40 



&I)C Jcmncr'0 iHontl)hj tUsitor. 



Tlie following article of items, shipped from 

 the port of Boston to two West India islands in 

 one week of February, is selected from the sta- 

 tistical reports constantly appearing in the papers. 

 It shows that the railroads from the interior carry 

 out, as the product of our lands in the interior 

 and of the working hands of New England, 

 much that contribute constantly to the increase 

 of our wealth. What can the farmer raise that 

 will not find a market— that will not contribute 

 to the increase of his capital and means? Can 

 lie better invest his surplus means than to build 

 the railway that shall make the heavy article one 

 hundred miles in the interior almost as available 

 as that which is only ten miles from the wharf 

 which lades it to the ship for some foreign 

 country ? 



To Cuba.— Ice, 409 tons ; railroad sleepers, 144 

 tons; brooms, 200; wedges, hon, 200; linseed 

 oil, 476 galls; plaster, 30 tons ; beans, 118 bush ; 

 empty hhils, 074; hams, 11,898 lbs ; cheese, 4775 

 lbs; rice, 6170 Ihs ; chairs, 170 bdls; beef, 20,528 

 lbs; beef, 10 casks; beef, 10 drums; beef, 55 

 bbls; codfish, 237 drums; hakefisb, 50 drums; 

 cider, 35 bhls ; cider. 100 dozen; candles, 514 

 boxes.; candles, 11,135 lbs; hoops, 27,800 feet; 

 hoops, 085 bdls; lard, 17,504 lbs; butter, 501 

 lbs; onions, 204 bbls; wickiug, 30 bales; shin- 

 gles, 28,000; herring, 200 boxes; chairs, 540 

 bdls; box shocks, 15,259; hhd. do, 1629; oil, 

 2889 <;alls ; casks, 352 nests ; casks, empty, ISO ; 

 hoards. 180,081 feet. 



To HaytL—T>ry goods, 7200 yds ; coffee hags, 

 3000; oil, 300 galls • potatoes, 10 bhls ; pails, 10 

 doz ; tin plates, 10 cases; alevvives, 224 bhls; 

 fish, 00 hhls; codfish, 941 qils ; herring, 350 bbls ; 

 flour, 350 bhls; boards, 8000 feet; candles, 330 

 boxes; tobacco, 17,100 lbs; cheese, 3000 lbs; 

 butter, 1000 lbs; onions, 40 bbls ; hams, 2073 lbs ; 

 lard, 3150 lbs; sugar, refined, 4000 lbs; soap, 

 1500 boxes; soap, 300 half boxes; mackerel, 307 

 bbls; pork, 75 bhls; shingles, 10 M. 



m 



An Example for Woman ! 



The venerable widow of Alexander Hamilton 

 is spending the winter at Washington city, asking 

 the consideration of Congress to a proposition 

 for the sale to the United States, of her late hus- 

 band's papers. She is now ninety-one years of 

 age. Gen. Hamilton, killed ill the duel with Aa- 

 ron Burr, in the year 1804, was forty-eight years 

 old at the time of his death. If living, this would 

 make him now ninety-two years of age: he was 

 more than twenty years the junior of Washing- 

 ton and the elder John Adams. 



Madam Hamilton is so active ibis winter as to 

 walk readily all over the " city of great distances." 

 She dresses in plain black — fully as plain as any 

 country farmer lady of her age who attends the 

 village church on Sunday. We remember our 

 own grandmother, (whose maiden name was 

 Hannah Adams, the sister, and two years older 

 than the patriarch John Adams, who is still living, 

 and was 103 years old on the 26th January 

 last) — we remember her some fourteen years 

 ago at Ashburnham, Mass., as very much resem- 

 bling in plain dress and sprightly activity, the 

 present lady Hamilton : she died at the age of 

 ninety-four years. On the 22d February we 

 passed Mrs. II. in front of Fuller's, on the Penn- 

 sylvania avenue, chaffering with the hackman to 

 reduce bis price from a dollar to ninety-five cents 

 the hour for bis services to enable her to make 

 calls that day upon her friends. This economy, 

 with her, has been a matter of" necessity ; for, re- 

 stricted in her means at the time of the death of 

 her husband, she has reared, as the prudent and 

 careful mother, a large family of sons and daugh- 

 ters: a grandson and officer in Mexico, as will be 

 seen by a reference to bis dating personal ex- 

 ploit in the first number of the N. Y. l T nion La- 



dies' Magazine of the present year, has done bis 

 name and country great honor. 



A few days since, we. accidentally met the ven- 

 erable matron at the President's, where she was 

 introduced to Mr. Consul Chase and bis daugh- 

 ter, with the lilliputian Bosjesman from Africa: 

 this being, of the human species, was of the size 

 and bearing of a young boy of ten or a dozen 

 years in an orphan establishment, leading her 

 probably to express a strong interest in the 

 strange being, and to follow him up to the taking 

 him by the hand, and holding him to answer 

 questions. Retreating from her,she introduced the 

 subject of orphan children in the city of New 

 Yoi k, with whom, as appeared, she hail long 

 been familiar. Forty-two years ago, she said, 

 herself and a few other ladies, had established 

 the Ladies' Orphan Asylum of New York, of 

 which she had been every year since that time, 

 one of the managers and directresses. Said she, 

 "the Almighty prospers when we do good 

 things; for we have taken in and educated four- 

 teen hundred destitute orphan children, until 

 they were of the age to maintain themselves in 

 the pursuit of some useful trade or calling. Our 

 contributions, at first small, have been enlarged 

 by generous donations from the humane ; and I 

 am happy to have lived to see much good grow- 

 ing out of these woman efforts." It should be 

 recollected, that at the time of laying the founda- 

 tion, and ever since, the daughter of Gen. Schuy- 

 ler was the mother of orphans, who, by her ef- 

 forts only, were prevented the necessity of ap- 

 plying to some asylum as mendicants, with no 

 wealthy relations to help them. 



Improved Cultivation fifty years ago. 



The "Constitutional Telegraphe " of July 22, 

 1801, published at Boston, contains the following : 



THE JERSEY FARMER. 



I have spent nearly fifty years in improving 

 land, and as I ride about my business through 

 Ihe country, and converse with our most intelli- 

 gent farmers, have made some remarks, which 

 may be worth your attention. 



Some gentlemen let out their lands on short 

 leases to the man who will give the highest rent, 

 whereby their plantations in a short time become 

 of little value. This practice is of so longstand- 

 ing, that some are ready to say, there is no reme- 

 dy for it. As 1 do not like to find fault without 

 pointing out a remedy which is practical, I shall 

 say I have the pleasure to he acquainted with 

 one gentleman who has lately adopted a plan 

 very profitable to himself and as profitable to 

 his tenants. 



This gentleman lets a farm for a certain share 

 of the crop. He has chosen an industrious man, 

 and directs the course of his crops himself He 

 first plants corn ; after corn, oats, barley or flax, 

 with the large red clover, which is well adapted 

 to poor lands. On the young clover in the win- 

 ler, during the frost, all the dung and rich earth 

 which may he prepared should he placed, and 

 then it woidd he ready lo spread, equally, when 

 ihe frost breaks up. 



To improve the land the clover should he fe<\ 

 two years — then sown with wheat: by these 

 means a vast stock of hogs, sheep and cattle 

 might he well fed. For the waul of this method 

 on Ihe lands leased out in Salem county (New 

 Jersey) alone, I estimate the loss at ten thousand 

 pounds per annum. You will say, how does this 

 appear? I answer — laud if leased out as is mosi 

 commonly done, for one, two or three years, in 

 some product is not worth one dollar the acre ; 

 but, if matured as I have proposed, would be 

 wortli ten dollars the acre, in addition to ihe ma- 

 nure arising from ihe hogs, &e. feeding thereon. 



It may he worth notice, that in May and June 

 it is common for many to have land prepared for 

 buck-wheat; and as some may wish to add to 

 ihe quality ef their clover, I would recommend 

 to them to sow red clover with buck-wheat: h 

 will amply reimburse the additional expense and 



trouble. To encourage his tenants to grow 

 clover, the gentleman lo whom I have alluded • 

 has allotted five pounds a year of the rent of one 

 of his tenants to be laid out in clover, and sown 

 on his land. I will add that 1 have seen one 

 field of clover of about twenty-five acres, for 

 which the owner has been offered nine dollars 

 an acre. The crop before would not have sold 

 for one dollar an acre. 



My method of managing is to oblige my ten- 

 ants to have five distinctions of land, viz — lo 

 sow one with corn, one with oats or barley, one 

 with clover, letting it lie two years — then sow 

 wheat after wheat, corn, &r. By these means I 

 have restored my worn-out lands to such a de- 

 gree as lo yield me three limes its former pro- 

 duce : but I shall add, we take care to make all 

 the dung we possibly can. 



After the death of the late President Jefferson, 

 his library was purchased by the government of 

 his legal representatives for the sum of $50,000, 

 and now constitutes a part of the library of Con- 

 gress in the capitol at Washington, Ihe place of 

 resort for subjects new and interesting to stran- 

 gers, besides furnishing books, always for mem- 

 bers of Congress and their families, to he taken 

 out: there is attached to it an extensive law lib- 

 rary for the use of the judges of ihe supreme 

 court when in session. The uewsu>ipers of by- 

 gone days and years furnish perhaps, the best 

 history of Ihe times: more than all are these 

 newspapers interesting now lo he reviewed by 

 one whose first reading of newspapers began 

 more than fifty years ago. The careful manner 

 in which the papers, then received by Mr. J. from 

 various parts of the country, were preserved and 

 bound up, shows how the great man, horn in a 

 Slate where the white people of his class had 

 not been accustomed to labor, could make him- 

 self habitually industrious in every thing con- 

 nected wilh the improvement of the mind. This 

 preservation of newspapers of the passing time 

 by that great and good man, is worthy of imita- 

 tion at the present day. How interesting at this 

 time is every original scrap of his pen while liv- 

 ing, and even the newspapers which he preserv- 

 ed. Our first recollection of a newspaper was as 

 far hack as the year 1794: the "Independent 

 Chronicle," of Boston, then taking iis ground 

 against Jay's British treaty, was the sole newspa- 

 per from which we gathered in the wonder of 

 our early reading at six and seven years of age, 

 news and events taking place all over the world. 

 The Independent Chronicle, with the engraved 

 Indian and bow and arrows, as the coat of arms 

 of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is one 

 of the papers preserved by Mr. Jefferson : the 

 " Constitutional Telegraphe," also published in 

 Boston from 1798 to 1801, is among the papers 

 preserved and bound up wilh the Chronicle by Mr. 

 Jefferson. From a number of this paper have we 

 copied out the experience of the Jersey Farmer 

 which is given above. That farmer, we believe 

 to be, Joseph Cooper, who gave us much of his 

 agricultural experience in the papers of that day: 

 we find in this article practical information upon 

 farming written nearly fifty years ago, Ihe result 

 of a wise observation of what had been taking 

 place during an experience of fifty previous years. 

 How remarkable is it, lhat the successful mode 

 of cultivation of that man so long ago, has been 

 so billed followed! Why has it been so ? Why 

 have hundreds and thousands suffered their acres 

 to degenerate into land not yielding a green thing 

 to the value of a dollar an acre, that with compara- 

 tively little expense and labor might have given 

 ihe annual income of ten dollars an acre? The 

 reason is probably to be foui.d in the fact lhat 

 this country in all that time has been opening 



