head is too weak to keep up a proper circulation of the sap. Besides, those large wounds never heal over.'

The most appropriate and the only really suitable instruments for pruning, are the saw and knife. An axe should never be used, unless the removal of dead wood requires it. The knife should be perfectly sharp and the saw fine, that a smooth surface may be left after the removal of a branch; and no portion of the vigorous tree larger than two or three inches in diameter should be removed, as the bare wood thus exposed presents a surface too broad to be covered with new bark, and consequently will soon begin to decay. It is better to prune sparingly, and prune every year or twice a year, judiciously selecting such branches as require removal, than to do it at long intervals, and deprive the tree of too large a portion of its top at once, particularly in the summer season, as the removal of much foliage will then deprive the tree of its vigor and check its growth. br.

A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.

MESSRS. EDITORS: Many of the readers of The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil, are no doubt aware that much has been said of late relative to establishing a National University, founded on a plan so that all the sciences and arts will be taught, and so instituted that each senatorial or assembly district will be entitled to send one of its best students; his tuition to be paid by the district sending him, and thus enabling him to be educated in all the higher branches at the expense of the State or nation. The writer lately attended a meeting which was held in the city of Albany for the purpose of proposing plans, &c., for the establishment of a university, national in its character, to be located in that city, and to be conducted by ten or fifteen professors of the first order, who are to instruct students from different parts of the State in all the sciences of the day, and thus produce scholars who will shine as brightly as any who ever graduated from the higher institutions of Europe. The meeting was numerously attended, and addressed by some of the most distinguished scientific men of the nation.

Amongst the speakers who advocated the establishment of an institution on the plan proposed were Professors Bache and Pierce- both eminent as men of science, and of profound talents. They spoke at length of the vast amount of good that would result from the establishment of a university national in its character, and went on at some length to speak of the condition and thrift of European institutions; what profound scholars they had produced, and how we might accomplish the same results they have attained, if we would only become energetic, and employ the means we have in our hands for carrying out the plans which they urged. The professors alluded to the different studies which should be pursued in the institution, and the kind of apparatuses which should be connected with the university, in order to make it popular, and at the same time effectual in infusing the right kind of ideas into the minds of those who should attend it. Scientific agricul ture was frequently spoken of in the course of the remarks, and the speakers stated that this science would form one of the most prominent features in the proposed institution. Prof. Pierce named several eminent persons who had expressed their willingness to become instructors in the university, and stated that if the people of the State of New-York did not embrace the present opportunity in carrying out the plans of the college, they would, perhaps, never meet with a like chance again.

Other gentlemen made remarks favorable to the plans proposed by Pro

fessors Bache and Pierce. Governor Hunt spoke briefly on the subject, and thought such an institution would be the means of changing the character of our people, and of elevating and improving the minds of many young men.

The university which is now in operation in Albany lacks means and students, and what it wants is the patronage of the State. With this, it would at once no doubt become one of the best institutions in the world. There is no good reason why we cannot afford as good an institution of learning in America as can be found in Europe. We have the talent, we have the means, and we have energy and perseverance. Set these things in motion, and obtain a substantial charter from the State, and an institution of a deservedly high character will at once be established.

Baldwinsville, N. Y., Feb. 22, 1852.

W. TAPPEN.

HOW THE TARIFF OF 1846 AFFECTS MAINE.

"TEN years ago, the town of Houlton, Me., the county-seat of Arostook county, the extreme north-eastern section of the State, was in a very thriving condition. The village, situated in the midst of vast forests, was very pleasant and flourishing. There were stores, taverns, one or two church edifices, &c.; several hundred United States troops were stationed there, and all was life and activity. But recently, since the settlement of the North-eastern Boundary Question, the quiet ensuing the withdrawal of those troops, the decline of the lumbering business, and the failure of the crops for several successive seasons, the town is dying out, and may now be said to be dead. The churches are closed, and almost every body is moving away.

"What is true of Houlton is also true of all the towns in the county. The region is too far north for corn, and for wheat and potatoes they raise there is no market; and though a good farm may be had for $150, the whole county is likely to become depopulated."

Under the tariff of 1846, Canada supplies us with our lumber, and Britain with food in the forms of cloth and iron; and while one portion of the population of Maine abandons the clearing of the land, another abandons the working of it, because, with the closing of the mills and furnaces of the State, there has ceased to be a demand for potatoes, of which the earth yields largely, but which are therefore too bulky to carry to a distant market. On a recent occasion, we noticed that of a large number of persons waiting at one of the ports of the Pacific for a passage at San Francisco, more than one third were from Maine. Depopulation and weakness are every where the results of the separation of the plough and the loom.

COMMUNICATED FOR THE PLOUGH, THE LOOM, And the anvIL.

THE editor of the Horticulturist gives the following as the best dozen of hardy ever-blooming roses: Perpetuals-Madam Laffay, Giant des Batailles, Baronne Prevost, William Jesse, La Reine, Duchess of Sutherland, and Ambernon. Bourbons-Madame Desprez, Bouquet de Flore, Souvenir de Malmaison, Pierre de St. Cyr, Mrs. Bosanquet. A dozen best roses for potculture, are the following: Saffrano, Princess Marie, Souvenir de Malmaison, Devoniensis, Comte de Paris, Mrs. Bosanquet, Eugene Beauharnais, Niphelos, Queen of Lombardy, Hermosa; and for larger pots, branches to be trained, Solfaterre, and Cloth of Gold. The best hardy climbing roses for the most Northern States are: Boursault Elegans, Blush Boursault, Queen of the Prairies, Baltimore Belle, Superba, and Eva Corinne. Wiegela Rosea is, so far as tried, hardy all over the north.

When we consider the ease with which the climbing roses can be propa

gated, either by cultivating or layers, and their rapid growth, (frequently making shoots, in good soil, of from twelve to fifteen feet in a season,) and also the great number of beautiful flowers that they bear, we are surprised that more of our cottage-homes are not adorned with them. We have in our own garden the Queen of the Prairies, raised from a small layer, four years ago, which, for the last two seasons, has borne from eight hundred to one thousand beautiful blooms. If you have but a small space to cover, and would like a variety, the above may be budded with Globe Ayrshire, (Ruga,) color white, with delicious fragrance, and with Rupelliana, (Multiflora,) purplish crimson.

Brooklyn, N. Y., February, 1852.

R. L.

SETTING KETTLES FOR BOILING FOOD.

THE importance of cooking food for fattening animals, says the Rural New-Yorker, having been conclusively settled, and now universally admitted, the cheapest and most economical manner of performing this process, as relates to the consumption of fuel, is worth the inquiry. Some over-particular persons, in constructing a furnace for this purpose, build a spiral flue around the caldron, on the supposition that the longer they can keep the heat in contact with the kettle, the more economical. This form of construction is bad; it destroys the draft, and renders the fire black and sluggish; and to form the spiral draft requires so much masonry to touch the kettle, that not more than one half the surface is in contact with the heat, and therefore is lost as a conducting agent.

It is not advisable to set a caldron capable of containing less than sixty gallons, and if ninety gallons, or three barrels, the better.

In laying out the plan for the brick-work, take the diameter of the kettle at the largest point; add to this twelve inches for a six-inch space on each side; and to this, twice the thickness of both walls; and, in the direction that the flue or arch is intended for receiving the wood, add two feet, so that the structure shall be two feet longer than its width.

Kettles now-a-days have a projecting flange at the top, and two horns to rest them upon the brick-work. By means of chains or ropes, suspend the kettle over the exact point where it is intended to be fixed-its bottom at the right distance from the bottom of the fire-pot, to allow a proper quantity of wood to pass under-then carry up the walls to the height of the mouth of the arch, which is to be in one end of the longest direction of the furnace. At this point, place some iron bars over the arch and one across, near to that side of the kettle, and lay over the arch, and up to the kettle, and half way round it, two courses of bricks-touching the kettle at a point where the sides commence rising-by which arrangement the fire is made to impinge against the centre bottom, and, passing past the centre, returns around the sides, and passes up the chimney over the mouth of the arch. The structure is then complete by bringing the walls to the height of the kettle, gathering in towards the top, so that the entire flange rests upon the brick-work.

By this construction it will be seen that the fire strikes against the bottom, and passes up the end, and back around the whole body of the boiler, not injuring the draft, and brings the blaze in contact with the entire surface, except where the two thicknesses of bricks touch it over the arch.

A seven or eight-inch pipe, of which a cheap, second-hand article can

always be procured, answers all the purposes required for a chimney, and costs less.

A smaller kettle, fitted with a steam-pipe and a steam-chest, is probably altogether the most desirable method of cooking food for animals; but its preparation in proper and substantial manner involves an expense of fixtures, an outlay that but few farmers are willing to encounter, for merely fattening the animal for household use.

WASTEFULNESS OF THE BRITISH SYSTEM.

THE gold discoveries in Australia have induced serious propositions for the establishment of a mint in that distant colony. As much as a quarter of a million sovereigns have already been transmitted, partly as returns for the gold which has arrived here, and partly for prospective purchases of the metal on advantageous terms. Under these circumstances, the propriety of establishing a mint either at Sydney or Port Philip is deemed indispensable. Any thing more wasteful, looking at the risk and loss of interest it involves, than the shipment of the metal backwards and forwards, in the shape of rough gold from one side and coined pieces from the other, can hardly be imagined.

The above constitutes one of the items of intelligence by the late arrivals from Great Britain, and we desire particularly to call to it the attention of such of our readers as deem it not wasteful to send to England the food of Iowa and Illinois, and the cotton of Mississippi and Alabama, there to be converted and stamped, and returned to the place of production. The planter sends away five bales of cotton, and one bale comes back to him in the form of cloth, whereas, for every one hundred dollars' worth of gold sent from Australia, ninety would be returned in the form of coin; and yet, to save this ten per cent., it is deemed most wise to establish a mint in Australia, whereas it is deemed unwise in the planter to attempt to save his eighty per cent. by bringing the spindle and the loom to take their places in the cotton field.

PRACTICAL RESULTS OF BOOK FARMING.

MESSRS. EDITORS:-While one cannot help noticing, in all parts of the country, some farms which appear to be growing worse and worse every year, it is gratifying to be able to recognize many that are improving. In these days of progress, it is hardly consistent for the farmer to be "lying on his oars," while all the rest of the world are advancing. There is no good reason why the farmer should not "go ahead;" the means are within his reach, if he will only avail himself of them.

While there are such pioneers in the cause as a Carey, Norton, Lee, a Mapes, and many others, why should the farmer not follow their teaching? There is no reason that I can see, unless it is the farmer's own wilfulness. That the majority of farmers do not improve much, is but too evident. There are honorable exceptions, however, and the most stubborn sometimes fall in by the power of example, and without the least possible idea that they are becoming "book farmers." Is not example, then, the best method of teaching them? I have noticed, where there was a good farmer in a neighborhood, one who made himself acquainted with the improvements of the day, and adopted them understandingly, his immediate neighbors would fall in with him in process of time, and adopt the course of what they term the "lucky farmer.”

I know a farmer who, for a great number of years, followed the system of summer fallowing and sowing wheat upon the same land every other year,

CONSEQUENCE OF SEPARATING THE PLOUGH AND LOOM. 561

until the amount per acre was reduced to about fifteen bushels. This was upon the very best kind of soil for wheat, but he was convinced that the system was a bad one, as his crop was less and less every year. About this time, he concluded to take an agricultural paper. Well, he found in it an article upon deep ploughing for wheat, and he immediately adopted it. He altered his plough so that he could put it in up to the beam, and put on to it two yoke of large oxen and a pair of good horses, and ploughed his ground twelve inches deep. The field contained twelve acres. The last crop under the old system, with ordinary depth of ploughing, was about fifteen bushels to the acre; his crop after the twelve-inch ploughing, with the same cultivation otherwise, was within a fraction of fifty bushels to the acre. The result was beyond all expectation. I need not add, that this example has produced wonders in that immediate neighborhood. Very respectfully, yours,

Detroit, Mich., Feb. 13, 1852.

A. C. HUBBARD.

DIMINISHED PRODUCTIVENESS OF AGRICULTURE, A CONSEQUENCE OF THE SEPARATION OF THE PLOUGH AND THE LOOM.

For five years past, the object of our whole system has been that of closing the mills, mines, and furnaces, and driving the whole increase of population into the production of food and cotton, under the mistaken idea that we could find abroad a market for food capable of indefinite extension; and yet the foreign market now absorbs less food than it did five years since. Nevertheless, the prices of some commodities have been higher than they were before, a consequence of greatly diminished production. We now produce less wool than we did in 1846, and we have less pork and beef to sell; and the quantity diminishes from year to year, as will be seen by the following statement of the quantities passing over the New-York canals:

What are the prospects for pork in the next year, may be seen from the following statement:

The correspondents of the Baltimore Price Current write: in Terre Haute the cutting season is closed, and the crop there will be 5000 short in weight, and 10,000 in number; $4 50 paid for small lots. Letters from Cincinnati affirm that the packing in the West will fall 250,000 short of last season, and that the gain in weight is all a mistake, not more than one fifth of an excess in this respect being now calculated upon. St. Louis, Dec. 31.-The crop of hogs in all this region will probably fall short of last year at least one third in weight, consequently more than that in number. On the Mississippi river the crop will be about one half short in number, and on the Illinois one third in number.

Throughout the world, and in all ages, agriculture has become more productive, and the land-owner has become rich, as the spindle, the loom, and the hammer came to take their natural places by the side of the plough and the harrow, as was here the case under the tariff of 1842; and throughout the world, and in all ages, agriculture has become less productive, and the landowner has become impoverished, as the loom and the plough became separated, as is here becoming the case under the tariff of 1846.

VOL. IV.-36.