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THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



account for the fine crops of hay which we saw in 

 gome of tlic liglit grounds ol' AU'red beside of fields 

 parched and e'v-ery thing green burnt up, in the 

 fact that high manuring and deep ploughing on al- 

 most any ground, either in a dry or wet season, 

 will ensure a crop ; and this on the principle that 

 moisture longer remains where the ground is stir- 

 red at greater di-ptli : and too much wet, dift'using 

 itself as far as the soil is stirred, will not drown 

 out the crop as soon in deep as in shallow ploughed 

 land. 



An unfortunate public mau« 



The Hon. John Holmes, who fur many years 

 has been the pater-protector of tile village of Al- 

 fred, has removed from that place to a diijlant pari 

 of the State of Maine. The village and lands ad- 

 jacent had been mi;ch improved and beautified by 

 his efforts. His farm extended a mile or more upon 

 an eminence in sight of the village. On tlie side of 

 the hill he had planted an orchard which was yet 

 flourishing. He Iiad attempted the rearing of pea- 

 ches and other fruit trees upon tlie southeastern 

 declivity of the hill ; but llie deep snow banks dri- 

 ven over the hill from the northwest, covering the 

 trees with ice and frost late in the opening spring, 

 prevented the anticipated success, and the fruit 

 trees soon perished. The time was when tliisnren- 

 tleman did a more extended and more successful 

 law business than any other man of his county : 

 but like many other men of enterprise who have 

 had ambition for public life or who have been im- 

 pelled to it by the voice of their fellow citizens, a 

 reverse has gone over his fortune at that time of 

 ■<life when he should enjoy the fruits of severe labor. 

 Whatever mav liave been our opinions of the poli- 

 tical course of Mr. Holmes and of his consistency, 

 tv'e were gratified to learn that he stands high as a 

 »nan of generous public spirit among men of all 

 parties in the community where he has long resi- 

 ded. Personally he has done much for tlie cause 

 of agriculture by the example of a well improved 

 farm which he has placed before his neighbors, one 

 of whom, a steady jiolitical opponent whenever Mr. 

 H. has steadily stood with his present party, infor- 

 med us that he could at any time be elected repre- 

 sentative for the town of Alfred in the Legislature 

 when no other man of his party had been able to 

 Bucceed. 



The Shakers at Alfred. 



We had anticipated much pleasure in visiting 

 the Shakers at Alfred, who there live as at Can- 

 terbury and Enfield within the limits of our own 

 State, in three separate families or communities ; 

 and on onr arrival on the evening of the 3d July, 

 found it iiad been arranged that we should spend 

 with them the Monday following. Our own ar- 

 rangementjs prevented a tarry until that time, so 

 that we made only a hasty call on the morning of 

 the 4th. This Society is not quite as old as our fa- 

 vorite establishments in New Hampshire ; and it 

 will be no disparagement to thein to say that they 

 are not quite as tar in advance of their neighbors 

 about them in the improvements of the day as our 

 Canterbury and Enfield friends. Their grounds 

 consist of some thousand or more acres situated 

 upon the northern declivity of a hill and running 

 down to a brook (-)f an extensive meadow adjacent 

 to a beautiful ]iond of water of a mile or more in 

 extent, it was the morning of the fourth of July 

 when the outward world seemed to be moving to 

 Borne great meeting of one or the other opposing 

 political parties. The Shakers were all at labor in 

 tlieir fields with the cx(;cption of Deac. Freeman 

 who remained at the oftice of business to attend to 

 Calls with another Elder in tlie gardens and a 

 jounger man shooting the mischievous birds pur- 

 loining the garden seed.-^, and an aged veteran 

 nearly eighty years of age who had resided in the 

 family ever since its commencement, fif>y-two 

 years ago, iramed Elias Philpot, at work in the 

 yard wheeling and piling wood. Tlieir garden for 

 the production of vegetables and seeds was what 

 We always expect to see when we visit a Shaker 

 family in the summer season ; they had recently 

 elected an extensive seed house, in the lower story 

 of which were preparation rooms for labelling and 

 packing seeds, and in the two upper stories ample 

 gpace was given for drying, curing, thrashing and 

 cleaning the seeds as they are collected from the 

 field. 



The persevering attention which the several So- 

 cieties of Shakers have paid to the production of 

 Garden Seeds for many years, commends them to 

 the public patronage. They have steadily pursued 

 this business for more than half a century; and 

 they are not a people to relax in any laudable ef- 

 fort which is likely to be crowned wilii success. 

 Others following their example have gone exteii- 

 •ively into the production of garden seeds; but 



the growth of the country still affords the consump- 

 tion which induces the Shakers to continue this as 

 a profitable business. Of them useful lessons may 

 always be taken in every thing connected with do- 

 mestic economy and in the productions of the earth. 

 If they raise garden seeds, they know how to pre- 

 serve the pure varieties of onions, beets, carrots, 

 cabbages, melons, squashes, &c. not suffering them 

 to intermix by growing in near contact ; and they 

 are in advance of most other horticulturists in a 

 more sure and better n.elhod of curing and preser- 

 ving seeds. 



The best bnru iu the State. 



The barn at the office family at Alfred is one of 

 the largest and most perfect buildings of the kind 

 iu iNew England. It is 1'14 feet in length by about 

 50 feet in width, and three stories in height from 

 the basement to the plates; on one end say thirty 

 feet beam, and at the other end froir. eighteen to 

 twenty feet. Tlie entrance to the barn with load- 

 ed teams of hay and grain is on the third or upper 

 story. As the building stands on a side hill reach- 

 ing up and down lengthwise, the entrance is of no 

 very steep ascent on the upper end of the barn. The 

 load of hay is pitched down either up'Ui the scaffold- 

 ing over the cattle stalls, or where there is no stall 

 to the doubly depth of the bays below. The quan- 

 tity of hay orotherbarn material that this building 

 will contain after leaving ample space for the cat- 

 tle is immense ; and Instead of disposing of the 

 hay by lifting and pitching overhead, the greater 

 portion is merely thrown over. The ample barn 

 floor extending the whole length nf the building is 

 constructed on the principle of a moderately Incli- 

 ned plane, so that the empty cart or other vehicle 

 separated from the oxen or horses runs back of it- 

 self to the entrance without backing the whole to- 

 gether, as is ordinarily done iu common barns 

 where there cannot be a passage through. This 

 upper entrance and floor are at no time an inter- 

 ference with the floor below fronting the cattle 

 stalls from which they are supplied with their daily 

 food. On this story a? an unusual convenience in 

 a common barn were apartments for keeping cows 

 expected soon to calve, and for keeping the nurs- 

 ing calves. In [he basement beneath the cattle 

 stalls on the one side the manure and urine are 

 dropped down to be kept under cover, and on the 

 other side was a capacious cellar in which root 

 crops are kept free from frost during the winter. 

 In the rear of the cattle-stall side of the barn is a 

 large barn yard hollowed out from the centre to the 

 sides so as to catch and retain the strength of eve- 

 ry thing running Into it. Into this yard, which 

 had been cleared of every thing the p.nst spring, 

 loads of black luuck or mud from the swamp at no 

 verv great distance liad been recently carti.-d. The 

 cattle kept here or hogs running upon and work- 

 ing it over in the course of the summer convert 

 every material deposited in ayard tliusconstructed 



into an extra quantity of the very best manure. 



Tlie barn and the seed house <tnd garden adja- 

 cent were all that we had opportunity to inspect 

 upon the premises of the Alfred t^nitod Brethren. 

 This people are every where so much alike that we 

 were hardly under the necessity of visltiuT them 

 within doors to form an adequate opinion of their 

 great comforts and improvement.^. The women of 

 those Societies are by no means behind the men in 

 all the arrangements of domestic life : indeed the 

 perfect neatness of the interior of their habitations, 

 the excellent preparations of food making the most 

 ordinary articles palateable and inviting, the per- 

 fection of household manufactures as exhibited in 

 articles made from wool, cotton and flax, the great 

 skill and neatness In the management of the dair}', 

 the excellent arrangement in the laundry depart- 

 ment — all goes to show that the females are no 

 less ingenious, industrious and persevering than 

 the male brethren, whose fruits and whose thrift 

 are the best evidence in favor of their works. 

 Men and means of Thrift. 



The village of Alfred, central in the county of 

 York, is at no very great distance from the town 

 of Lyman on the southeast. Passing through the 

 latter, one rood leads to Saco, and further westan- 

 otiier leads to Kennebunk. Our course on leaving 

 Alfred was over the latter road : for about half the 

 distance the ground on either hand is diversified 

 by alternate moderate swells and vallles ; and the 

 farming part ©f Lyman, much resembling that on 

 the hills round about Alfred, is above mediocrity. 

 There were good fields of grass and of corn and 

 potatoes most of the way. 



Half way from Lyman to Kennebunk we come 

 to the stand where the elder Theodore Lyman, for 

 many years known as one of the most wealthy 

 merchants of New England, commenced and car- 

 ried on businees more than fifty years ago. The 



Lyman family, we believe, were natives of the old 

 town of York, and members of it were extensive 

 proprietors of wild lands iu that county. At no 

 very great distance to the northwest of the village 

 of Alfred, a gentleman whose name we have for- 

 gotten, owns one or more thousand acres of pine 

 timber, whose value may be estimated from the 

 fact that he frequently receives as high a price as 

 twenty-five and thirty dollars for a single standing 

 tree in the forest. It is said that this man purchas- 

 ed patch after patch of this pine timber land of the 

 Lymans many years ago by cutting, preparing and 

 drawing pine timber to old York, a distance of 

 more tlian twenty miles, for which he was allowed 

 on delivery only at the rate of three dollars the 

 mcaRiired thousand: the same timber at the same 

 point is now worth from fifteen to twenty dollars 

 the thousand. 



.\notlier fact going to illustrate the value of the 

 oriirinal and larger timber trees may be mentioned. 

 In passing towards Alfred across the Sanford plains 

 we met three teams, each ©f some three or four 

 yokes of oxen, loaded with a single pine stick pre- 

 pared for the mast of a ship. On inquiry we found 

 these teams had come across the country from 

 Bridgton in the upper part of Cumberland county, 

 and that the price expected for each stick when 

 taken to tide-water at South Berwick was to be 

 from one hundred and twenly to one hundred and 

 fifiy dollars. 



We have had occasion to mark in several of tlie 

 Interior towns of New England the particular spot 

 where a man who in a series of years had after- 

 wards gathered a large estate in the city, first com- 

 menced business in a very humble manner — retail- 

 ln<r first, tnread, pins and needles, with now and 

 then a pound of sugar, a quarter of bohea, an ounce 

 of spice, a few yards of quality or tape, a peck to 

 a half bushel of salt, a pint of new rum, or a quart 

 of molasses. If the dealing had been in gallons, 

 pounds or hundreds, a single purchase might have 

 exhausted the whole stock. Small and humble 

 are the means of the most successful accumulation 

 of wealth, as the cases of the Lymans, the Thorn, 

 dikes, the Parkmans, the Appletons, and the Park- 

 ers at the metropolis of New England will verify; 

 but the fact is no less remarkable, as exemplified 

 in some of these cases, that a single generation dis- 

 sipates to the four winds, more speedily than It was 

 gained, the Immense wealth that pours itself into 

 the lap of a man of enterprise. 



A suggestion relative to the Kennebunk 

 Plains. 



From the Lyman stand, now a naked farmhouse 

 of not so ln?iting an aspect as many others at no 

 great distance, to Kennebunk, about six miles is 

 one continued extended plain. On this plain are 

 a few scattered farm houses. The plain did not 

 appear to have suffered as much from drought as 

 the region of light lands about Alfred— a circum- 

 stance which proved to our saiisfaction that its 

 clayey foundation was capable of sustaining a large 

 vegetable growth sliould the means of renovation 

 be applied to the soil. Considering its nearness 

 at no great elevation above the sea, we could not 

 but entertain the strong conviction that there must 

 be a marl bed underlaying the whole of this exleu- 

 slve jilain, and when the riches of this undersoil 

 shall be understood with the jiroper method of ap- 

 plying it, the whole extent of it will become the 

 most valued cultivated land. 



Kennebunk and Kennebunk Port. 



Kennebunk was formerly a part of the town of 

 Wells, and taken from Its easterly side: it extends 

 from the sea some eight miles, and is bounded on 

 the northeast In its greatest length by Kennebunk 

 river, which divides it from Kennebunk port. The 

 village of Kennebunk has not much increased for 

 the last twenty years. It has the advantage of the 

 Mousuni, another considerable river besides the 

 Kennebunk ; at the village on the former river is 

 an extensive and beautiful cotton factory owned 

 principally bv Philadelphia proprietors, which for 

 some reason has been stopped for more than a year 

 past. The village of Kennebunk Port is situated 

 about three miles below Kennebunk on the same 

 river. At these two places formerly a large num- 

 ber of ships were ov>ned, and an extensive West 

 India trade was carried on by the owners : the bu- 

 siness has much fallen off, and tlie navigation re- 

 maining is principally employed in the freighting, 

 coasting and fishing business. Kennebunk Port 

 is a little larger than Kennebunk : the former con- 

 tains a population ofabout 3000— the latter some 

 five hundred less. Kennebunk Port embraces the 

 (rreater part of the ancient town of Arundel, and 

 extends back into the country from a point in the 

 sea a distance of about ten miles. Kennebunk 



