CONDUCTED BY ISAAC HILT.. 



lliosc who labor in the earth are the chosen -people of God, who.'^e breasts he has made hispecuUar depOiiteJ^or substantial and ge7inine virtue." — Jefferson. 



VOLUME 2. 



CONCORD, N. H. AUGUST 31, 1840. 



NUMBER 8. 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR, 



A jio.vrHLy i:EUf:rAPi:n, is published ev 



JOHN M. HILL, 



mrs Brick Blod; ConronI, M H. 



GENERA L~A GENTS, 



B. fOOKi:, Kecnc, N. H. 



TH. R. HAMPTON, Witshmgion City, D. C. 



JOHN iJARSH, li ashingtvn St. Boston. 



Tlie \'isitor will be issued on the last day ofeach moiitli. 



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The twelve numbers embracing the year 1839. or the 

 first volume of the \'ipitor, are oll'ered as a premium for 

 every ten rev/ subscribers obtained and paid for l^y one 

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Subscribers mny commence at their election, either v/ith 

 the January or July number, in each year. An Index and 

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[\ZT Communications by mail will be directed to the 

 I*ublisher, Concord, N. H. 



PoWEii PitEss E. MANSUR, PnixTi;u. 



ai.-go:tM ir cmi.-'vjnvm 





HE 



THE SHAKERS. 



Tlie cxterual apj)paraiice of tl'.i.s extraordinary 

 jicople presents to tlie .siipcrliciai observer sonie- 

 1 iiiiig wontlerliil in tlie cnconiy of human life antl in 

 ihe volition of man as tlie agent ofliis own destiny. 

 Although the lite of every created being and his 

 jjositiou and success in the \'iortd are matters of 

 luicertaiiity — altlioisgh it is not in the power of 

 mortal to juedict with accuracy what even a day 

 or an hour may bring forth ; _\et mitch more de- 

 pends ii])on lullible human exertions as to the ex- 

 tent of our enjoyments, our security troni 'wan't, 

 our peace of mind, than we generally lead our- 

 selves to believe. 



The societies of Shakers scattered through the 

 .several States of the Union, and now not mueli 

 more numerous than they were twenty, thirty 

 and fifty years ago, are .standing proof that man 

 is more the creature of mutation and change 

 ihan lie need be. That people commenced in 

 this country scon after the war of the revolution as 

 as a conimunity almost exclusively separated frcni 

 the rest of world. At first their movements were 

 characterized by an enthtisiasm that presented 

 ihcni almost like a race of supernatural beings; 

 this enthusiasm discovered itself in out'.vard acts 

 that bordered on mental liallucinatiou — spring- 

 ing and leaping, whirling, upon the heel like a 

 top, screaming at the highest pitch of the voice, 

 and declaring such revelations ;,s hoidd be accom- 

 jjlished only by supernatural agency. The en- 

 thusiasm ill the course of half a century has been 

 gtadually tempered down, so that tliere is now 

 little more of what some call superstition among 

 tills people than among the other denominations 

 of Christians. 



Keiieving that no man has a right to judge of 

 others as to matters of conscience, it will not bo 

 our purpose in this place to bring up as a mat- 

 ter for discussion the jiarticular religious belief or 

 jiractice of the Shakers : we shall leave it to them 

 to settle all spiritual matters as between their con- 

 .xcienccsand their God. 



AN INTERESTING VISIT. 



Within the last montli the editor of the Visitor 

 has taken to himself the opportunit}' of becom- 

 ing acquainted v. ith many things of which he 

 was before ignorant in relation to the Shakers. 

 AVith every facility rendered to him for all iiujui- 

 ries he should make, he spent two days with the 

 three families at CanterlJury; and he can say 

 with truth thai in no two days of his life has he 

 ever been more interested or better enjoyed the 

 acquisition of the knowledge he gained. 



A BEAUTIFUL LOCATION 



The residence of tlie Shakers of Canterbury 

 is about twelve miles from Cnucnrd. The villa- 



ges of tlie three families are situateil upon a main 

 street running in a direct line nearly north and 

 soiilli, the villages gradually rising as you ap- 

 proach from the south to overlook each other. 

 The first or parent village on the south numbers 

 about one hundred and twenty persons, and the 

 two villages above from fifty to seventy each. 

 These viltoges set upon u hill or eminence arc 

 plainly discerned with the n;dced eye upon other 

 eminences where the view is not obstructed at 

 the distance of twenty to thirty miles. 



The soil on which the Shaker villages are lo- 

 cated was more than commonly rough in its ori- 

 ginal state: many of the fields after being dives- 

 led of thousands of tons of rocks remain still 

 rocky ; and when we look at the amount of man- 

 ual labor laid out in artificial improvements 

 w hich in olher places are supplied by nature, it 

 is wonderful how this ]!eople in the course of 

 fifty years should have laid up the abimdant 

 means of good living and all the wealth th.at 

 cou.ld be useful to their entire iudepcndence of 

 the necessity of any extraneous human aid. 



Of the comforts, the conveniences and iin 

 provcmeiitsofour Canterbury friends, we hayc sat 

 ourselves down to give some description, believing 

 that the system of domestic economy adopted bv 

 the Shakers may as well consist with the object 

 of the Moi\tlily Visitor and afford not Icsscutii 

 tainment than any other matter about which ^\e 

 can write. 



Leaving home early in the morning of th'^ fiist 

 Thursday in August, we arrived with our friends 

 in season for an early breakfast ; and in that and 

 the following da)' with the genlleman that accom- 

 panied us in the field, and with the ladies (oiu' 

 wives) who visited the dwellings of the several 

 families, we were pretty constantly on foot dur- 

 ing the entire of the two days. 



THE SWINE HOUSE AND THE BERKSIIIRES. 



The first object of our attention was tlie piggery 

 of the first family. This is not a modern inven- 

 tion, fcir we remember to have visited the .same 

 e.=tublislin-ieiit nearly twenty years ago, arranged 

 niucli as it now is. it is a one-story building 

 eighty feet long by forty feet in width. At one 

 end is a well and puinp, a chimney with kettle 

 aiul apparatus for boiling potatoes and other 

 roots, a machine for mashing them when boiled, a 

 meal room witl- lock and key, and a cellar under- 

 neath in which potatoes and other aiticles that 

 will not bear frost .shall be preserved. Tho pens 

 for the hogs are apartments of some twelve 

 by twenty feet on either sitlc of an alley 

 running the length of that end of tiie buil- 

 ding ; these apartments communicaiiiig with 

 each other by a door whii-li may either be closed 

 so as to sJiut out one or more from the others — 

 and ail of these coinmunicating by doors with an 

 open yard of some eighth of an acre at one end 

 and ill re;..r of the building. This jard is well 

 adapted liir making and jircserving manure : in 

 it we oliserved a pool of standing -water to and 

 from which the swine [lassed at pleasure. .Arti- 

 ficial stairs, being simply clamps cf wood nailed 

 upmi ]ilank, were erected, so that the fattest por- 

 kers who seemed almost incapable of rising up- 

 on their feet to walk, rlambered iij) and down 

 these steps iilaced at an angle nearly of forty-five 

 degrees, with less trouljle than a fat man would 

 go up and down stairs to bed. The litter of the 

 inside pens was simple saw ihtst — an article so 

 highly valued by the Shakers that eveiy particle 

 made at their mills is preserved. Although con- 

 taining in its crude state but little of the material 

 for manure in itself, it is that perfect and clean 

 retainer of the whole strength of the hog- 

 pen ^vhich liiakes the mixture the very best of 

 manure. The places for feeding the hogs are 

 troughs set parallel and near to the alley in the 

 centre. These have a shutter or cover which 

 bv a simple contrivance is imt down or up at 

 pleasure. The shutter is put down to enable the 



food to be ])oured into the trough ; taken up, it 

 lets each hog feed in his peculiar and proper 

 ])lace without interference with any other. In 

 the outer yard we obsc'rved the Shakers were 

 making use of their coarse meadow buy rather 

 than straw as a material lor the hogs to work in- 

 to ninnure. 



Tliis piggery contained twelve liogs of the lar- 

 ger kind, as fat and as fair as any wc liave ever 

 before set eyes upon. The old Berkshires were 

 real beauties, although some oftliem were black as 

 a coal, in both color and form. These twelve hogs 

 at the time of slaughter at the age of eighteen 

 mouths, will be made to weigh an average ol 

 five hundred pounds each. The younger full 

 blood, three-fourth and half blood Berkshires 

 were remnants of several litters ; in shape and 

 countenance several of these pigs were repre- 

 sented to perfection in the following picture, 

 which has before been printed in the Visitor. 



(Fig. 19.) 



The Shakers had sold the present season of 

 these same litters, full blooded Berkshires as high 

 as thirty dollars tlic pair at six and eight weeks 

 old. Tlte introduction of the breed in almost 

 any neighborhood would render the payment of 

 the high price a profitable investment, from their 

 superiority, esijocially when mixed with almost 

 any other improved breed, as coining to early 

 maturity from their readiness to receive fat, (or 

 giving a greater quantity of flesh in proportion to 

 the amount of food consumed, for the better 

 ijuality of pork, and for larger bones in propor- 

 tion to the carcass. 



THE NOVEL ARTIFICIAL WATER. POWER. 



Our next object of attention was the artificial 

 water ])o\ver created by the first family at an al- 

 most iucrcdible amount of labor and expense. 

 The Shaker Village is situated at the high point 

 near the sources of the Soncook river running into 

 lie Merrimack from the northeast, and above the 

 mill scats found upon the stream. Here, where no 

 natural stream ever ran, they have created a 

 more permanent and durable water ])ower than 

 Ciin be found within the distance of ten miles. 

 To make this water power effective in the diy 

 as well as in wet seasons, no less tiian eight arti- 

 iiciiil ponds covering from fn e to thirty acres 

 each have been created, one rising above the 

 other, and each furnishing a stream large enough 

 (o carry different mills and factories. To feed 

 the stream with a constant sujiply of water there 

 was not at first any considerable stream or body 

 of water. It was commenced by daming around 

 a small meadow in which the melting of the 

 snow in the spring caused the water to collect. 

 Other reservoirs created in the same way succee- 

 ded to the first ; until a permanent and highly val- 

 uable water power was completed by the pur- 

 chase of u considerable swamp or morass up- 

 hill at the distance of nearly two miles, w hich 

 wasdamed up to retain the water in the same 

 manner, and from which a trench or ditch 

 through the rough stony ground was formed for 

 the whole distance. The dams which constitute 

 in some instances two sides and nearly half of a 

 reservoir have been made by n prodigious labor 

 in collecting and arranging stones and gravel. 

 It being found that the ^vater would ooze through 



