<&\)t farmer's ittcmtljlij iMsitor. 



73 



other preferring his father's business and calling 

 to thai of one of the liberal professions for which 



he was educated. The elder Mr. Allen, at the 

 oge of seventy years, retains the elasticity of the 

 man of middle age — respected and honored, as 

 we may well believe, hy men of all shades of 

 opinion and belief in his own native village and 

 county. The agricultural enterprise of Pittsfield 

 has also called into existence another well-con- 

 ducted weekly newspaper, devoted mainly to 

 that object, which has a respectable circulation 

 in the county. 



With all the elements of wealth surrounding 

 it — with valuable water-power on both of the 

 beautiful rivers which entwine the town — Pitts- 

 field is destined at no distant time to become a 

 wealthy city among the mountains. It has al- 

 ready laid the foundations for extended literary 

 and classical instruction of both sexes, to which 

 her position invites the rich surrounding coun- 

 try, extending as the great railroad now does an 

 easy and quick communication eastward of the 

 mountains. North of Pittsfield on the Housato- 

 nic valley a branch railroad has already been ex- 

 tended twenty miles to the manufacturing town 

 of North Adams, hjgher up in the mountains. 

 What is remarkable is, that the excavations for 

 this road have opened three rich materials, either 

 of which might make a business for transport 

 sufficient to support the road, to wit — quarries of 

 the best variegated and pure white marble; beds 

 of iron ore of the greatest richness; and pure 

 sand for the manufacture of glass, said to be of a 

 superior quality to any yet discovered in this 

 country — so good an article of the kind as to 

 make it an object of export to Europe, to be 

 used in the making of the elegant and expensive 

 glass writes imported from Fiance. 



So completely successful has been this branch 

 mountain railroad, that Pittsfield, in a short time 

 — the country furnishing ample means to do it — 

 is intended to he the meeting point of four rail- 

 roads. The charter has been obtained for a di- 



• rect railroad through Lenox and Lee, over the 

 Slate of Connecticut to New Haven: all the 

 towns through which this route passes have their 

 peculiar manufactures. The town of Lee, in a, 

 succession of mills upon a stream coining down 

 from n pond in a higher elevation of the moun- 

 tains, manufactures paper to the value of several 

 bundled thousand dollars annually — many kinds 

 of hand-wrought and machine paper of the best 

 kind used in the country. The opening of com- 

 munication by railroads in Berkshire, has given 

 an astonishing value especially to the forest 

 lands in the mountains, which before had been 

 of little practical value. All the wood grown, all 



'• the accessible wood and timber that can become 



at, maybe used for various economical purposes; 



• anthracite coal must be called from abroad to 



I supply its deficiency. In the mountains faraway 

 from the seaboard, wood has risen, from the de- 

 mand, from the price of one dollar to two and a 

 half and three dollars the cord. 



-' The travelled old road from Albany to Pitts- 

 field is twenty-nine miles : to gain the elevation 

 it has been found necessary to make the railroad 

 between the two places run over the distance of 

 very nearly or quite fifty miles. In the ascent 

 it has been found to make the difference of One 

 hour in the ascending from the descending train. 

 I With great power of steam have immense quan- 

 tities of produce been turned in a direction to- 

 wards Boston over this great thoroughfare. We 

 may see bow great is the advantage of the rail- 

 ways running north from Boston through New 



Hampshire and Vermont towards Canada and 

 the great West. Out of Boston, touching the 

 Merrimack river nt Lowell, we have no where a 

 grade equal to twenty feet in the mile: us if on 

 a level the same power that would carry freight 

 twenty miles over the Massachusetts road west 

 of the Connecticut would carry an equal weight 

 one hundred miles over the Merrimack valley 

 road; and in the same time the former would 

 run twenty-five miles, t lie latter would go over 

 the distance of fifty miles. The valley of the 

 Contoocook river which comes down to the cen- 

 tre of New Hampshire from the south-west fifty 

 miles near the Massachusetts line, presents its 

 claim for a railroad. We are not sure that the 

 more easy way for heavy transport to Boston 

 may not be nearly the whole distance from the 

 sources of that river at the foot of the Monad- 

 nock mountain down to its confluence with the 

 Merrimack, there to take the way of the main 

 stream to the seaboard. The Northern railroad, 

 in contrast with the eighty feet on the more 

 southern roads, encounters the rise and fall at 

 the maximum of fifty feet to the mile; and this 

 only in short distances. The Concord and 

 Montreal railroad by Meredith and the shores of 

 the Winnipissiogee, it is said, will be still more 

 favorable iir its elevations and depressions. 



The annexed statement of the commerce of 

 New York port for the quarter ending 31st 

 March, is copied from the Evening Post : — 



Imports. 

 Free Goods. 1846. 1847. 1848. 



January 370905 478,443 400,829 



February 474,360 285,128 141,359 

 March 1,092,470 786,937 2,199,749 



Total §1,943,741 1,550,508 2,741,937 



Dutiable Goods. 



January 4.842,884 5,499.G82 9,104,104 



February 4,177,952 5,889,387 9,566,859 



March 8,(157,793 6,060,746 5,971,001 



Total $17,678,629 17,449,815 24,042,504 



Specie. 



January 43,221 90,874 48.032 



February 90,779 1,235,122 49,502 



March 02,225 1,329,458 22,781 



Total $202,225 2,055,454 120.315 



Total imports in 1846 $19,824,595 



" ,; 1847 21,055,777 



" " 1848 27,504,810 



Exports. 



Domestic tndse. Free. Dutiable. Specie. 



January 2.450,015 4,490 222.089 1,183,517 



February 1,977,428 15,540 432,909 433,226 



March 2,181,194 99,039 215,490 452.507 



0,018,237 119,665 871,088 2,009,150 

 Total exports during the quarter. . . . $9,078,140 

 Duties Hectived. 



January 1,471,844 1,434.830 2,305,017 



February 1,255,051 1,490,710 2,410.497 



March.'. 2,008,734 1,052,092 1,553,003 



Total $5,330,229 4,583,044 5,274,517 



Average rates 30 l-5per ct. 264perct. 2l)perct. 



Mixing .Soils. 



There is often an advantage in mixing soils 

 which will pay Well for the labor. It is almost 

 always the case that when in digging wells or 

 cellars, if some of the bottom earth, which comes 

 from a depth of several feet from the surface "I 

 the ground, be spread upon land that has been 

 sometime cultivated, or even upon grass lands, a 

 stimulus is given to the crop that is quite sur- 

 prising. 



A year or two ago, we visited a farmer in one 

 of the upper counties in this Slate, whom we 

 found carting coarse, gravelly loam into his barn- 

 yard, lie stated thai he found much benefil 

 with such material among his barn-yard manure, 

 and fancied that the juices of the manure dis- 

 solved a part of the gravel or something else, 



and that produced the benefit to his crops. We 

 supposed, however, that it was owing to the 

 mixing of soils, by which, not only the texture 

 of the surface soils was changed, hut probably 

 other materials, or ingredients supplied that 

 were lacking in the sod which received the 

 dressing. We all know that after draining a 

 boggy piece of ground, if then; be any chance 

 to mix sand, gravel or loam with it, a manifest 

 improvement is effected: and* we also know that 

 if the muck or peat of the bog is hauled on to 

 the upland, and its acids neutralized by long ex- 

 posure to the weather, or by ashes, &C., great 

 benefit is obtained. So also if sand or gravel be 

 hauled upon stiff clays, or clay put on sandy and 

 gravelly soils, a mutual improvement is effected. 

 Perhaps the benefit would not always pay for the 

 expense, hut where the mixing can be done 

 easily and at reasonable cost, it is oftentimes a 

 good plan to mix them thoroughly. — Maine 

 tanner. 



For the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. 

 Silk. 



Mr. Editor — I am one of those wdio are easily 

 led away hy some new adventure. Chinese tree- 

 corn, and Rohan potatoes have been experimen- 

 ted upon and rejected; but the Mulberry specu- 

 lation cost me a greater outlay, so it bangs on 

 longer. The question is now whether to pursue 

 the silk business, or give it up. We have made 

 sewing silk in a small way several years: but in 

 our way of doing it, it was too much labor for 

 the profits, so we laid it aside. We now have 

 on hand four or five pounds of reeled silk, and 

 last year's cocoons besides. The season for 

 worms is now at hand, and as the business now 

 goes, it is all labor and no pay, except the 

 bounty. 



Now Mr. Editor, 1 want you or some of your 

 correspondents to answer my queries through 

 the medium of the Visitor. Where can reeled 

 silk find a market? What price will reeled silk 

 bring? Our reel does not twist. Should reeled 

 silk be twisted ? 



BrownfU-ld, Maine, May II, 1843. 



w. 



OJ^ We believe the people of Mansfield, id 

 Connecticut, have made a profitable business 

 from the growth of" the Mulberry and the manu- 

 facture of silk. Pedlars and traders from Con- 

 necticut have repeatedly supplied this part of the 

 country with an article of sewing "ilk equal to 

 that brought from the Eastern world. We will 

 be glad to make the Visitor the medium of com- 

 munication for any intelligible exposition of the 

 means by which silk \\;;* been produced and 

 manufactured in the United States. There can 

 be no doubt that the same skill and perseverance 

 that have brought up other productions coming 

 extensively in use and supplying the place of 

 similar articles in olfter countries, may produce 

 in this country silk and its manufactures in all 

 their perfection. We bail no zeal in the Moms 

 Multieaulis speculation several years ago: that 

 fever never entered the columns of our Visitor: 

 yet we are not of those who would reject the 

 silk culture entirely. — Ed. J'isitor. 



Indian Corn for Fodder. 



As the season of planting corn is now upon us, 

 it may not be amiss to suggest to those who me 

 disposed to try the experiment, that the northern 

 corn sown in drills about two feel apart, nr even 

 a foot apart, will afford a large amount of fodder 

 foryonr cows, ami thai the southern corn, sown 

 broadcast, will also afford a lurge amount of 

 green fodder (or the like purpose. A few years 

 ago, we planted about a fourth of an acre of well 

 manured land with corn in drills, two feet apart, 

 and a row of fiat turnips between each drill of 

 corn. As soon as the ears of corn began to fill, 

 we plucked ihem off and fed them to the hog — 

 then we cut up the stalks that had been thus de- 

 prived of the corn, as occasion required, lor the 

 cows, anil when these were gone we led OUI the 

 turnips. We think a quarter of an acre of land 

 thus managed, will yield as much green food as 

 any way we can manage it. — Maine Farmer. 



