1855. 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



496 



I soon attracted the attention of the counting-house 

 and cliief clerk. I saved enough for my em{)loyers 

 in Httle things wasted to pay my wages ten times 

 over, and tliey soon found it out. I did not let any 

 person about commit petty larcenies, without remon- 

 strance and threats of exposure, and real exposure 

 if remonstrance would not do. I did not ask for 

 any ten hour law. If I was wanted at 3 A. M., 1 

 never growled, but told everybody to go home, 

 " and I will see everything right." I loaded off at 

 daybreak packages for the morning boats, or carried 

 them myself. In short, I soon became indispen- 

 sable to my employers, and I rose, and rose, until I 

 became head of the house, with money enough, as 

 j'ou see, to give me any luxury or any position a 

 mercantile man may desire for himself and children 

 in this great city. 



Fitr tlie New England Fanner. 



THE PLUM. 



Many accounts of the failure of the plum crop 

 have appeared in agricultural papers from various 

 localities within a few years, and many methods of 

 destroying the curculio or preventing their ravages, 

 have been suggested. In many instiinces, the 

 whole ])roduct of the trees drop prematurely, and 

 flowering profusely hi spring is no certain indica- 

 tion of an abundant harvest. In this immediate vi- 

 cinity the ])kun has been nearly as j)roductive as 

 any other kind of fruit. For several years the cur- 

 culio h IS not attacked them so generally, and many 

 trees are now laden with fruit so as to require 

 propping in order to prevent breaking down. The 

 greatest obstacle in growing tlie fruit here is the 

 rotting on the tree before ripening; tliis is the case 

 with the Washington, Imperial Gage, and some 

 others ; many kinds are not ati'ected in ttiis way. 



The plum is readily propagated by grafting or 

 budding, and makes a rapid growth. I measured 

 one shoot from a scion, which I set a few years 

 since, which grew six feet six inches in one season ; 

 five feet is not an uncommon growth. The ])lum 

 should be grafted as early as the season will admit, 

 although it will succeed much later than^the cherry. 

 I have sometimes put in scions from the first to the 

 middle of May which grew readily : the first part of 

 April is perhaps the most ])roj)er time however. — 

 The wild species, which grows abundantly in New 

 York, and many other j)laces, makes a good stock 

 on which to engraft the finer varieties. There are 

 many of these trees in this region which have been 

 obtained from other i)laces ; they seldom produce 

 any fruit here, and when they do, it is nearly worth- 

 less. I have grafted many of them which yield an 

 abundance of fruit of superior varieties. The beach 

 plum, which is found on the sea-shore of this State 

 in various j)Iaces, grows vigorously in the midst of 

 drifting sand and the s])ray of the ocean, it has 

 been s lid, will not succeed in the interior ; it has oc- 

 curred to me that applying salt in jn-ojier quantitj 

 might prove a remedy. O. V. Hills. 



Leominster, 1855. 



11i:marks. — There is a single specimen of the 

 beach or sand jdum. Primus mnralima, near our 

 residence at Concord, which grows vigorously, but 

 is visited so much by cliildren that no fruit ripens 

 if it sets. 



A MORNING AT NAHANT. 



A few days since, upon the in\'itation of Mr. Tu- 

 dor, we passed the morning at his place, and looked 

 at his gardens, trees, fences and means of manuring 

 and irrigation, and of his manner of cultivation. 



Nahant is on the edge of Boston harbor, six or 

 eight miles from the city, and connected with the 

 main land at Lynn by a mere sand-beach. It ex- 

 tends into the sea in a south-easterly direction, is 

 quite narrow — not over half a mile in width, we 

 should think, where Mr. Tudor's cultivated grounds 

 are situated — and receiving the full sweej) of the 

 easterly winds, which carry the salt spray half way 

 to the opposite shore. The soil, generally, is thin, 

 and rocks protrude everywhere. On the easterly 

 side they stand in their naked majesty, where they 

 have stood and breas'ted the battling waves through 

 many decades of passing time. The promontory is 

 rock-bound at every point, and probably was at some 

 time as bare of soil as the rocks which stand at the 

 base of the banks and receive the first shock of the 

 ever-returning waters. 



In such a poverty of soil, and with such visitations 

 of fierce winds and salt water, it may well be con- 

 ceived that vegetation would be slow, meagre, and 

 f the hardiest kind. Yet, in such a place, Science 

 and Industry have triumphed over every obstacle, 

 and made the almost barren rock to blossom as the 

 rose ! Fields of corn and waving grain, trees of va- 

 rious cUmes, fruits, flowers, shrubbery and rich 

 lawns, now meet the eye, where only desolation 

 held sway but a few years ago. 



Mr. Tudor found that trees, even those of a har- 

 dy character, would not grow, or scarcely live, 

 swept, twisted, and coated by the salt carried in 

 the sea vapor upon the powerful ocean winds, and 

 he set himself to work to protect them. In this 

 isolated position he had tlie grand and imposing el- 

 ements of nature around him; Neptune held his 

 trident upon tlie rocks and upon the sounding sea ; 

 but nearer the hearth-stone he wanted other deities, 

 Flora and Pomona, 



"And wood-nymphs decked with daisies trim." 

 These he found coidd not be had without an ameli- 

 oration of the climate. Cold winds, surcharged 

 with acrid salts, must be ke])t out, while soft suns 

 and gentle airs must be admitted to the plants. In 

 order to effect this, he resorted to an expedient, 

 perhaps never before employed, and one which has 

 so far changed the climate of the locr.Hty, as to ena- 

 ble him to rear tender plants and produce fruits, 

 scarcely attainable in sheltered spots several miles 

 in the interior, or one or two degrees further 

 south. 



Around one gu'den he has erected fences from 

 ten to twenty feet in height, mule of common 

 laths nailed to strong cross-pieces, and leaving in- 

 terstices about two inches in width between them. 

 Around another ^nrden tho fcnnp is briok, t^? 



