where a number of persons had their potatoe crops planted beside each other. A great difference in several of the lots was very perceptible; and my first impression naturally was, as the farmer, the owner of the field, had the largest manure heap, the produce of many cattle, he should have the best crop. On inquiry, however, I found I was mistaken; for one lot, of a person who kept only one pig, and another belonging to a cottager who kept no pig, were both better than the general crop. Now, said I to myself, I have the secret to make good manure (and, I must confess, my mind turned more strongly on the premium), if I can only prevail on this cottager who keeps no pig to tell me how he makes his manure: what he carries on, on a small, scale I will conduct on a large one. He appeared quite astonished at my making inquiry on so simple a matter (as he called it) as a cottager's manure heap, and thought me very ignorant indeed. However, in a very few words, he told me that he collected all the green weeds he could, scraped the roads, pared off the green edges, and cleaned out the water-tables opposite his own house, and as much further as he could; and, if his landlord would allow him, scoured out a ditch, and even picked up quantities of the red till by times. All these he collected into a heap, and he never allowed a drop of suds, dirty water, horse-buckets, or any other liquid that could be collected, to be lost, but poured all on the heap of rubbish he had gathered, and after some time turned it carefully and mixed it properly. On inquiry, I found that he did not apply a greater quantity of this manure to produce his crops than is usually done from the farm-yard, and he assured me that its good effects remained in the soil and appeared on the future crops."-Farmer's Magazine.

GOOD RESULTING FROM THE NEW POOR LAW.

THE following is an extract from a letter to the Guardians of the Uxbridge Union, written by an influential ratepayer in a country parish. We may hope from the account given in it, that the New Poor Law, from which so much suffering was by many expected to result to the poorer classes, has rather already tended to better their condition.

Every benevolent mind will rejoice at the tokens of such good effects, wherever they appear; and the poor themselves should consider, that every law which tends to foster among them a spirit of industry and providence, is conferring upon them the most substantial and lasting benefits. It would be, indeed, a most happy thing, although there may be a degree of hardship to be endured at first, if the fruit of the new plan shall be found in an increase of that desire of honest independence, which always ensues upon habitual diligence and frugality.

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My parish is solely an agricultural one, and the Act has not only worked well, but proved completely successful. A few years before it was passed whole families were in the constant practice of depending entirely on the Poor's Rate for support; and so far from bestirring themselves to seek after employment, behaved with the greatest insolence, and their idleness was a great annoyance to the parish authorities. These very paupers are now led into more industrious habits, and scores now work who never attempted it before.

"The Act has likewise conferred one great benefit in effecting a wholesome change in the habits of the labourer; not only by bettering his condition, but improving his moral character, in enforcing upon him the necessity of provident habits; making him depend more upon his own resources; and by these means to raise his character in the scale of society. It has already taught him to look up more to his master, and be more anxious to oblige him, by which a kindlier feeling is engendered between the two, which feeling was becoming rapidly extinct. It unquestionably operates as a check to vice and immorality, in repressing rioting and fighting on the Sabbath day, which were continually occurring at one public house or the other. The labourer, fearful of losing his place of work, and feeling the opprobrium of being seen in these broils, wisely keeps aloof from them, and thus the money that would have been spent in intemperance is saved to the family. The Sunday's debauch was frequently the primary cause of his inability to work upon the Monday.

"In the Medical department the poor feel more grate

ful, for the sick are better attended to than they ever were before, and better than the provident labourer ever could command. For under the old system, incessant complaints were made of the irregularity of the attendance. The present regulations sufficiently guard against all this, and the patients are visited two, three, or more times a week, and allowed wine, spirits, beer, meat, or whatever else may be requisite; advantages which they rarely enjoyed before. Several of the rate payers have expressed the greatest satisfaction at the altered appearance of the paupers after their admittance into the house; and upon their return home a striking change for the better has been plainly discernible; a convincing proof of the soundness of the rules and regulations, and the benefit they derive from regularity and cleanliness.

"Being an attentive observer of the working of the Act, I feel I am warranted in asserting that pauperism is gradually on the decrease, and is becoming partially eradicated; a blessing which all must earnestly desire to see. Many whom I am in the habit of conversing with, view it as conferring a great benefit upon the honest labourer, by holding out every incentive to industry, and imposing such severe checks upon the idle and dissolute.

"With respect to the financial department, it gives me great pleasure to say, that economy, however desirable, is looked upon only as a secondary consideration with a great number of the rate payers: and if forty per cent. or more has been saved in the expenditure of the different parishes of the Union, I am proud to say, that this has been done without abridging the comforts of the aged, the sick, and the infirm; and this saving may partly be ascribed to the restraints which the Act imposes upon the vicious, the lazy, and the disorderly, and to the vigilant control which the Board of Guardians exercises over the expenditure and the general business of the Union. I, and others who have watched the progress of the system with interest, trust that it will effect a great improvement in the moral condition of the working classes; and although poverty is inseparable from human nature, and the great incentive to crimes, that it will materially diminish these evils, and be the means of imparting permanent good to the peasantry of the country."

ALTARS IN HIGH PLACES.

THE accompanying plate represents the ruins of one of the altars, or piles, upon which sacrifices were offered to the Deity, whether by the patriarchs or their seed, or by the idolatrous nations of antiquity. The earliest of which we have any account is that built by Noah, after the deluge had subsided. Altars, therefore, were used before temples were erected: they were built sometimes in groves, sometimes on the highways, and sometimes on the tops of mountains. The patriarchs generally built their altars near a grove of trees, which, if nature denied them, were usually planted by the religious in those days. When Abraham dwelt at Beersheba, in the plains of Mamre, it is said, "he planted a grove there, and called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God.” (Gen. xxi. 33.)

The idolaters, in the first ages of the world, who generally worshipped the sun, appear to have thought it improper to confine this imaginary god within walls, and therefore made choice of woods and mountains as the most convenient places for their idolatry; and when, in later times, they had brought in the use of temples, yet for a long time they kept them open-roofed. So prevalent was this custom, that the phrase," worshipping on high places," is frequently used in the Old Testament to signify idolatry. God expressly commanded the Israelites utterly to destroy all those places where the nations of Canaan (whose land they should possess) served their gods upon the high mountains and upon the hills; and to pay their devotions and bring their sacrifices to that place only which God should choose. In order to prevent any approach to the idolatrous customs of the heathen, they were forbidden to plant any trees near the altar of the Lord.

The altars used by the patriarchs are supposed to have been of stone, and of rude construction: thus, the altar which Jacob set up at Bethel, was the stone which had served him for a pillow; and the altar of Gideon was a stone before his house. The first altars which Moses was commanded to raise, were of earth or rough stones;

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