HOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL PAPER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 2347, 3 August 1871, Page 3

HOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL PAPER.

(BY MARK IiVAIN.) I d;i> not take the temporary editorship of an agricultural paper without misgivings. Neither would a landsman take charge of a ship without misgivings, but I was in circumstances that made the salary an object. The regular editor of the paper was going off for a holiday ; and I accepted the terms ho offered, and took his place. The sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I wrought all the week wilh unflagging pleasure. We went to press and I waited a day with some so citudc to see whether my effort was going to attract any notice. As I left the olfice towards sundown, a crowd of men aiul boys at the foot of the stairs dispersed with one impulse and gave me passage w«3', and I heard one of them say, '• That's him." I was naturally pleased at this incident. The next morning I found a similar group at the foot of the stairs, and scattering couples and individuals standing here and there in the street, and over the way watching me with interest. Tho group separated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say, "Look at his eye." I pretended not to observe the notice I was attracting, but secretly I was pleased with it, and was purposing to write an account of it to my aunt. 1 went up the short flight of stairs, snd heard cheery voices and a ringiug laugh as I drew near the door, which I opened, and caught a glimpse of two young, rurallook'ig men, whose faces blanched and lengthened when they saw me, and they both plunged through the window with a crash. I was surprised. Iu about half an hour an old gentleman with a flowing board and fine but rather austere face, entered, and sat down at my invitation. He took off his hat, set it on the floor, and got out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy of our paper. He put the paper on his lap, aud while he polished his spectacles with his handkerchief, he said— " Are you the new editor?" I said I was. " Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?" "No,'' I said. "This is my first attempt." " Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture, practically ?" •' No, I believe I have not." " Some instinct told mo so," said the old gentleman, putting his spectacles on and looking over them ot me with asperity, while he folded his paper in a convenient shape. "I wish to read to you what must have made me inclined to have that instinct. It was this editorial. Listen, aud see if it was you that wrote it— " Turnips should never be pulled—it injures them. It is better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree." '• Now, what do you think of that ?— for I really suppose you wrote it." Think of it. Why, I think it is good. I think, it is sense, 1 have no doubt that, every year, millions and mittions ot' bushels of turnips arc- iu ibis township '

alone, by being pit!-"i: Tialf ripe condition, when if they had sent a boy no to shake the tree— '* " Shake your grandmother ! Turnips don t grow on trees." "Oh, they don't, don't they? Well, who said they did ? The language was intended to be figurative. Anybody that knows any tiling, will knowth that I meant the boy to shako the vine." . Then this old person got up and tore his paper into shreds, nnd tramps-1 them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I did not knovr as much as a cow, and then went out aud banged the door after liini, and, in short, acted in a

way that I fancied he was displeased about something. But not knowing what p'l the trouble was, I could not be any help to ham.

Pretty soon after this, a long cadaver-ous-looking creature, with lanky locks hanging down to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling from the hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and halted motionless, with finder on lip, and head and body bent in listening attitude. Iso sound was he'-ird. Still ho listened. JTo sound. Then he turned the key in the door, and came elaborately tip-toeing towards me, tiii he was in .'on*

reaching distance of me when he stopped, and, after scanning my face with intense interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his bosom, and said— " There—you wrote that—Head it to me, quick ! Believe me— I suffer." I read as follows—and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see the drawn muscles relax, aud the ar.xietv go out of his face, and rest and peace steal over the features, like the merciful moonlight over a desolate landscape. 'Ihe guano is a fine bird, but great care is neceSL.iry ia rearing it. It shou'd not imported earlier than June, nor later tnan September. In the winter it should be kept in a warm place where it can hatch is-oursl:. '"It is evident we am to have a 'djcLward season for crain. Therefore it \. 'l. be well for the farmer to bes;in settinsoufc his cornstalks nnd planting his buckwheat cakes in July instead of August. " Concerning the Pumpkin.—This berry is a favorite with the natives of the interior of r>'c\v K:n;land, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of frnit cakes, and who likewise give it the preference of raspberries for feeding cows, as being more filling, and fully as satisfyla-, Ihe pumpkin is the only esculent of tho orange family that will thrive in the north, except the gourd and one two varieties of the squash. '".Now,as the warm weather approach , and tho ganders begin to spawn " The excited listener sprang towards me to shake hands, and said—

" I hero, there—that Trill do ! I know I ain all right now, because you have read ifc just as I did, word for word. Bat stranger, when I first read it this morniug, I said to myself, I never, never believed it before, notwithstanding iny friends kept me under watch so strict, but now I believe I am crazy, and with that I fetched a howl that you might have heard two miles, and started out to kill somebody—because you I knew it would come to tuat sooner or later, and so might as well X read, one of them paragraphs over again, so as to bo certain, and then X burned my house down ana starte.d I have crippled several people, and got a iellotv up a tree, where X can Rat im if X want hiui. But I thought I would call in i*eiv as X along, and. make the thing perfectly certain ; audnow it is certain, and I tell vou its lucky for the chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him, sure, as I went back. Good-bye, Sir, good-bye—you have taken a great load off my mind. My reason has stood, the strain of one of your tural article*, and I that nothing can unseat it now. Good-bye, Sir." I fell a little more uncomfortable about the crinpiings and arsons this person had becu entertaining himself with, for I could not help feeling remotely accessory to them; but these thoughts were quickly baiiisued, for the regular editor walked in ! (I thought to myself, now, if you had gone to iCgypt, as I recommended you to, I might have had a chance to get my hand in : but you wouldn't do it, and here you are. X sort of expected you.J

" This a sad business. There is the mucilage hot'ln broken, nnd six panes of glass, and a spit'oo?. and two candlesticks. True llieiv ..as such a call for tile paper bef.m-, and it never sold such a large edition, or scored to such celebrity ; but does one want to be facnous for lunacy, and prosper upon the infirmities of his mind ? ATy friend as I am an honest man, the street oat hsro is fall of people, and others are roosting oil the fences, waiting to get a glimpse at you, because they think you crazy. And well they might, after reading your editorials. They are a disgrace to journalism. Why. what put it into your head that you coi;'<_ edit a newspaper of this nature? You. rea'ly do not seem to know the rudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and harrow as being the same thing ; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and you recommend the domestication of the pole-cat on account of its playfulness and excellence as a ratter. Your remark, that clams lie quiet if music be played to them, was superfluous. Nothing disturbs clams. Clams always lie quiec. Clams care nothing whatever about music. >£, heavens and earth, friend if you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with higher honor than you could to-day. I never saw anything like it. Your ob-ervation that the horse-ciiesnut, as an article of commerce, is steadily gaining favor, is simply calculated to destroy this journal. I want you to throw up your situation and go. I want no more holiday —I could not enjoy it, if I had it. Certainly not with you. iu my chair. I would always stand in dread of what you. might be going to recommend next. It makes me lose all patience every time I think of your discussing oyster beds under the head ' Landscape Gardening.' I want you to go. Nothing on earth, could persuade me to take another holiday. Oh, why didn't you tell me you didn't know anything about agriculture."

" What an unfeeling remark. I tell you I have been in the editorial business going on fourteen years, and it's the first time I ever heard of a man's having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper. Sir, I have been through it from Alpha to Omega, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger noise he make?, and higher the sr:h-y he commands. Heaven knows, if I had been ignorant instead of cultivated, and impudent instead of diffident, X could hav-.' male a name for myself in this cold se'fish world. I take my leave, Sir. Since I have been treated as you have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I lisve done my duty. I have fulfilled my contract, as far as I was permitted to do it. I said I could run your circulation up to twenty thousand copies, and if I had. two more weeks I'd have done it. And I've given you the best class of readers that ever an agricultural paper had—not a farmer in it, nor a solitary individual who could tell a watermelon from a peach vine, to sare his lite. I'ou arc the loser by thi> rupture, -o: me, pie plant. Adios!" I then left.