1854. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



473 



somewhat difficult now to let their money at 6 per 

 cent. A state of things very different from that 

 which existed when I was a boy. Then, people 

 were mostly borrowers, though but little money 

 was to be had at any price. Farmers who wished 

 to increase their stock, or to procure a few bush- 

 els of grain for seed, often paid at a rate equal to 

 25 per cent, per annum. The name of Hon. Wm. 

 Jarvis, of Weathcrsfield, some twenty or thirty 

 miles distant, was better known in ..this section, 

 at that time, as indicating about the only man 

 who loaned money at G per cent., or who paid a 

 silver dollar a day for first rate haymakers, than as 

 the importer of merino sheep, by which he eventu- 

 ally enabled tliese same farmers to pay up their 

 mortgages and become money-lenders in their 

 turn. And this reminds me of another change 

 that was mentioned. In one scliool district, in 

 Reading, where thirty years ago there were chil- 

 dren enough to fill an ordinary school-house, es- 

 pecially in the winter, there is now not one 

 child living within its limits, and only the remains 

 of a siugle family, in an extreme corner. The 

 consequence mainly of turning small hill firms 

 into extensive sheep-walks. 



A City Mechanic. 

 Boston, Sept. 1, 1854. 



Remarks — We earnestly commend this article 

 to the consideration of our readers. 



ENGLISH VEGETABLES AND MEATS. 



We give below, from our own correspondent in 

 Liverpool, a very interesting letter relating to the 

 products of the English markets. Many readers 

 will be surprised — as we have been — at the fact 

 that potatoes, turnips and cabbages are the great 

 staples among the vegetables, and that the variety 

 and excellence of beans, squashes and green corn, 

 are scarcely known in perfection among them. — 

 The apples, pears and peaches, are also inferior to 

 our own. Indeed, these latter fruits, in our own 

 country, vary much in different localities. We 

 never ate an apple, pear or peach, grown south of 

 New York, so high-flavored, and perfectly deli- 

 oious, as some grown iu cold, rocky New England ! 

 With the exception of an occasional winter too 

 cold— or of too sudden changes for tin' peach—both 

 the soil and climate of New England seem adapt- 

 ed to these fruits. 



The table alluded to in the letter, gives the 

 prospects of the crops in every part of the king- 

 dom, with the names and addresses of the persons 

 who furnish the information, and is such as may 

 well be imitated here. 



Liverpool, August 17th, 1854. 

 Mv Dear Sir : — I send you an agricultural pa- 

 j)er, containing a table of minute and well authen- 

 ticated statistics as to the "prospects of the com- 

 ing harvest" tliroughout Croat Britain. It seems 

 to me that the plan of this table is a very good 

 one, and might perhaps be advantageously adopt- 

 ed in a journal like your own. At all events, it 



will convey more reliable information as to the 

 probable harvest here, (and this is a subject very 

 interesting to the United States,) than you could 



obtain from any other source. 



* * * * # 



The supply of vegetables in an English market 

 is much inferior to the display in our own market- 

 houses at this season. Potatoes are of excellent 

 quality (better than in New England) and aver- 

 age about twenty-five cents a peck ; turnips are 

 plenty ; and cabbages. In all their more delicate 

 or coarser varieties, are exceedingly abundant. — 

 But these are the great staples in the vegetable 

 lino, of an English dinner-table, now that green 

 peas (which are never equal to our own) are going 

 out of season. The beau- tribe is very poorly repre- 

 sented by a few string-beans, which are almost 

 tasteless when cooked ; and though shell-i)eans, oc- 

 casionally appear, they never have the richness to 

 which an American taste is accustomed. Indian 

 corn in its green state, is of course utterly un- 

 known ; and England will never be able to appre- 

 ciate the luxury of a dish of succatash. All the 

 squash-family are strangers to the English table ; 

 although I have been cognizant of an attempt to 

 raise them under glass, and have seen one or two 

 diminutive specimens of tlie results. One vege- 

 table (or, rather, fungous) delica-cy, wliich we 

 comparatively lack, is the mushroon ; and you 

 may just now see bushels upon bushels of these poi- 

 sonous looking toad-stools, heaped up among the 

 scanty supplies of better esculents. Taking these 

 facts into view, it is no wonder that the English- 

 man should be a grosser flesh-eater than the Amer- 

 ican ; and it seems very certain that a vegetarian 

 diet can never be a luxurious or a fattening one, 

 in this climate. 



As regards fruits, the inferiority is still more 

 lamentable. An untravelled Englishman has no 

 idea of the deliciousness of a peach, a pear, or 

 even an apple ; although I have been told of a cer- 

 tain apple called the Ribston pipin, which is 

 said to have been equal to the best of our own, 

 but is now almost extinct. So far as my own ex- 

 perience goes, the pigs of America would not 

 thank you for better specimens of either of these 

 fruits than I have ever seen in England, of native 

 growth, except in a hot-house. It is only by ex- 

 tending the branches of the tree against a brick 

 wall, heated ])y interior flues, that the horticul- 

 turists pi'oduce even the semblance of fruit in 

 the open air. Hearing an Euglislunan praise the 

 flavor of a native peach, I had tlie curiosity to ask 

 him what was its peculiar characteristic ; he an- 

 swered,. "its delicious coolness !" This commen- 

 dation miglit have been more appropriately be- 

 stowed upon a watermelon ! Tlieir strawberries, 

 it must be owned, arc very large, but look much 

 better than tliey taste. But after all, the real 

 wonder is, not at the failures, but at the successes 



