Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1858 — Farmer's Department. [ARTICLE]

Farmer's Department.

CONDUCTED BT AN AGRICULTURIST.

PRAIRIE SOIL. It is wonderful what advantages prairie •oil has over any other; it is astonishing how little they are appreciated. The New England farmer, who inherits his few acres, fitted for cultivation by the hardy labor of two generations of ancestors, has, after all, but a mere pittance. The soil is thinly and ■neavenly scattered over a substratum of •olid rock, and plentifully sprinkled with boulders. It requires more skill to guide the colter smong the “breakers” on his land than to plow the reefs of Florida. The inventive genius, that turns mechanics into a farmer and sets the war-horse to reaping, has no discoveries for him. New England falls back on her rights as a State, and doses her soil against “letters patent.” The work must be done by the New-Englander and hia boys, and with their own hands—he is too poor to hire; It would be no strange thing to find that •uch an one ekes out a miserable existence on his more than miserable homestead; that he lives in a hovel of the rudest construction; that his farm wants suitable fences •nd opt-houses; that his cattle are poor and poorly attended; that his children are rough, uncouth and ignorant, and that the whole family dresses homely and shabby. But it is strange when, on the contrary, we find that he has about him all the comforts and enjoyments of life; that his farm turns a clean face to the sun and sparkles in his beams like a. maiden in the smile-s of her lover; that his fences are strongly built and artistically arranged; that his house is substantial,commodious and convenient,adorned with a small, but well-selected I’brary and beautiful paintings, and that the house itself Is surrounded by a large yard supplied with trees and flowers; that his cattle are sleek •nd fat, and lay their broad faces in their lord’s lap with a seeming confidence in his ability to maintain and protect them; .that his family is intelligent and refined, well educated and modest; that all of them plainly and cheaply, but with an eminent regard to taste and cleanliness; and that all this comes from a farm which a citizen of Indiana would consider rather as an incumbrance than a benefit. The sun, in all his course, does, not smile upon a happier and more intelligent community than the pooer farmers of New England. -'But the prairie plowmen; like philosophic eal Lucretius, looks down with pleasure on the labors of others. ,-lle.hns a farm which comes to hands anxious to be tilled—the richest in the world. He receives his inheritance directly from nature. No generation of stalwart men, with broad stomachs, have had their living therefrom before him; he holds direct communion with the virgin soil. Machinery will no longer be cooped up behind stone walls and gloomy dungeons,, but comes forth to bid him welcome, and to breathe the pure air of a “Native American. He may harness the iron-horse to the plow, er drag his ground with the forked lightning, and Da me Nature says not a word. A hundred-handed monster —thb Briareus of the prairies—rises up to sow hid seed. “Good Mrs. Ceres” and her daughters, Proserpina, with their iron fingers,, plant his corn'. Saturn, the mythologjy.nl to the improvements of the age, takjs on a form more becoming the and with a “sythe” of approved construction, goes forth to reap his grain; while invention dandles him on her knee with all the affection of a doting mother. It would be no strange thing to find that such an one lives with the splendor of an Eastern prince; that his farm is a model, which may put to the blush the garden of our erring parents; that his house is a palace, arranged with more wisdom than the temple of Solomon; that he brings around him the finest statues and paintings of ancient and modern masters; that he has a library which embraces the noblest sentiments of science, literature and religion; that his stock is the finest in the world, and cared for with the utmost vigilance and solicitude; that his family has the greatest advantages for high degrees of intellectual and moral culture; that his grounds aro most exquisitely decorated and beautified; and that such an one is looked up to, not on account of his possessions, but in behalf of his manhood. It is strange, however, when, on the contrary, we find that he has few of the comforts of civilized life; that his farm is more slipshod and slovenly than Xanthippe in her worst moods; that his habitation is but little removed from that of an, Indian; that he has •n utter disregard for the beautiful in nature; that his family grows up with a mere apology for an education; that he dresses without any attention to taste or beauty; that his cattle are left to shift for themselves, and are exposed to the pi ltings of a prairie winter, Without a thought.or a care for their welfare: in short, that he is lazy, shiftless, indolent, indiscrete, maladroit and foolish, and that he manages his affairs in a manner that would be a disgrace to his less wealthy, but more economical brother of New England. Wo are aware that we have made use of some severe words, and in good, round Saxon speech; but it is only as the lash cuts

clean and deep that the glutted lion awakes. The subject is an important one, and the advantages of prairie soil, will receive a more careful consideration in a future article. Prairies and prairie farmers have many virtues with few faults; aiid while it would be difficult, perhaps, to improve the former, the errors may be easily remedied.