where the Euphrates and Tigris overflow their banks in like manner, but to better effect and greater profit, owing to their more general use of sluices and floodgates. In Syria, they have small, light ploughs on purposo for making these shallow furrows and stitches; whereas with us in Italy, in most places, eight oxen at least are required for one plow; and, in deed, to make speed with it, they must work till they blow and pant again." The breaking of American prairie at the west with eight oxen, panting and blowing, would even now look quite familiar to an old Roman, could he witness the operation. The early his tory of agriculture, and the kind of tillage that prevailed in Egypt when its husbandmen fed abundantly,through successive years of famine in surrounding nations, the population of such im mense cities as Thebes, claimed a passing no tice. It is a curious fact, that the comparatively independent wheat-growers of the iuundated bottoms of tho Nile, Euphrates and Tigris cher ished a sovereign contempt for the people who depended mostly on their herds and flocks for the means of subsistence. Joseph warned his brothers, that when they came before Pharoah they should say: “Thy servants’ trade hath been in cattle, both we and also our fathers, that you may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyp tians." The rearing of “ cattle ’’ was more rep utable than sheep husbandry; but corn cul ture was the glory of kings before the time of Abraham. The science of agriculture and the true princi ples of tillage are no better understood now by tho mass of mankind than they were five thou XECX SeWWKSEIf SXKX.It SX&KBIBK. sand years ago. Thirty years of unremitting j labor to establish agricultural schools in the great State of New York have signally failed, from the lack of popular sympathy and counte- : nance. Without the aid of chemical research, Jethro Tull, a century and a half ago, came as near to a correct knowledge of the use and value of mellowing frequently, and deeply stirring the soil, as one can. With all his genius, talents, and large experience, he fell inevitably into a false theory about “ the pasture of plants,” and j being a perfect substitute for manure.” No man in modern times has had a clearer or juster conception than Tull of the mechanical results which follow the deep and thorough “ pulveration of the soil.” Os the chemical ef fects of tillage, he knew next to nothing; and it i was his lack ofknowledge, as revealed by mod ern science, that led him into error. “By tillage,” says this distinguished writer, “we can enlarge our field of subterranean pas ture without limitation, though the external sur face of it be confined within narrow bounds. Tillage may extend the earth’s internal superfi cies in proportion to the division of its parts; and as division is infinite, so may the superficies be. Every time the earth is broken by any sort of tillage or division, there must arise some new superficies of broken parts which were never open before; for when the parts of earth are united and incorporated together, it is morally impossible that they or any of them should be broken again only in the same places." The above reasoning on mere mechanical prin ciples is unquestionably sound; but when an indispensable ingredient for making a plant is absent from the soil, and not supplied by art nor by the atmosphere, how can any degree of stir ring or pulverizing the earth, create the lacking element ? Can any human art or use of im plements form a new atom by tillage ? When all the available potash within reach of the plough is consumed, what then ? While it is apparent that something more than tillage may be necessary, the father of drill husbandry to tho contrary notwithstanding, it is proper to re mark that but few farmers have brought their practice up to the full appreciation of the bene fits of frequently stirring the earth, and mellow ing it, to tho depth of ten, fifteen or twenty inch es. The object of the agriculturist is to make tho most of all the elements of crops which his soil contains. The raw materials of bread and meat at and near the earth’s surface are the gift of Providence; and it is not less the duty than the interest of the husbandman to husband them with great care and wisdom. To break the undercrust, or subsoil, so that water, air, and warmth may freely descend and ascend about the roots of plants, and thus supply them at all times with their appropriate aliment, and enable them to grow in all directions, is the crowning glory of modern agriculture. In many places underdraining is also necessary. This is particularly the case where a field lies in a bas in, having higher land near it, whose water shed carries a part of that which falls in rains into the ground below and at a distance. In most of the States, if not in all, where a soil contains no more water than what falls upon it, underdrain ing is rarely necessary. But the unevenness of the surface, and the variable direction of many geological strata, operate to convey the water which falls on one acre or field into the earth of another acre or field. This of course gives an excess in certain localities, to be disposed of on ly by drains or open ditches. The growth of grasses and rushes peculiar to wet places will iqdicute where draining is required to sweeten tho soil. Viewed as a mere mechanical opera tion, the farmer must see to it that his tilled ground is neither too open nor too compact; that its depth and friability are maintained by the due admixture of sand, clay and vegetable mould, aided by draining where necessary. Sandy, porous soils are improved by the use of a heavy roller and the treading ofsheep, hogs, and young cattle, which should be fed on fields of this kind. There are usually more fine particles of earthy matter from eight to twelve inches below the surface than at it, which, being brought up by the plough, mingled with the surface sand, and rolled after seeding, will much improve the tex ture of tho soil. Old fields are more apt to be come compact, heavy and lifeless, than too open and pervious to air and water. How to reno vate and rejuvenate an exhausted clay soil will be be better understood after we have studied the next chapter. (to be continued.) i»> Musquit Grass Seed. —A friend not a great distance from Marietta in this State, if we re member rightly, sent us some months since a bag of Musquit grass seed, whose letter got mislaid and name forgotten, and we now desire him that he may write us again, that he may be paid for the seed in money or other seeds, as he ought to be. 'We can do neither until we can learn his name and residence. Shoal Ford, Ala., Dec. 2, 1859. Mu. Editor: —l see in your paper mention made of various sorts of grass, among which was a sort called Lucerne, which I have been trying to get the seed of and cannot find it here nor in Nashville. If you know any thing of that sort of grass, and w here I can get the seed please inform me, and oblige yours truly, Ac. H. B. Cartwright, P. M. Mr. N. LaTaste, of this city, keeps Lucerne seed, and nearly all others required or desired, for sale. < •» “W— --w Push forward your hogs as fast as pos sible. If they had a good clover range in the summer, they will bo ready to start off vigor ously from the moment you begin to put them upon corn. See that good walks are made in every direction from the house, and be sure to have walks through barn-yards raised so- high as never to be muddy. Your cattle-yards should slope toward tho centre in such away that horses and cattle need not wade knee-deep in going in and out. Fruit and Fruit Trees. —Two of the best farmers North communicate the manner in which they secure good fruit. It is thus : They dig at some distance from the body of some favorite tree until they find a root, which they cut off The part disjointed from the tree is then turned up so as to appear above the ground. It sends forth shoots the first season, and bears, in a few years, fruit precisely like that upon the parent tree. Jtot those whose trees are decaying, or who wish to increase good varieties, try this ex periment. It is but an hour’s work. ■ hi ■ Corn Cake. —Take cern meal and wet up with boiling water and butter milk, equal parts; make it thick as batter, and bako it in a hot oven for the breakfast. To be eaten hot. 111 A Remedy for Ants. —Dip a sponge in water, squeeze it dry, lay it on the shelf, sprinkle sugar on it, and when the ants collect, throw the sponge into hot water. ~— TORKEYS AND CHRISTMAS. The turkeys represented in the above engraving weighed, together, fifty-two pounds; and they will form the basis of a good Christmas dinner. Much might be said in behalf of the improvement of these birds; but the pith of the story would amount only to this: To have large, fat turkeys, one must feed them well with nutritious food. Rice planters are said to raise very superior turkeys, both in regard to the flavor and color of the flesh. HOW TO FATTEN CHICKENS. It is hopeless to attempt to fatten them while they are at liberty. They must be put in a prop er coop; and this, like most other poultry appur tenances, need not be expensive. To fatten twelve fowls, a coop may be 8 feet long, 18 inch es high, and 18 inches deep, made entirely of bars. No part es it solid—neither top, sides nor bottom. Discretion must be used according to the size of the chickens put up. They do not want room; indeed the closer they are the bet ter —proeided they all stand up at the same time. Care must be taken to put up such as have been accustomed to be together, or they will fight. If one is quarrelsome, it is better to remove it at once ; as, like other bad examples, it soon finds imitators. A diseased chicken should not be put up. The food should be ground, oats; and may either be put in a trough, or on a flat board run ning along the front of the coop. It may be mixed water or milk; the latter is better. It should be well slaked forming a pulp as loose as can be, provided it does not run off the board. They must be well fed three er four times per day—the first as soon after daylight as may be possible or convenient, and then at intervals of four hours. Each meal should bo as much, and no more, than they can eat up clean. When they have done feeding the board should be wiped and some gravel may be spread. It caus es them to feed and thrive. After a fortnight of this treatment you will have good fat fowls. If, however, there are but four to six to be fatted, they must not have as much room as though they were twelve. Noth ing is easier than to allot them the proper space; as it is only necessary to have two or three pieces of wood to pass between the bars and form a partition. This may also serve when fowls aro put up in different degrees of fatness. This requires attention, or fowls will not keep fat and healthy. As soon as the fowl is suffi ciently fatted it must be killed; otherwise it will still get fat, but it will lose flesh.' If fowls are intended for the market, of course they are, or may be, all fatted at once; but if for homo con sumption, it is better to put them up at such in tervals as will suit the time when they will be required for table. When the time arrives for killing, whether they are meant for market or otherwise, they should be fasted, without food or water, for twelve or fifteen hours. This en ables them to be kept for some time after being killed even in hot weather. — [London Gardener. A HOLE IN THE POCKET. A great many men have a hole in the pocket, and so lose all the little change they put in it* And the worst of it is they do not know it—if they did they could mend up the hole, and so put an end to the loss. Every day they are mi nus a few dimes, and they wonder how they come so short. When bills aro to be paid, they cannot imagine how they come to bo so short of change. At the end of the year they are sur prised to find so poor a footing up. They work hard, rack their brains on plans, and still they do not get ahead much. Bills accumulate, in come diminishes, and still they do not discover the hole in the pocket. One man has had fences, gates and bars. The cattle break through every now and then and destroy crops, and occupying time in driving them out. The pigs creep through the holes. The horses get away. The boys and men and servants and dogs are kept on the run after ro guish cows and jumping horses and climbing hogs. The stock becomes uneasy and does not thrive. The crops are injured. The fences are broken down. Time is consumed. The trouble is, that man has a hole in tho pocket. One man has no sheds, nor bams, nor granaries, nor tool houses. His grain is much injured and wasted. The rats eat his corn; and the damp weather moulds it. His potatoes rot. His pumpkins are destroyed, nis apples do him but little good. His tools are rotted and rusted in the open weather. His stock is chilled and stunted for want of shelter. His trouble is, a hole in his pocket, out of which slip all his profits, with much of the fruits of his hard labor. One man has poor plows, of the senile stamp of his ancestors. He only skims the land with it. He can’t afford a modern plow. He don’t believe in subsoiling. Draining is the nonsense of scientific fools. Drills are a humbug. Deep plowing would spoil the land. So he plows and sows as his grandfather did, on the worn-out soil of his venerable ancestors. He has a hole in his pocket, and will have it till he wakes np to the importance of good tools and good culture of himself and soil. Ono man don’t take a paper; can’t afford it; has no time to read; don't believe in book-farm iag; likes the old ways best; denies all the sto ries he has heard from rumor, about large cattle : and crops and profits; doesn’t believe in now j notions. For forty years he has planted his j corn on the same ground; sown wheat in the j same field; pastured the same land. He has heard of rotation of crops, but doesn’t know what it means, nor cares to know. A bad hole has this man in his pocket. And who hasn’t got a hole in the pocket. Read er, havn’t you ? Look and see. Is there not some way in which you let slip the dimes you might better save; some way in which you waste time and strength and mind ? If so, then you have a hole in your pocket Indeed, many a man’s pocket is like a sieve. Whose pocket is a treasury, safo and sure ?—[ Valley Farmer. A Great Wheat Crop.—ln 1858, the wheat crop of Ohio, grown on 1.998,412 acres, was 17,655,483 bushels. CULTIVATION OF THE IRISH POTATO. Dr. Lee : The successful cultivation of the Irish Potato is on important feature in our agri culture, especially on small lots and farm 3 near the city. I will give you my plan for their planting j and cultivation, and*believe it to be the best of any yet adopted ; at least it has so proved in my experience after trying well nigh every plan that has been suggested. Break up the ground deep, subsoil if possible, run off the furrows about two and a half feet distant, with a large turn plow; run back in the same furrow, thereby throwing tho dirt out of the furrow or trench both sides. Cut the Pota toes, and drop tho pieces about ton inches apart in the trench, eyes up; fill tho trench with fresh or as is sometimes called green stable manure; if mixed with saw-duSt, as used sometimes for horses to bed on the better ; throw a little dirt on the manure to protect from the sun and wind. When tho plant gets about a foot high, run very near it with a bull tongue plow; then thin the dirt to them, making a large ridge with a turn plow. That generally, will be sufficient, unless there should be heavy beating rains, and subsequently venr dry; then a second working will be better. Leaves and straw should never be used in plowing the ground, until all possi bility of frost has past, as they accumulate fast and cause the vine to be killed. A coat of leaves and straw may, however, be put over the ground late in the Spring to assist in retaining the moisture. The best time for planting is du ring the month of February, and should be va ried according to the season. I have succeeded better with the yellow pink eye than any others, and have gotten them for the last two years from J. Sibley A Sons, on Warren block. The red rough skins are very prrolific, but are not so delicious for table use. L. December 2d, 1859. , ————— HEAD WORK IN FARMING. It is surprising how much muscular labor is wasted every year, which might be saved, or better directed. This is true in all kinds of bus iness, and not the least in farming. For instance; how many farmers toil on, year after year, with scanty or imperfect implements of husban dry! The modern improvements, which save much labor, and do the work cheaper and better, they will have nothing to do with. Improved varieties of seed, they hold to be almost without exception, humbugs. Draining and subsoil plow ing are ranked in the same catalogue— they are labor lost; but manuring cold, wet lands, and plowing late in summer a few inches deep, gath ering scanty crops— this is not labor lost I Ro tation of crops, and manuring lands with refer ence to the grain or roots to be grown on them, they consider something like book-farming—a very dangerous thing. We never could see why fanners should not think for themselves, and be able to give a sat isfactory reason for every process they under take. We never could see why they should not endeavor to improve in all farming operations— to learn the very best way of doing everything, and then to do it so. It is told of a certain back woods farmer, who had not yet found time to clear the stumps from his fields, that his boys oomplained bitterly of their troubles in plowing and harrowing; the old fashioned ‘drag’ espe cially troubled them by its frequent overtumings while plunging among the stumps, and needing to be set right side up at every few rods. ‘Boys 1’ said the enraged farmer one day, ‘take that har row over to the blacksmith, and tell him to make all the teeth twice their present length, and sharp at both ends, and we’ll see what that’ll do!’ The thing was done, the teeth now pointed both ways, like those of a revolving rake. “Gee up, Bill, now go along,’ ‘ But, father, it has up set again, as bad as before.’ ‘ Nevermind, boy: go right ahead, it will work well either side up. See, now, what comes from a little thinking.’ And sure enough it did work, and the field was harrowed in spite of the stumps. We might have selected a more dignified example ot the use of head-work, but this homely story will an swer our purpose. In the matter of rotation of crops, there is need of forethought and management. Some farmers neglect to manure largely, because of its expen siveness; they would like to underdrain more extensively, and to subsoil plow their lands, if these things did not cost more time, labor and money than they think they can spare. But it costs no more to follow a good system of rota tion of crops than it does to carry on a farm without any such plan. Yet such a system may bring the farmer three-fold greater and better crops. Nor in devising such a plan, has he got to depend entirely on his own experience or sa gacity. Books and agricultural journals are at , hand, containing the result of other men’s expe { rience, and all he has to do is to adapt such in formation to the wants of his own case. A very little head-work of this sort would pay well. —^ Recipes for Lemon Pies. —One large, fresh lemon, grated fine—the pulp rinced in half a tumbler of water—yelks of 4 eggs, beaten thor oughly— 6 tablespoonfuls of sugar—l table spoonful of flour, stirred with the eggs—2 table spoonfuls melted butter, all well beaten togeth er—one crust. Bake until done. Then take the whites of 4 eggs, with 3 tablespoonfuls of sugar, well beaten —spread smoothly on pie— return to tho over until slightly browned, Or, one lemon, one teacup of sugar, one teacup of sweet cream well stirred. Bake with two crusts. Please try them.— [Country Gentleman. HORTICULTURAL. WM, If . WHITE, Editor. SATURDAY, DEC. 10, 1859. PLUMS SCHENECTADY CATHERINE and MeI.AUOHI.IN We give this week figures of two plums of rather recent origin. We do not know that they have been tested in our region (unless by the curculio). We are indebted for the descrip tions to Downing’s Fruits and Thomas' Fruit Culturist. (1). Schenectady Catherine This fruit origi nated in Schenectady, N. Y. The tree is vigo rous and profusely productive, with smooth grey ish branches. Fruit small or nearly medium, roundish-oval, narrowing to the eye, suture shal low, on one side, skin reddish purple, slightly netted on the sunny side, stalk three-fourths of an inch long, slender; cavity deep, narrow flesh greenish yellow, very juicy, sweet, rich, ex cellent, next to the Green Gage in quality, and ripening at the same time; the flesh seperates freely from the stone. It often comes true from seed. Valuable from its hardiness, productive ness and excellent quality. (2.) McLaughlin. Raised by James McLaugh lin, Bangor, Maine. It is one of the finest of all the new plums, the tree being very vigorous, and the fruit of the most delicious quality, scarcely inferior to that most excellent of all plums, the Green Gage. Branches smooth, Fruit large, nearly round, oblate, flattened atbothends ; suture slight; stalk three-fourths of an inch long inserted in a small cavity by a ring; skin thin and tender, russety yellow, marbled with red on the sunny side, and covered with a thin bloom. Flesh dull yellow, firm, sweet and lus cious ; it dings to the stone. There are probably no plums better worthy of trial than the above, in districts, if there are such, where the curculio has not yet made its appear ance. WOMAN ANITFLOWERS. Let woman summon around her home all the beauty with which the Creator has endowed this earth. Let her surround herself with a wilderness of sweets, and there amid fragrance and beauty she will find that the virtues which are germain to the unpolluted heart w<il also spring up. Her children will have more tender ness and beauty of character, and will be far less apt to go astray among the briars and bram bles of vice and error. The effect of cultivating beauty around her home will be to cause every sentiment that sweetens her own existence to spring up into newness of life, to bud and to blossom in all its loveliness. She too will come to prefer a display of rich colors in her garden walks to such a display on her own person, and learn to appreciate that habit which covers the form in a profusion of huge and brilliant printed flowers on muslin, and which seems to indicate an absence of the flowers of sentiment, and an absolute want of that taste which shows itself in the cultivation of the garden. We would have every woman both a lover and a sedulous cultivator of flowers. We are confident that many of those women who grow and expand like weeds in the heated apart ments of gaiety and fashion, and become dried in heart and stale in sentiment, might be rescued by a timely attention to flowers. They would regain their lost freshness, the bloom would re visit their wan and wasted checks, and fresh life would circulate its healthful currents through their chilled veins. The effect would be to re clothe the saddened and attenuated victim of fashion with beauty, and to cause flowers of sentiment again to spring up in hearts which had been overrun with weeds. Take a thin and sallow and diseased person from the room in which he has respired the unwholesome and close atmosphere that there prevails, and place him on the mountain side, and how long will it be before the blood in his system, that has half the time been congealed, and only flowed fast under the impulse of fever, will go merrily on its “ winding way” through arteries and veins, and he will again become strong and vigorous? So also one who has wasted her beauty and her freshness, the tone of her heart and the refine ments of her sentiments in those saloons in which the atmosphere is full of moral disease, and where fashion and folly dance hand in band in positive mockery of all those qualities of which men and women have a right to boast, and which ally them to the angelic existences, will, when transplanted like a blighted flower to a garden, and there learns how to worship nature instead of the painted idols she has been accustomed to, soon begin to regain a portion of the original loveliness of her nature, and may by and by become entirely redeemed from the taint that has stolen “fire from her eye and vigor from her limbs.”— [Louisville Journal. - • -»»♦• Building Sites. —We may safely put on re cord the following rules as worthy of being ob served by that large class of persons who desire to build, and who are not compelled to restrict their selection of an appropriate site within cer tain limits winch they cannot ever pass. For such, the primary conditions of a desirable homestead, are: 1. An undoubtedly healthy situation, and one that is easy of access from the public road. 2. A Southern exposure, backed by a good growth of forest trees to break off the force of the winter winds. 3. A cheerful landscape view, especially to the South and West. 4. Perfect drainage on all sides. 5. A dry subsoil, and one that is readily and cheaply excavated. 231