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prove of immediate use to the crops. But, on the other hand, fermented manure, from its ready pulverization, admits of an easy admixture. Let fresh manure be thoroughly ground down, and worked into the soil by repeated harrowings, and two or three ploughings, and its influence will be like magic.

Swamp muck has often been spoken of as manure; but those who expect great and striking results from its application will be disappointed, as the writer has been. Even with ashes, it is much less powerful than stable manure, not only because it possesses less inherent richness, but because it has less soluble parts, and, consequently, imparts its strength more slowly to growing plants. But this quality only makes it the more enduring. By decoction in water, vegetable mould loses a small portion of its weight by solution; but, if the remaining insoluble part is exposed to the air and moisture a few months, another part may be again dissolved. Thus, peat, muck, and all decayed vegetable fibre, become a slow but lasting source of nourishment to plants.

But it is when shovelled out and dried, to be mixed with farmyard manure, as a recipient for its evanescent parts, that peat or muck becomes pre-eminently valuable. Some parts of the State abound with inexhaustible supplies in almost every neighborhood; many land-owners have from twenty to a hundred thousand cubic yards on their farms, lying untouched, while half-starved crops are growing in the adjacent fields. There are whole counties so well supplied with it that, if judiciously applied, it would, doubtless, double their aggregate products.

All neat farming, all profitable farming, and all satisfactory farming must be attended with a careful saving of manures. The people of Flanders have long been distinguished for the neatness and excellence of their farms, which they have studied to make like gardens. The care with which they collect all refuse materials which may be converted into manures, and increase their composts, is one of the chief reasons of the cleanliness of their towns and residences; and were this subject fully appreciated, and attended with a corresponding practice generally, it would, doubtless, soon increase, by millions, the agricultural products of the State.

But there is another subject of scarcely less magnitude. This is a systematic

ROTATION OF CROPS.-If manuring is the steam engine which propels the vessel, rotation is the rudder which guides it in its progress. Unlike manuring, rotation does not increase the labor of culture; it only directs the labor in the most effective manner, by the exercise of judgment and thought.

The limits of this paper do not admit of many remarks on the principles of rotation. The following courses, however, have been found among some of the best adapted to our State :

I. 1st year-Corn and roots, well manured;

2d year-Wheat, sown with clover-seed; 15 lbs. an acre;
3d year-Clover, one or more years, according to fertility
and amount of manure at hand.

II. 1st year-Corn and roots, with all the manure;

2d year-Barley and peas;

3d year-Wheat, sown with clover;

4th year-Clover, one or more years.

III. 1st year-Corn and roots, with all the manure;

2d year-Barley;

3d year-Wheat, sown with clover;

4th year-Pasture;

5th year Meadow;

6th year-Fallow;

7th year-Wheat;

8th year Oats, sown with clover;

9th year-Pasture or meadow.

The number of the fields must correspond with the number of the changes in each course; the first needing three fields to carry it out, the second four, the third nine. As each field contains a crop each, in the several successive stages of the course, the whole number of fields collectively comprise the entire series of crops every year. Thus, in the list above given, there are two fields of wheat growing at once, three of meadow and pasture, one of corn and roots, one of barley, one of oats, and one in summer fallow

OPERATIONS IN THE ORDER OF TIME.-The vital consequence of doing every thing in the right season is known to every good farmer.

To prevent confusion and embarrassment, and keep all things clearly and plainly before the farmer at the right time, he should have a small book to carry in his pocket, having every item of work for each week or each half month laid down before his eyes. This can be done to the best advantage, to suit every particular locality and difference of climate, by marking every successive week in the season at the top of its respective page. Then as each operation severally occurs, let him place it under its proper heading; or, if out of season, let him place it back at the right time. Any proposed improvements can be noted down on the right page. Interesting experiments are often suggested in the course of reading or observation, but forgotten when the time comes to try them. By recording them in such a book, under the right week, they are brought at once before the mind. Such an arrangement as this will prevent a great deal of the confusion and vexation too often attendant on multifarious cares, and assist very essentially in conducting all the farm work with clock-work regularity and satisfaction.

In reviewing the various items which are most immediately essential to good farm management, some of the most obvious will be -capital enough to buy the farm and to stock it well; to select a size compatible with these requisites; to lay it out in the best manner; to provide it well with fences, gates, and buildings; to select the best animals, and the best implements to be had reasonably; to bring the soil into good condition, by draining, manuring, and good culture; to have every part under a good rotation of crops; and every operation arranged so as all to be conducted systematically, without clashing or confusion. An attention to all these points would place agriculture on a very different footing from its present condition in many places, and with most farmers. The business, then, instead of being repulsive, as it so frequently is, to our young men, would be attended with real enjoyment and pleasure. But in all improvements, in all enterprises, the great truth must not be forgotten, that success is not to be expected without dili

gence and industry. We must sow in spring, and cultivate well in summer, if we would reap an abundant harvest in autumn.When we see young farmers commence in life without a strict attention to business, which they neglect for mere pleasure, well may we in imagination see future crops lost by careless tillagebroken fences, unhinged gates, and fields filled with weeds-tools destroyed by heedlessness, property wasted by recklessness; and disorder and confusion triumphant; and unpaid debts, duns, and executions, already hanging over the premises. But, on the other hand, to see cheerful-faced, ready-handed industry, directed by reason and intelligence, and order, energy, and economy guiding the operations of the farm-with smooth, clean fields, and neat, trim fences-rich, verdant pastures, and fine cattle enjoying them; and broad, waving meadows and golden harvests, and waste and extravagance driven into exile, we need not fear the success of such a farmer; debts cannot stare him in the face, nor duns enter his threshold.

It is such enterprise as this that must place our country on a substantial basis. Agriculture, in a highly improved state, must be the means which, next to the righteousness which truly exalts a nation, will contribute to its enduring prosperity. All trades and commerce depend on this great art as their foundation. The cultivation of the soil and of plants was the earliest occupation of man. It has, in all ages, been his chief means of subsistence; it still continues to furnish employment to the great majority of the human race. It is truly the great art of peace, as during wars and commotions it has languished and declined, but risen again, in strength and vigor, when men have lived at peace with each other; it has then flourished and spread, converted the wilderness into life and beauty, and refreshed and adorned nature with embellished culture. For its calm and tranquil pleasures-for its peaceful and healthful labors-away from the fretful and feverish life of crowded cities, "in the free air and beneath the bright sun of heaven"—many, who have spent the morning and noon of their lives in the anxious cares of commercial life, have long sighed for a scene of peace and of quietude for the evening of their days

CHAPTER VI.

GETTING MONEY BY MERCHANDISING.

I WILL use the term Merchants in the subsequent pages in the Parkerian sense, meaning men who buy and sell; who buy to sell, and sell to buy the more. They fetch and carry between the other classes. They are distributors; they are the merchants. Under this name I include the whole class who live by buying and selling, and not merely those conventionally called merchants to distinguish them from small dealers. This term comprises traders behind counters, and traders behind desks; traders behind neither counters nor desks. There are various grades of merchants. They might be classed and symbolized according as they use a basket, a wheelbarrow, a cart, a stall, a booth, a shop, a warehouse, a countingroom, or bank. Still all are the same thing-men who live by buying and selling. A ship is only a large basket; a warehouse, a costly stall. Your peddler is a small merchant going round from house to house with his basket to mediate between persons; your merchant is only a great peddler sending round from land to land with his ships to mediate between nations.

The Israelitish woman who sits behind a bench in her stall on the Rialto at Venice, changing gold into silver and copper, or loaning money to him who leaves hat, coat, and other collaterals, in pledge, is a small banker. The Israelitish man who sits at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, changes drafts into specie, and lends millions to men who leave in pledge a mortgage on the States of the Church, on Austria, or Russia, is a pawnbroker and money-changer on a large scale. By this arithmetic, for present convenience, all grades of merchants are reduced to ope denomination-men who live by buying and selling.