LEffER 



got a sow-spayer ? We have no such man here. What a loss 

 arises from this ! W T hat a plague it is. We cannot keep a whole 

 farrow of pigs, unless we breed from all the sows ! They go 

 away : they plague us to death. Many a man in England, now 

 as poor as an owlet, would (if he kept from the infernal drink) 

 become rich here in a short time. These sow-gelders, as they call 

 them, swarm in England. Any clown of a fellow follows this 

 calling, which is hardly two degrees above rat-catching and mole- 

 catching : and yet there is no such person here, where swine are 

 so numerous, and where so many millions are fatted for ex 

 portation ! It is very strange. 



1042. To return to the thatching : Straw is not so durable as 

 one could wish : besides, in very high winds, it is liable, if not 

 reeded, to be ruffed a good deal ; and the reeding, which is almost 

 like counting the straws one by one, is expensive. In England 

 we sometimes thatch with reeds, which in Hampshire, are called 

 spear. This is an aquatic plant. It grows in the water, and will 

 grow no where else. When stout it is of the thickness of a small 

 cane at the bottom, and is about four or five feet long. I have seen 

 a thatch of it, which, with a little patching, had lasted upwards of 

 fifty years. In gentlemen s gardens, there are sometimes hedges 

 or screens made of these reeds. They last, if well put up, half a 

 century, and are singularly neat, while they parry the wind much 

 better than paling or walls, because there is no eddy proceeding 

 from their repulsion. They are generally put round those parts 

 of the garden where the hot-beds are. 



1043. Now, the Broom-Corn far surpasses the reeds in all 

 respects. I intend, in my Book on Gardening, to give a full account 

 of the applicability of this plant to garden-uses both here and in 

 England ; for, as to the reeds, they can seldom be had, and a 

 screen of them comes, in most parts of England, to more money 

 than a paling of oak. But, the Broom-Corn ! What an useful 

 thing ! What quantities upon an acre of land ! Ten feet high, 

 and more durable than reeds ! The seed-stems, with a bit of the 

 stem of the plant, make the brooms. These, I hear, are now sent 

 to England. I have often talked of it in England as a good traffic. 

 We here sweep stables and streets with what the English sweep 

 their carpets with ! You can buy as good a broom at New York 

 for eight pence sterling as you can buy in London for five shillings 

 sterling, and the freight cannot exceed two-pence or three-pence, 

 if sent without handles. I bought a clothes-brush, an English 

 clothes-brush, the other day for three shillings sterling. It was 

 made of a farthing s worth of alder wood and of half a farthing s 

 worth of Broom-Corn. An excellent brush. Better than bristles. I 

 have Broom-Corn and Seed-Stems enough to make fifty thousand 

 such brushes. I really think I shall send it to England. It is 

 now lying about my barn, and the chickens are living upon the 

 seeds. This plant demands greater heat even than the Indian 

 Corn. It would hardly ripen its seed in England. Indeed it 



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