SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 311 



Beach, in Ljmn, Massachusetts, as a contrast to those 

 described in my two former articles ;^ because it is a good 

 specimen of what can be done on a very rough spot, and 

 because I like to show the public what an enlightened and 

 enterprising man, imbued with the spirit of agricultural 

 improvement, can accomplish by spending his money in 

 a rational way. That the reader may not think me in- 

 vidious, however, in my selections, I will here state that 

 there are a great many improvements annually effected 

 in all the New-England states, and not a few gentlemen 

 there have done, and are still doing, as much, perhaps, 

 as Mr. Mudge; but in my hasty flight, I could not take 

 time to visit them ; and as I only speak of things seen, I 

 must defer notices of others, until, with the spring birds, 

 I may return from the south and trim my wings again 

 for another flight through my old native state. 



Mr. Mudge is better knowTi as proprietor of the Veran- 

 dah Hotel, New Orleans, which is one of the best in 

 America, than as a Yankee farmer, spending his winters 

 there and summers here. His farm consists of 120 acres, 

 and is mostly of that character which the Indian de- 

 scribed as his farm — "all long and no wide, and run 

 deviling up among the rocks;" just such land and rocks 

 as are to be seen in New England, and nowhere else, with 

 the old stone walls, and ancient apple trees, with here 

 and there a little "meadow," on arable spots. 



Mr. M. paid $4000 for the place some four or five years 

 ago, and now, in consequence of the improvements, not 

 alone of the soil, but because the improvements have 

 added to the value of the neighborhood, the same land 

 would sell for five times as much as he paid for it. One 

 of his first acts was to build a residence, which is neat, 

 substantial, convenient, roomy, and in every way com- 



Opened St, Charles Hotel in New Orleans in 1840. Returned to 

 New York in 1845. Built the Saratoga Victory Cotton Mills thirty 

 miles from Cohoes, New York, in 1846. Member of Massachusetts 

 senate, 1866-1867. Appletons' Cyclopasdia of American Biography, 

 4:452 (1888). 



' Printed ante, 247 ff . and 307 ff . 



