1855. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



61 



Mr. Durand, he replied, "I cannot afford to let 

 our land lie idle, — there is no if nor and about 

 it, — I must have a team and do something." He 

 did have a team, and soon told me he had thirty 

 acres in wheat, but then he must have a large 

 barn and other "improvements," which left noth- 

 ing from his crops for the mortgage. The result 

 was, that long after the mortgage was "out," 

 not having enough of the Shylock in my compo- 

 sition to "foreclose," an exchange for newer and 

 cheaper land was effected ; and if the good wo- 

 man and her children wore not cxactlj' turned 

 out of house and home, as shepre<licted, they had 

 to exchange the old home, with its garden and 

 beautiful young orchard, for one without these 

 comforts, and without the associations that clus- 

 ter around the "first place." Nearly twenty 

 years have elapsed, and that mortgage is still 

 alive — only a part of the principal, to say noth- 

 ing of interest, then loaned, has found its way 

 back to my pocket. 



No. 3. Secured by a mortgage on a small 

 New England farm , I loaned a small sum of mo- 

 ney. The mortgagor never paid a cent of either 

 principal or interest, but long after the notes 

 were "over due," they were paid in full bj- a son 

 of his who was a merchant's clerk, and wished to 

 give his parents a home. 



No. 4. Lastly, for a few years as mortgagor, 

 I have tried "living under" a mortgage on a 

 small farm. I had but just shaken it from my 

 shoulders, when I commented so warmly upon 

 Mr. Durand's recommendation of mortgages, and 

 made the awkward, but, I think, very natural 

 comparison of the "nightmai'e." With a pretty 

 large family to support, with semi-annual inter- 

 est to meet, with a grim "j^rincipal" looming uji 

 in the rear but not in the distance, and with the 

 income of the labor of but a single pair of hands, 

 if a man don't experience something like the 

 "nightmare," then what docs he experience? 



So much for my trials of mortgages. From what 

 I have seen of their operation in other hands, I 

 believe that my four experiments may be taken 

 as a fair average of the whole," were their history 

 to be as honestly Avritten. 



We thence infer that of every four mortga- 

 ges which are fastened on farms, two, or one- 

 half of the whole, unhouse the mortgagor or his 

 descendants ; and of those that are paid, one- 

 half are indebted to trade, or some source other 

 than farming, for the means with which it is 

 done. 



Did I, then, make "an uncommon great bug- 

 bear out of very small materials?" "A little 

 shows what a great deal means ;" and on this 

 principle I wish to be excused fi)r parading so 

 much of my personal history, and for my appi'C- 

 ciation of the "materials" it affLirds, not to 

 "frighten" but to caution. 



In contrast with the mortgage yirinciple in 

 general, and with that of my No. 3 in particu- 

 lar, as well as to illustrate the truth of the ad- 

 age, that "where there's a will, there's a way," 

 even without a resort to mortgages, 1 wish to 

 give the outlines of the history of another ^lich- 

 igan farmer, who had just money enough to 

 "take up," at government price, an eighty-acre 

 lot of timl)cred land, jiay fn- a ow, a small pair 

 of oxen with yoke and' cliain. F.'Uing a few 

 trees, his neighbors helped Jiim put up a cabin. 



jWith his axe and a borrowed auger he made 

 chairs, tables, milkpans, and a bedstead which 

 was corded with strans of bark. 



He then went bravely at the giant oaks but it 

 was slow work to clear off their huge trunks, and 

 he soon saw that liims^lf and wife, his oxen and 

 cow might starve Ijefore he could get in and har- 

 vest a crop. lie was ashamed to beg, and would 

 not borrow. So he brwke up "housekeeping," 

 left big land to "lie unimproved," and let him- 

 self by the month to purchase provisions for a fu- 

 ture campaign against the noble old forest mon- 

 archs. After clearing land a few years, but mak- 

 ing rather slow progress, he exchanged his eighty 

 acres of timbered land for one-half as manv of 

 "Openings" which were mostly subdued. Here 

 he soon got a start in the world ; improved his 

 buildings ; bought more land ; collected about 

 him the conveniences of life, and years ago, ad- 

 mitted to me that he had as much property as he 

 wanted. 



I will here remark, that I regard a mortgage 

 for the purchase-money of real estate, as quite a 

 different thing from one for "improvements," or 

 conveniences of any kind. Two of my four mort- 

 gages were given for the purchase-money of the 

 premises ; and both these wore paid off. But 

 enough has been written on this topic for once, 

 and we leave it here. 



When I wrote the caption of this article, I 

 thought of making some remarks upon Mr. Du- 

 rand's stricture on my comments on "Improving 

 Soils by Shade." If he will read the first column 

 of that article on page 499, November Farmer, in 

 connection with his own strictures, I am willing 

 to abide the decision of the tribunal to which he 

 appeals, waiving my right to the "closing argu- 

 ment." The space he occupies with comments 

 on a few lines from my review, will suggest to 

 him the impossibility of my profiting much by 

 his advice. To place the leading, or some strik- 

 ing idea of an article in a position that shall ex- 

 cite curiosity, or to present some additional hint 

 or fact, has been the humble object of my month- 

 ly medleys. Anything like the plan suggested 

 by Mr. Durand would occupy quite too much 

 space. If I have done his articles injustice by 

 my brief extracts, or by unfair criticism, it was 

 certainly unintentional. Of all the many writ- 

 ers Avhose labors have done so much to give the 

 Farmer a reputation for sound sense and practi- 

 cal value, he is the last one with whose feelings 

 I would intentionally trifle. A Readeic. 



Winchester, 1855. 



A HOME FOR ALL. 



Under this attractive title, the liouse of Fowl- 

 ers and Wells, Publishers, 142 Washington St., 

 and 308 Broadway, N. Y., have issued a neat 

 volume of 200 pages, written by 0. S. Fowlkr, 

 one of the firm. It describes the gravel-wall plan, 

 of building, and discusses tlie following heads : — 

 1. Nature's Building Materials. 2. Wood is ob- 

 jectionable. 3. Brick. 4. The Lime, Gnivel and 

 Stone Walls. 5. Selection of the material. 6. 

 Lime, its proportion, and mode of mixing. 7. 

 Placingand working the mortar-))ed. 8. Relative 

 cost of the gravel-wall. 9. Foundations. 10. 



