No. 7. 



Good Housetoifery. 



209 



shipment is not required, the elevation of 

 the tracks by trestlings, above the solid sur- 

 face or flooring of the piers, affords sufficient 

 room for stowing 195,000 tons of coal. Ca- 

 pacious docks extend in shore, between each 

 pair of wharves, thus making the whole 

 river front available for shipping purposes; 

 ninety-seven vessels can be loading at the 

 same moment, and few places present busier, 

 or more interesting scenes, than the wharves 

 of the Readmg rail-road, at Richmond. A 

 brig of 155 tons, has been loaded with that 

 number of tons of coal in one hundred and 

 thirty minutes, at these wharves. 



A very convenient and neat Engine house, 

 has lately been erected at this station ; it is 

 of a semi-circular shape, with a forty feet 

 turning platform in the centre, outside; from 

 which tracts radiate into the house, giving 

 a capacity for 20 engines and their tenders 

 of the largest class, the building being 302 

 feet long on the centre line, by 59 feet 

 wide. It is built in the simple Gothic style, 

 the front supported by cast-iron clustered 

 pillars, from the tops of which spring pointed 

 arches, and the whole capped with turretted 

 capping. Immediately adjoining, are built 

 spacious machine and work shops, for repairs 

 of engines and cars, all under one roof, 221 

 by 63 feet. A visit to this chief outlet of 

 the Pennsylvania coal trade, will give the 

 best idea of its magnitude, and of the vari- 

 ous branches of industry connected with it. 



The business of this road requires a large 

 amount of running machinery. Tiie latter 

 consists of seventy-one locomotive engines 

 and tenders, including five in constant use 

 on the lateral rail-roads in the coal region ; 

 3,020 iron and 1,.539 wooden coal cars; 482 

 cars for merchandise and use of road, and 

 seventeen passenger cars. 



The engines vary from 8 to 22J tons 

 weight ; two very powerful engines, of 27 

 tons weight each, are used exclusively on 

 the Fall's grade, before mentioned. The 

 iron cars weigh two and four-tenth tons 

 empty, and carry five tons of coal. The 

 average load of each engine, during the 

 busy months of the year, is about 410 tons 

 of coal, of 2,240 lbs. The cost of hauling 

 coal on this road, is about 35 cents per ton. 

 Freight or merchandise, 75 cents per ton, 

 and passengers 41 cents each, through. Its 

 grades have chiefly secured this great econ- 

 omy in transportation. 



The total length of lateral rail-roads con- 

 necting with the Reading rail-road, under 

 other charters and corporations, but all con- 

 tributing to its business, using its cars, and 

 returning them loaded with coal and mer- 

 chandise, is about ninety-five miles. Some 



of these rail-roads are constructed in the 

 most substantial manner, with the best su- 

 perstructure at present used in the country. 



By the monthly reports which have been 

 made of the business of the Company, it 

 appears that the receipts from Dec. 1st, 

 1845, to October 31st, 1846, have been 

 $1,707,312 2.5. The receipts for the re- 

 maining month of the fiscal year, which 

 ended Nov. 30th, 1846, will be sufficient to 

 swell the gross receipts to about 81,900,000. 



In the last Annual Report, the managers 

 estimated that the gross receipts would be, 

 for the same period, 81,725,000. From this 

 statement it appears, that unless the expen- 

 ses vastly e.xceed the estimate given in the 

 same report, the result of the year's busi- 

 ness will prove very gratifying to the stock- 

 holders. 



Our colliers have now to congratulate 

 themselves on having between their mines 

 and tidewater, two transporting works by 

 land and water, unsurpassed by any other 

 rail-roads or canals in the world. It remains 

 for them by a firm and prudent course to se- 

 cure to themselves and their customers, the 

 full and free use of both these works, un- 

 trammelled by the quarrels or jealousies of 

 either. — Miners' Journal. 



Good Housewifery. 



Our good friend Sk nker, of the Farmers' Library, 

 often holds a pen that "shys," as we sometimes say 

 of a horse that does not stick to the track. The high blood 

 of the one and the overflowing mind of the other, that 

 is continually impatient for opportunity to vent itself, 

 make them look at every thing on the road, whose 

 shadow they can catch a glimpse of, and hence it ig 

 that our friend's descriptions we find not only highly 

 instructive in themselves, but enlivened with digres- 

 sions that seem determined to give one a chance to be 

 wise, whether or not. 



In a memorandum of a hretiTsj'ast-tahle conversation 

 with B. A. Hall, at whose post, in the neighbourhood 

 of Lebanon Springs, our said friend had " hung" up his 

 horse the evening before, and engaged a glass of fresh 

 buttermilk for the morning, we have a variety of items 

 in the farm management of his host, as well as a glance" 

 at the thorough inside cleanliness and comfort of his 

 hostess. He breaks away into the following remarks, 

 which we cannot omit to throw before our own read- 

 ers. 



The farm of B. A. Hall, by the way, consists of two 

 hundred acres, one hundred and eighty of which are 

 arable. His staples are butter and pork. Ofthelatter 

 he S(,IIs some fifteen thousand pounds, of the former 

 about four thousand pounds. His average number of 

 cows is twenty-two, and he sends a great number of 

 pigs to the Boston market. He certainly appears to 

 be a very successful farmer; and the preat secret of 

 this success is doubtless revealed in the single fact, that 



