The Golden Argosy is as far removed from the prosy inanity of Sunday-school literature as it is from the demoralizing sensationalism of the half-dime dreadfuls.—N. Y. World.
The Golden Argosy is not only beautiful in appearance, but every way commendable in the character of its contents. It is one of the few papers for young people that judicious fathers and mothers care to put in the hands of their children.—Detroit Free Press.
REMEMBER that $2.00 pays for The Prairie Farmer from this date to January 1, 1885; For $2.00 you get it for one year and a copy of The Prairie Farmer County Map of the United States, free! This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class weekly agricultural paper in this country.
Henry Stuart writes the New York Times: A wise and careful system of agriculture might have left our fields still fertile and productive, so an economical use of the forests might have made them a perennial source of wealth. Fortunately the injury is not beyond a remedy, for it is easier to restore a growth of timber than it is to bring back fertility to a barren soil. It is easy to care for what is left and to replant and renew the growth, and even to do this better and more quickly and with more and quicker profit than nature has done it. It is easy, too, by a wise and practical use of the forests that are left, to so husband them as to take regular harvests from them as the farmer regularly harvests his fields or selects the fatlings from his flocks. He does not gather in all these at one fell swoop, taking the fat and the lean and the young and the old, as the fisherman gathers all into his nets, and as the lumberman has felled the woods, but he selects those that are ripe and carefully rears the rest until they are ready. Had the timber been culled in this way from the forests year by year there would have been a periodical harvest, and as the mature trees were cut out a new growth would spring up. But, on the contrary, as in the old fable, the goose has been killed for its golden eggs, and the source of a lasting profit has been recklessly sacrificed.
Fortunately the land is left, and can be put to its proper use as soon as it can be controlled. And still fortunately, by a wise administration, the forests may be made a profitable source of public income, instead of, as heretofore, the prey of the spoilers. It is useless to complain of past mistakes. They have been, as we have pointed out, mere incidents of our system, and possibly unavoidable. But the time has come when the system must be changed, and the necessity for a change has become so apparent that it can not be long delayed. It is not only the commerce of the country that must suffer by a continuance of the system, but agriculture suffers still more; and it is not only the public who will gain by a change, but the example will be followed by the farmers, who will doubtless soon learn to take care of their own timber lands and plant more, and so the benefit will be general. Besides, the farmers will not be long in discovering the profit in growing timber, and would plant groves as one of the most profitable crops that could be grown upon their rougher lands, or as a resting and restorative crop for their worn soil.