SOLON ROBINSON, 1845 407 



will be long felt by others as well as himself. He has also 

 set an example in the way of fruit trees, well worthy to 

 be followed. As I have so many individuals to notice, I 

 cannot of course, spend too much time individualising 

 stock and improvements. 



On Saturday, I intended to have gone on my way re- 

 joicing, but who ever escaped from the Major with only 

 a one night visit, (he studied hospitality in a southern 

 latitude,) and that, connected with a slight indisposition, 

 brought on by the strong lime water of Juliet, not only 

 kept me over Saturday, but there also I took a Sabbath's 

 quiet rest. 



On Saturday afternoon, the Major drove me up to Os- 

 wego, 2 1 /o and Aurora, 7 miles, two flourishing villages on 

 Fox river, at both of which the river, as well as at num- 

 erous other places, affords the best of water power, and 

 at the latter is one of the best finished flour mills of 4 

 run of stone in the State. 



Here we visited a picket fence making machine. The 

 pickets are sawed by a circular saw, out of boards, and 

 then passed through a set of cutters that round and 

 sharpen them, and are put in girts also bored by a ma- 

 chine, and these lengths are set up crooked like worm 

 fence, without posts, being held at the corners by one of 

 the pickets passing through each girt, and as it is sold at 

 75 cents a rod, will answer well to fence prairie, where 

 rails cannot be had for a less cost. But as it takes 14 

 rails to make a rod of as good fence, it is easy to calcu- 

 late which kind of fence will be the cheapest. At pres- 

 ent, while we cultivate so poorly, and do not average 10 

 bushels of wheat to the acre through a series of years, 

 we cannot afford to pay 75 cents a rod for fencing, be- 

 sides the cost of hauling and putting up, and then as 

 most of us do, carelessly risk its being burnt by the an- 

 nual fires that destroy thousands after thousands of rails 

 every year. 



Many of your Orange county readers will be interested 

 to hear that I visited an old resident of that county, by 



28—50109 



