170 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



dollars a year, and the proprietor is taxed a further 

 sum of about five hundred dollars a j'ear for tolls, 

 as he is compelled to pass out of the city over Cra- 

 gie's toll bridge, the town authorities of Charles- 

 town not permitting the ofti?nsive matter to be 

 brought over the Warren free bridge, which leads 

 directly through the compact or city part of the 

 town. With the increased expense the proprietor 

 has made his thousands every year. The feeding 

 is said to be equal to tlie rearing of one thousand 

 hogs in a year weighing three hundred pounds 

 each. Tlie hogs are taken from tliis {eed and fed 

 on corn a few days befox'e they are slaughtered for 

 the market, so that the most astute pork eaters can- 

 not possibly distinguish between the meat of these 

 and the best family-kept hogs of the country. If 

 the keeping was all the cost, at the high price of 

 ten cents the pound, which has been the lowest 

 price for pork in the market, the income would be 

 thirty thousand dollars a year. The price of pork, 

 now reduced as it is to six cents the pound, will 

 still furnish a grand profit to the owner of the West 

 Cambridge piggery. 



The profit on the hogs is not the only gain of the 

 establishment. The manure here made has had the 

 effect to double the value of the land all around it 

 to the distance of half a mile or a mile. Six large 

 wagon loads of ofial, containing with much that is 

 offensive much of the best living of the luxuriant 

 livers of Boston, remnants of roast turkeys, roast 

 beef and plum-puddings, with now and then a sil- 

 ver spoon and fork, are daily brought to tiie pigge- 

 ry. They are spread at three different times in the 

 day over a large plank platform on which the ani- 

 mals feed. Six farmers of the town contract daily 

 at the price of two dollars and a half per day for 

 the leavings upon the platform, each taking his 

 turn on a different day of the week (Sundays ex- 

 cepted) in filling a large wagon such as every con- 

 siderable farmer owns and appropriates almost ex- 

 clusively for transporting his cord of manure wher- 

 ever he can find it. The pine plains supplied with 

 this manure^thc sterile ground that formerly pro- 

 duced little or nothing — yields such crops of rich 

 garden vegetables as no one previously acquainted 

 with them ever dreamed he should there see ffrow. 

 Among the practical operators on the land in 

 West Cambridge, without asking of them, we take 

 the liberty to use a few names, not because others 

 may not be their equals, but because they happen 

 to have fallen more particularly under our observa- 

 tion at the time of our recent visit. 



A practical Horticulturist. 

 Mr. George Pierce, anative of West Cambridge, 

 whose father had acquired a handsome estate from 

 a farm in the rocky part of the town, lived for seve- 

 eral years at Chadestown, where he had less than a 

 single acre of ground, from wliich, following the Bos- 

 ton market,he obtained an annual income of nearly 

 a thousand dollars. He lefiCharlestown and remo. 

 ved to the city of New York, where not being well 

 pleased in business, he returned and commenced 

 an establishment at West Cambridge for grind- 

 ing and pulverizing bones for the purpose of ma- 

 king manure, at an e-tpense of several thousand 

 dollars. He found a ready sale for the pulverized 

 manure, but he soon used up all the bones that 

 could be obtained in the vicinity ; and there being 

 another bone establishment at Roxbury nearer to 

 the city of Boston, he sold out his steam engine 

 and apparatus. He purchased seven acres of ap- 

 parently the most sterile, worn-out pine plains land 

 in the town of his nativity. This land he has pos- 

 sessed and cultivated only four years ; and he has 

 acquired the art and ability of procuring more from 

 this ground than we could suppose the best ground 

 on earth would produce. His successive plough- 

 ings and rnanurings are such that this hungry sand 

 through vhich, on the theory of some farmers, the 

 water would run and disappear as it would in a 

 seive, retains the moisture and withstands the 

 drought equal to the richest pan soil. On a plat of 

 about one-fourth of an acre of this ground a fourth 

 crop the present year was actually under way. 

 First was raised early radishes taken from the 

 ground in May — then ppas early in July, followed 

 by cucumbers q^uite early enough for pickling ; and 

 in October the ground was green with spinach to 

 be covered up and pulled for the market in the 

 mouth of March. Among his articles for the mar- 

 ket was about one-third of an acre of the common 

 dandelion which grows spontaneously in many 

 mowinn- fields: these he with some diliiculty ob- 

 tains from the seed. He says the crop turns out to 

 be very profitable ; they are continually cropped 

 near the root, and a new shoot immediately.springs 

 up. He had about one acre of strawberries, from 

 which upwards of two thousand boxes of that fruit 

 were picked last sujnmef : these at 37 l-'2 to 50 

 cents a box, for which they readily sold in market, 

 produced not a small profit on a single acre. Be- 



sides the strawberry, Mr. Pierce was cultivating 

 the raspberry, which thrives under cultivation with 

 great luxuriance. He expressed the opinion that 

 he could make of the blackberry, which grows in 

 the hedges and around piles of decayed wood or 

 rocks in neglected fields, a profitable articls for the 

 market, as that is sought and prized equally with 

 the strawberry or raspberry. From the production 

 of his seven acres, Mr. Pierce has taken in the 

 market, as by memorandum kept, nearly or quite 

 four thousand dollars the present season. 



The extraordinary growth of fruit trees on ground 

 cultivated as is that of Mr. Pierce deserves to be 

 mentioned. There were a very few trees on the 

 ground, which bore the first year peaches of indif- 

 ferent size and quality. These have improved on 

 the manured cultivated ground each year until this 

 year peaches of the largest size and finest flavor 

 were obtained. Peach trees from the stone three 

 years ago were taken up and transplanted large 

 enough to bear fruit another )'ear. Mr. P. hesitates 

 not to say that he can extend a peach orchard over 

 his ground without lessening in any perceptible de- 

 gree the other crops to be taken from it. 



He has tried and used the various kinds of ma- 

 nure : pulverized bone manure he has used, and 

 thinks it valuable — he also made use of the manure 

 of the great piggery in his vicinity, which he es- 

 teems good for his ground : he likewise has applied 

 the strong night manure, which, as yet, is taken 

 from the city to the country in its crude state in 

 Massachusetts, and not pulverized and rendered 

 innoxious to the faculties of taste or smell as in the 

 city of New York ; and this has a powerful effect : 

 but his opinion is, that for ready operation and 

 lasting efi'ect in any and every description of soil 

 no manure will'go before the horse manure obtain- 

 ed from the stables where the animals are fed with 

 grain or meal. 



Mr. Pierce is of opinion that the business of a 

 common market gardener may be better carried on 

 without the interference of that of acommon farm : 

 planting, hoeing and haying come at a time and in- 

 terrupt the constant attention and watchfulness 

 necessary to the °peedy growth of the garden ve- 

 getables. The expense of labor on a small piece 

 of ground cultivated like his is very great ; the re- 

 sults of such nurture and kindness as he bestows 

 to the vegetable growth are truly astonishing. In 

 his case the value of experience and excellent 

 judgment and skill is apparent beyond question. 



Seven acres rescued from worn-out barrenness, 

 as is the ground of Mr. Pierce, is not quite enough 

 for his purpose. Along side of it of the same qual- 

 ity he has hired an additional field of two or three 

 acres which cannot he sold, and which he cultivates 

 for a present crop as he does his own land, which is 

 bounded on one end by the shore of the pond and 

 dips to the south in a sort of half amphitheatre. 

 Here he has his green house for the forcing of early 

 plants, in which, when- the sun is too far removed 

 or fails to show his face, artificial heat is introduced. 

 From what was the pond itself, sand has been car- 

 ted in until some half acre of ground has been 

 formed : this, with the manure applied, produced 

 the first year large crops of tomatoes, cucumbers, 

 itc. and will very soon become first rate land. Mr. 

 P. says he wants no more than twelve or thirteen 

 acres of land to produce every thing he would wish 

 to raise. 



An extensive farm made from waste lands. 



In the easterly part of West Cambridge is the 

 farm of Mr. Amos Hill, which includes probably 

 more territory than any other farm in the town. 

 His farm embraces mucli of the land of the town 

 which was low and swampy. When Mr. H. pur- 

 cha.-!ed it more than thirty years since, the whole 

 territory produced hardly a sufficiency to support a 

 single family. Swamps have been ditched and re- 

 claimed under his hand, which yield good English 

 hay to the amount in a year of two or three tons to 

 the acre. Much of the reclaimed land is v.'orth two 

 -and three hundred dollars the acre. Mr. Hill rais- 

 es annually an immense amount of vegetables for 

 the market. His ample barns are besides filled with 

 hay, and his granaries are full, enabling him to add 

 to the pursuits of his neighbors that of the exten- 

 sive rearing of cattle. Few men, from their own 

 efforts, have brought so much ground into fruitful 

 bearing as this gentleman — few have give)! a smil- 

 intr civilized face to so great a space of savage 

 waste — few have equalized into thrifty bearing rich 

 soil so great a portion covered with alternate bog 

 and quagmire, the resort of the mink and inuskrat, 

 and creatures living both in water and upon land. 

 He possesses the rich value of all his labor in the 

 improved lauds which constitute tlie extensive farm 

 in the midst of which stand the comfortable and el- 

 egant dwellings and out-houses occupied by him- 

 self and his children. His premises may be made 



ample by subdivision for himself and children "to 

 the third and fourth generation," and furnish to 

 them all a much surer road to wealth than that pur- 

 sued by travellers to a far country. 



A farmer upon the best natural soil. 



Of the farms of Mr. James Hill and Sons, it 

 being a rainy day and he being absent at the time 

 of our visit, we passed over that part only which 

 was the residence and location of our earliest re- 

 collection. The "pond-hole," in which when a 

 mere child the editor had well nigh been drowned 

 from venturing upon and breaking through the brit- 

 tle ice — the pond hole, from which after the re- 

 treat of winter used annually to return some hun- 

 dreds of speckled turtles, one of which was caught 

 many years in succession with the name of an older 

 Hill marked on the shell at the date "177.5"— the 

 pond hole, at one extremity of which grew flags 

 sufficient to bottom all the kitchen chairs of the 

 neighborhood— the pond hole, the shores of which 

 among the reeds in the drier seasons of the year 

 were sometimes the resort of the woodcock and 

 snipe and that other bird which derives its common 

 name from an act of its own volition when starting 

 on the wing; the pond hole, had disappeared en- 

 tirely. Fed by the accessions of every shower and 

 from a considerable stream at such times running 

 into it with no corresponding outlet, tlio water of 

 this pond was often some eight, ten and perhaps a 

 dozen feet in depth, and spread over something like 

 the area of an acre. The present owner of the land 

 filled the bottom of the pond with rocks through 

 which the water, being conducted to it by a cover- 

 ed under-drain, is filtered and carried off by other 

 covered drains in different directions, where it is 

 used when it passes to the surface in other lower 

 grounds for the purpose of irrigating snd fertilizing 

 several acres. What was the pond itself is now the 

 richest soil. The labor and expense of bringing 

 about this change, the disappearance on the surface 

 of both the stream and the pond, must have been 

 trreat : vet no present beholder, who does not recol- 

 Fect both, might be at all aware of the work under 

 ground over such a productive field. 



This part of Mr. Hill's premises, consisting ofa- 

 bout ten acres including what was the "pond hole," 

 for a century has probably been the most product- 

 ive spot of that size in the town. Never has there 

 been a year when it was not highly cultivated — 

 never did it fail, within the recollection of the old- 

 dest person living, to yield an unusual crop; and 

 whether laid down to grass or ploughed for tillage, 

 it produced alike a faithful return for the labor and 

 expense bestowed. The spot was never more pro- 

 ductive than it has been the present season:the crops, 

 two or more generally from the same ground, with 

 the exception of a few roots, had been taken away 

 when we saw the field in October. Much of the 

 tillage and garden portion had been turned with 

 the plough in part preparation for the succeeding 

 season It will be impossible any where to find a 

 soil more rich to the eye, with a blacker, deeper 

 vegetable mould, in which vegetation starts and 

 grows without knowing any stint or hindrance un- 

 der a congenial sun, than this choice spot presents. 



The hip roofed house erected after the fashion 

 of one hundred years ago with upright front of two 

 square rooms and a long kitchen and buffet in the 

 rear, on these premises, has been altered in shape, 

 and made to look very comely in a modern dre.ss : 

 the venerable old barn had been worn out and torn 

 down a long time since, and the place where it 

 stood and the yards about it united with the adja- 

 cent field. A new and beautiful barn of some 

 eighty feet by fifty has been erected with an ample 

 cellar under the whole, directly over the ground 

 where the ancient temporary brook sometimes eon- 

 ducted water to the pond hole, and probably over 

 the conduit which under cover now condiicts the 

 water in the same direction. This barn from the 

 floors to the beams was filled with mows of hay and 

 various kinds of grain. 



On thi.^ spot forty years ago thore was raised 

 much fine fruit — the old fashioned orange and bell 

 among the variety of pears, various kinds of peach- 

 es from the yellow and crimson-cheeked rareripe to 

 the ordinary fall clingstone, cherries and plums 

 with the high flavored quince, more grateful to. the 

 smell than the taste, with the early geueiing and 

 seek-no-further for early eating, and the pearinain, 

 russet and cony apples for later use. Scarce a tree 

 was left that bore any of these. An ancient winter 

 pear tree that was smitten with lightning forty-nine 

 years ago, and some two or three of the apple trees, 

 were left as the representatives of olden time. Nu- 

 merous apple and other fruit trees now supply the 

 places of those which are absent — all of them evin- 

 cing great fiealth and vigor of growth, and bearing 

 the best of fruit. The great elm, which stood in the 

 load near to the house, remains as it was without 



