500 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



keep from one to two hundred sheep, but will 

 realize a loss annually of ten per cent. Although 

 constant care and attention to their wants are 

 carefully looked after, yet disease overtakes 

 numbers of the flock ; while they are treated 

 with the utmost vigilance as rare animals it 

 would do very well ; but this is practical only 

 with a very limited stock. 



Let the principle be observed, for experience 

 has shown that between sheep well and tolera- 

 bly fed, there is a difference of one-third, in re- 

 gard to the quantity of wool obtained. And then- 

 again, it is only by such abundant food that the 

 smallest amount of mortality, as well as the larg- 

 est increase, and that development of their ani- 

 mal organism which gives the sheep in all peri- 

 ods of its age the highest capacities of breeding 

 and fattening, can be secured. J. Whitney. 



East Sullivan, N. H. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 LETTER FROM MAJOR FRENCH. 



Lancaster, Mass., Sept. 13, 1858. 



Deae, Brown : — My letter of Aug. 3d, dated 

 at Danvers, closed with a promise that I would 

 say something of Mr. R. S. Fay's beautifully ro- 

 mantic farm at Lynn, when I next wrote. 



It was so long ago that I have almost forgot- 

 ten what I intended to say. One thing attend- 

 ing Mr. Fay's farm worthy of note, is the im- 

 mense number of forest trees he has planted 

 upon it. Not only the elegant avenue of per- 

 haps a quarter of a mile is bordered with them, 

 but acres and acres of his land are overspread 

 with them, and of the most choice kinds, too. 

 Mr. Fay is working well for posterity, and if the 

 blessings of the living are available to those who 

 have gone hence. Mi*. Fay will have his rewai-d. 



I wish I could describe to you Mr. Fay's farm, 

 but I cannot. It is formed of hill and vale, and 

 one side, at least, borders on a beautiful little 

 lake. The hill part is very pleasantly impressed 

 upon my mind by one of ^Ir. Fay's witticisms. 

 There happened to be on a hill in plain view 

 from the lawn fronting Mr. Fay's mansion, some 

 of his men loadiag hay on to a cart. The pros- 

 pect, itself, was very picturesque, but the men, 

 oxen, cart and hay, added so much to the beau- 

 ty of the scene, that it was remarked upon, when 

 Mr. Fay observed "that it was his delight to fur- 

 nish his visitors with handsome views, and he 

 always kept those men there with their cart and 

 oxen, to commence loading hay when visitors 

 came ! !" I hardly knew which most to appre- 

 ciate, the cleverness of the idea, or the cleverness 

 of the wit. 



We had only an hour or two to spend with 

 Mr. Fay, so he hurried us about his place, and 

 showed us as much as would have occupied a 

 week, properly to appreciate. A pair of most 

 beautiful heifers and a bull (Ayrshire, I believe, 

 but am not certain) were our special delight. He 

 said he had been offered $500 for the heifers, by 

 a gentleman in Washington City, and refused it. 



In farming utensils I think Mr. Fay cannot be 

 beat on tlus side of the Atlantic, for many of his 

 "gimcracks" were from England, and to a Yan- 

 kee eye which had never looked upon the like, 

 they were funny enough. An English plow, not 



quite a rod long, perhaps, but, likeBanquo's line 

 of kings, amazing long, and resembling the 

 man's horse, that he said could stretch himself 

 into a horse and a half, was among the curiosi- 

 ties of the place ; and an English drill machine, 

 (I think it was,) at any rate it was a thing, that 

 appeared to me about as intricate as a carpet 

 loom, with all its "fixins," and I should think it 

 would require considerable drilling before a man 

 would perfectly understand the use of it, was 

 also on exhibition. They were curiosities indeed, 

 to me at least, and I was glad to see them, but I 

 really do not believe a common farmer would find 

 them a profitable investment, and I somewhat 

 doubt whether Mr. Fay does. 



From Gen. Sutton's, where my last letter was 

 written, I went to Boston, and had the pleasure 

 of taking you by the hand for the first time since 

 my present visit to New England. Since then, 

 as you know, I have been almost constantly mov- 

 ing. Your columns bear witness to my visit at 

 the Isle of Shoals — but there is not much farm- 

 ing done there ! We did up considerable fun, 

 however, and ate considerable fish. 



You may have a faint recollection of my visit, 

 after my return from the Shoals, to a certain 

 Ex-Lieut. Governor of Massachusetts, where a 

 chowder party made one grand feature of the vis- 

 it not soon to be forgotten ; and where, for the 

 first time in thirty years (I won't go too far back) 

 I held a breaking-up-plow, and I turned a good 

 furrow, too ! But, my stars ! what a differertce 

 between the iron plow I held last week, with its 

 elegantly curved mould-board, its cutting knife, 

 its graduating roller under the beam, and the 

 team of one yoke of oxen and a horse that drew 

 it, and my honored father's old breaking-up 

 plow, with its wooden mould-board, roughly 

 strapped with iron, its beam, tliut was a beam, 

 almost heavy enough to work into a beam for a 

 barn, with a sort of shoe- shaped affair mortised 

 into it, to keep the plow from going in too deep, 

 and a man to ride on the beam to keep it in far 

 enough, and then four or six full "six-feet" oxen 

 that hauled it — 



"I tell yeou" 

 That was the way we ' put her through," 



in those days, and that was plowing! Modern 

 improvement is about as manifest in the improve- 

 ments made in plows as in anything I know of. 



I flitted from Concord here the other day, and 

 I propose to entertain you with a short account 

 of my goings-about in this beautiful town, and 

 what I have seen in my rambles. 



They call New Haven "The City of Elms." I 

 am not well enough posted as to the trees in 

 New Haven to form an opinion as to the propri- 

 ety of that appellation, but if there is a toivn in 

 New England that deserves the name of "The 

 town of Elms," Lancaster, in this old Common- 

 wealth, is that town. 



Turn your eyes which way you will, from al- 

 most any locality hei'e, and they are gi'eeted with 

 magnificent elms. The Saturday prior to my ar- 

 rival here, the last limb of an old elm, which 

 measured, it is said, 22 feet in circumference, 

 fell, and two men have been constantly engaged 

 in chopping upon it, for an entire week, and it is 

 not half chopped into firewood yet ! I measured 

 an elm l^tween the village and the Female In- 

 dustrial ochool, a little off the main road, and, 



