214 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



Jan. 23, 1829. 



passes from one country or place to anotlier, with- 

 out finding niucli to aUniiro and to increase bis 

 store of knowledge. 



5. It furnishes a healthful and instructive 

 amusement to the young. Wherever it has been 

 introduced into schools, tlie pupils have devoted 

 more or less of their pastnne to examining and 

 collecting specimens from the minerals around 

 them. 



6. It teaches children to be observing. A 

 thousand objects before unnoticed press upon 

 their view, and their imagination and taste are 

 inmiediately put u])on the alert and called to a 

 useful exercise in discriminating between the 

 beautiful and the ileformed. 



7. Wherever it has been introduced it has led 

 to the discovery of deposits of useful minerals be- 

 fore unknown, and has already increased to a vast 

 amount of individual and national wealth ; and if 

 generally understood could hardly fail of opening 

 many more sources of industry and of wealth. 



8. It would tend to forward scientific and ac- 

 curate geological surveys as the foundation of 

 Geological maps, and prepare the public to profit 

 by them. 



9. No science is more practical. It acquaints 

 farmers with the nature of their soils, and the 

 methods of improving them ; civil engineers with 

 the materials for constructing roads, canals, rail- 

 ways, dams, wharves, &c. and the proper method 

 of combining them ; artists with the origin and na- 

 ture of their paints, and the miner when and how 

 to extend his researches, and points him to a re- 

 ward for his labors, and cautions him against 

 abortive attempts. 



10. It is favorable to morals. The more inno- 

 cent and useful amusements are scattered around 

 the young, the less time and disposition they will 

 have, to ))ursue those which are pernicious or use- 

 less. Besides, few subjects are better fitted to 

 show the power and wisdom of Him who weigh- 

 ed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a bal- 

 ance. 



11. It is easily acquired. The features of this 

 science are not only striking and grand, but they 

 are few and simple, and exactly fitted to the ju- 

 venile mind. And by the aid of specimens with 

 appropriate descriptions, its general principles are 

 more easily and readily miderstood, than of any 

 other science which is taught. 



12. It is necessary. Without it gazeteers, and 

 common journals of travels, cannot be understood; 

 and a person is liable to find himself ignorant of 

 the most common to|>ics of conversation in the 

 society he will frequently meet. 



AGRICOLA. 



JVEWJilNGLAND FARMER. 

 BOSTON, FRIDAY, JAN. 23, 1829. 



RAIL ROAD REPORT. 



The Report of the Board of Directors of Inter- 

 nal Improvements on the practicability and expe- 

 diency of a Rail Road from Boston to the Hudson 

 River, and from Boston to Providence, was sub- 

 mitted to the Legislature on the 16th inst. together 

 with the reports of the engineers, employed by the 

 board, containing the results of their surveys and 

 estimates. These interesting and very important 

 documents ha;-e been printed in a pamplilet of 

 more than 200 pages. It would not be possible 

 to give sketches of the contents of this pamphlet 



suflicicntly in detail to be intelligible and useful 

 without exceeding our limits. Besides, a suunnary 

 view of the reports, «S:c, has been |)rinted hi the 

 Boston Daily Adveiliser of the 17th inst. and oc- 

 cu])ies nearly three closely pointed cohumis of that 

 paper. W'e shall therefore, at ])resenl, merely copy 

 the closing remarks iii the Report of the Directoi-s, 

 which, together whh the matter which precedes it, 

 are as favorable to the great objects contemplated 

 as could be hoped for, or even wished by the 

 friends to internal improvement. 



" The Directors therefore respectfully recommend 

 to the Legislature to adopt measures for the con- 

 struction of rail roads on the general routes to Al- 

 bany and to Providence which have been pointed 

 out, leaving the precise location to be selected by 

 the persons who shall be entrasted with the exe- 

 cution of the work. As however the execution of 

 the whole of these works would necessarily occupy 

 a j)eriod of three or four years, and as a much 

 safer judgment may be formed, of the cost and 

 usefulness of the work, and of the comparative 

 advantages of the mode of construction here re- 

 commended, after an experiment shall have been 

 made on a ])art of one of the proposed routes, if is 

 recommended that the operations of the first year 

 shall be principally limited to the eastern section 

 of the western route, and that such portion of tiie 

 rfiute only, beginning from Boston, shall be under- 

 taken within the year, as it may be thought will 

 be nearly completed. In pursuance of these views 

 they recommend that a board of competent uidi- 

 viduals be fonned, with authorit}-, subject at all 

 times to the control of the Legislature, to employ 

 the necessary engineers and agents, and take all 

 necessary measures, for constructing the aforesaid 

 rail roads to Albany and to Providence, and to 

 raise the necessai-y sums of money from time to 

 time, by loans in the name of the state, on stocks, 

 bearing 4.^ per cent interest, payable quarterly, and 

 rcindjursed at any term from 15 to 20 years at 

 their discretion." This able and elaborate report 

 has the signatures of the following gentlemen, viz. 

 Levi Lincoln, Nathan Hale, Stephen White, David 

 Ilcnshaw, Thomas W. Ward, Royal Makepeace, 

 George Bond, W^illiam Foster, Edward H. Rob- 

 bins, Jr. 



SAGACITY OF THE HORSE. 



Having recently noticed in a foreign paper, that 

 a man falling from his horse into the river, was 

 seized liy the animal and safely brought ashore, 

 reminds us of a letter received from Stcnhenville, 

 Ohio, in June last, addressed to a son of the editor, 

 then in the village. " Joseph L. returned home 

 last evening, and this mortiing related to me, with 

 tears in his eyes, a most remarkable and almost in- 

 credible circinnstance. Arri\-ing at a creek, which 

 the late heavy rains had rendered it hazardous to 

 swim, he dismounted from his horse, and attemptcfl 

 to cress the creek on a tree that bad fallen across 

 it, holding the bridle in his hand, and compelling 

 the horse to swim alongside. After he arrived 

 about irndway, the current became so rapid that 

 JVaity could not keep his course, but broke from 

 him, anil Joseph fell from the tree into the creek. 

 He caught by a limb, and the horse swam to the 

 shore, and then timied round to see what had be- 

 come of his rider. His situation, consequently, was 

 of great danger, as he Ibimil it impossible to regain 

 the tree. He was eight or ten miles from any 

 house, and became much alanned, as his strengtli 

 was fast failing. At this critical moment, Xatitj 



plunged into the creek on tlie op])Osite side of the 

 tree, swam around it to where Joseph was, stopped 

 quietly until he mounted him, and then swam to 

 the shore with Joseph on his back ! This stoiy, 

 as incredible as it may seem, you will believe to 

 be true. What a noble animal ! and how miu!h 

 the more nmst you now prize him. — Broome Re- 

 publican. 



HONEY. 



Is there any man who has so httle of a " sweet 

 tooth in his head" that he will pass by a cup of 

 lioncy, leaving it like an indift(;rent thing ? It is 

 not like one of the deleterious inventions of man — 

 it is not like molasses, that a yankee loves in his 

 youth, but swallows in a more fiery shape as he 

 grows old — but the taste for honey is not to bo 

 lost, nor is there danger in its indulgence. Here 

 is a field for taking advantage of the industry of 

 bees, that we neglect in New England ; and it is a 

 neglect of self-interest — (of which our enemies 

 would in other things be slow to accuse us.) The 

 troidjle of keeping ten swarms of bees is not equal 

 to that of keeping one dog, be he 



" Mongrel, puppy, whelp, or hound, 

 Or cur ol low degree." 



and the profit from ten swarms would put in the 

 farmer's ]i<icket fifty dollars a year, — whereas To w- 

 ser and Tyger, or Wolf or Lion, woidd cost twen- 

 tyfivc for food, and tricks and lawsuits for worrying 

 sheej). The dog also, if he be quajTclsome, will 

 make his master cultivate his angry passions — for 

 who will in)t back his dog ? or wiio will not figiit 

 for him ? 



But v^hat difterent lessons woidd be set by the 

 bees ; ,.ji'dustry, order, sidiorcUnation, the mathe- 

 inatics-,,' ")d defence, even to death, of their homes. 

 Vic hope to sec the bees in proportion to the flow- 

 ers which are sufiered to waste away lilie an un- 

 married beauty — raising admiration — but leaving 

 no profitable legacy as a trace of brief existence. — 

 Boston Evening Gazelle. 



ESKIMAUX DOGS. 



It is stated in the Jomnal of Capt. Parry's expe- 

 <!ition to discover a northwest passage, that "when 

 the surface of the snow is good for travelling, six 

 or seven dogs will draw from eight to ten himdred 

 weight, at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour 

 for several horns together, and will easily, under 

 these circinnstances, perform a journey of fifty or 

 sixty miles a day." 



ADVANTAGES OF GOOD ROADS. 



Dr Anderson, in his Rural Recrealions states, 

 that "Around every market jdace you may suppose 

 a number of concentric circles drawij, within each 

 of which certain articles become marketable, which 

 were not so Isefore, and thus become the som-cts 

 of wealth and prosiierity to many individuals. Di- 

 minish the expense of caiTiage but one farthine, 

 and you widen the circle ; you form as it were a 

 new creation, not only of stones and earth, and 

 trees and plants, but men also ; and what is more, 

 of indiisiry and ha])piness." 



BAD ROADS AND BARBARISM. 



The Abbe Raynal remarks, " Let us travel over 

 all tlie countries of the earth, and where\'er w© 

 shall find no facility of trading from a city to a 

 town, and from a village to a hamlet, we may pro- 

 nounce the people to be barbarous ; ami we shall- 

 only ho deceived respecting tlie degree of barba-. 

 r:sm." 



