1855. 



NEW ENGLAND E.IRMER. 



323 



Washington now numbers about fifty thousand 

 inhabitants. Its "magnificent distances" are 

 fast filling up with dwellings and public build- 

 ings. The new wings of the Capitol, and the 

 new dome to be added, will make it the most 

 magnificent edifice upon the continent. The Pa 

 tent ofBce,built of white marble upon a basement 

 of granite, is a structure of which any nation 

 might be proud. The broad grounds of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, laid out and planted 

 under the direction of the lamented Downing, 

 and Lafayette Square in front of the President's 

 mansion, the work of the same master, are con- 

 stantly proclaiming the triumphs of his art and 

 genius. "The circle" of about one and a half 

 acres, near Georgetown, and the triangular 

 spaces laid out by George Washington himself, 

 in his original plan of the city, are now under- 

 going improvement and will be soon rescued from 

 "the reign of the bare and the bald," and made 

 green and beautiful. More than five thousand 

 trees have been planted the last and present sea- 

 sons upon the public streets, under the direction 

 of the Commissioner of Public Buildings and 

 Grounds, who is no other than the friend and 

 brother before mentioned. Yerily, there are 

 pleasant views that we may take of this goodly 

 city, and no one can fail to be impressed with the 

 foresight and wisdom and faith of the Father of 

 his Country, as the beauty and symmetry in the 

 plan of the town generally unfolds itself to meet 

 the increasing wants of the government and the 

 citizens. 



But, it is not in the city alone, that improve- 

 ment is going on. Upon all the principal thor- 

 oughfiires into the country, the value of land for 

 its products is beginning to be appreciated. A 

 thorough and intelligent cultivation is finding a 

 profit where shallow j'llowing and shallow plow- 

 men could not find a subsistence. I have before 

 given you a sketch of one of these improved 

 farms, owned l)y Mr. IMorrison, a native of New 

 Hampshire. The Yankees are doing wonders 

 both in this region and many parts of Virginia, 

 upon what were considered worn out lands. A 

 Virginia gentlemen whom I met recently in a 

 railroad car, informed me that in his own neigh- 

 borhood. Northern men were setting a valuable 

 example, and that he himself had adopted the 

 new idea of deep plowing, and was getting eight 

 barrels or forty bushels of corn, where he former- 

 ly got but three or four barrels. He said a {qw 

 years ago a negro and a man were the only force 

 used to plow for corn, the plow being run from 

 two to three inches deep. lie liad been travelling 

 in New England, and spoke higldy in praisj of 

 the energy and industry of the people, which he 

 thouglit on Virginia soil would make them inde- 

 pendent. He saitl he thought one free laborer at 



the North performed about three times as much 

 work as a slave ! 



Good husbandry and energetic farming, are, 

 however, not limited to New England men. I 

 yesterday accepted an invitation from a leading 

 merchant of this city, Mr. Darius Claggett, to 

 visit his farm on the Piockville plank road, about 

 five miles from Washington. His family reside 

 on the farm in summer, and Mr. Claggctt him- 

 self comes to his city business every day except 

 Sunday and Friday. 



I have rarely seen a place which gave so decid- 

 ed evidence of good taste and good judgment, and 

 withal, of such persevering fixith in our good 

 mother earth, as this. Six years ago Mr. Clag- 

 gctt purchased three hundred acres of land, most- 

 ly covered with a small growth of yellow pine en- 

 tirely unimproved. In this short period of time 

 he has cleared and put under the plow one hun- 

 dred and fifty acres, a large part of which is cov- 

 ered with a choice variety of fruit trees of all de- 

 scrijitions that the climate will produce. His 

 trees appear to be judiciously selected, carefully 

 pruned and protected, and making a growth far 

 beyond what I have ever seen at the North. He 

 has already 2500 apple trees, 450 pears, 1600 

 peaches, 150 apricots and as many plums. 



The apple trees are set forty feet apart, and 

 the land among them planted with wheat in 

 drills, with bare strips of a few feet in width 

 along the rows. They are making generally a 

 better growth than we get in New Hampshire. I 

 saw upon them marks of our old enemy, the bor- 

 er, and far worse marks of the seven teen-ycar-lo- 

 custs of 1852. According to the theory, they 

 will not be here again until 18G9, by which time 

 our friend will, it is hoped, have been paid by 

 the fruit of his trees for all his labors. He said 

 that when the locusts had possession of his trees, 

 he could scrape from the b^dy of a newly-set ap- 

 ple tree a pint of the insects at once ! His pear 

 trees, however, far excel his apples. Indeed, I 

 have never seen so large a number of pears to- 

 gether, that appeared so healthy and as we say at 

 home, so thrifty as these. 1 saw no sign of the 

 sap-blight or winter-killing, but the trees seemed 

 full of life, and many of them were full of fruit 

 already set. The peach orchard is already set 

 for a large crop. In 1853, Mr. C. sent to the 

 market 700 baskets of peaches, and his crop this 

 year will probably far exceed that quantity. He 

 has this year in grass, about 20 acres, in wheat 

 about the same, in corn about 40 acres, and in 

 potatoes, about 12 acres besides large tracts of 

 vegetables and small fruits, among the rest two 

 acres of strawberries. He manures all his crops 

 with Peruvian guano, 300 pounds to the acre, 

 plowed in, and thinks this will insure him abun- 

 dant crops. 



