Stye igniter's ittontljhj tetter. 



55 



for coin or some small grain with a single mule 

 I or horse, to the depth perhaps of three to five 

 inches upon the surface. Were it possible heav- 

 lily to manure such fields half of the stimulants 

 I would he lost in the first application : nay, the 

 I effect of highly stimulating manures will often 

 I be deleterious upon such land, assisting the 

 I drought of the hot sun to burn up ihe crop. All 

 I that is valuable eight inches below, if stirred 

 I and brought into action, would even assure n 

 ■ crop, where nil must fail under the one-horse 

 I system of ploughing. No wonder this land is 

 I considered poor: the more manure there is put 

 I upon it, the more likely is the crop to fail. The 

 I substratum of this soil is generally a red clay, 

 I sometimes inclining to Band. Such soil we be- 

 ; lieve to he the very best for any improvement. 

 r Willi buck-wheat (we like clover better) and 

 I lime or plaster in no very great quantity, the 

 I most inferior of this lands may be made as pro- 

 I Stable for a judicious investment of capital as 

 tin; best lands in the United States. Indeed in 

 I the first settlement of Virginia and Maryland 

 I those lands now considered so poor must have 

 I been as fine as the lands of the west which 

 I have opened so great a temptation to emigin- 

 I lion on account of their extraordinary fertility. 

 With a large field cultivated as the Virginia 

 plantations are in the negro manner, what could 

 f be expected of the crop of hay " where clover 

 and timothy seeds are mixed and sown together," 

 allosving "five pints of the first and three of the 

 I latter to the acre"? Such seeding as this in 

 land more natural to the grasses in New Eng- 

 land would hardly he deemed sufficient: it might 

 perhaps be as much as a very thin soil would 

 bear. No considerable hay crop on land highest 

 manured could after the first year he expected 

 where the surface of the land had been skim- 

 med by the plough not over the depth of five 

 inches. 



Washington at that early ilay paid considera- 

 ble attention to the live fences. We cannot find in 

 any part of the country that this mode of fencing 

 had been extensively resorted to; and we are 

 now entirely unable to present an opinion as to 

 their utility. Fencing of lands where stone wall 

 cannot be conveniently constructed is quite an 

 expense encroaching upon the income: good 

 fences around lands that yield but little are a 

 severe tax upon the income. We ought of right 

 to have such security from invasion of all culti- 

 vated fields as not to be obliged to fence them at 

 all. Pastures for cattle should be well fenced; 

 and if land was sometimes for cultivation and 

 sometimes for pasture, good fence around it 

 would he always indispensable. The live fences 

 we have seen in the State of Delaware are many 

 of them very beautiful : they must require con- 

 stant and persevering attention to make them 

 so — manuring perhaps to keep them up in a 

 uniform living action, and cropping and trim- 

 ming to keep them in shape. If Washington 

 succeeded in making live fences on the Mount 

 Vernon estates to any extent, we do not recollect 

 on any visit to that place having seen the fences 

 remaining. It is twelve or fourteen years since 

 we. visited Mount Vernon. The garden and 

 grounds on either front of the mansion had been 

 laid out in great taste: they must have been ex- 

 ceedingly beautiful when he lived. The orna- 

 mental garden at the side fronting opposite to 

 the Potomac was elegant down to the time ol 

 our first visit at Mount Vernon in 1817: it had 

 sadly changed sixteen years afterwards. Its 

 beautiful green houses were accidentally binned 



on that cold night of (he year 1835 which pre- 

 sented the great conflagration of New York city. 

 If no change for ihe better has occurred in the 

 last ten years, the grounds about Mount Vernon 

 are but the sad memento of what they once 

 were. If Washington ever succeeded in his ex- 

 periment of live fences, there is now not a rem- 

 nant remaining to speak in commendation of the 

 praise-worthy act. 



May we not attribute the close attention and 

 concern of Washington for Agriculture to that 

 pre-science which leads great minds further info 

 the future than others around them— looking in 

 advance to the time when his native Common- 

 wealth should lose its high character in ihe de- 

 terioration of the productions of mother earth 

 as the best and only true source of wealth ? 



We accidentally encountered at Warner last 

 summer a colored soldier of the revolution nam- 

 ed Anthony Clark, now in his ninety-fifth year. 

 As much respected in that neighborhood as if 

 he was the best white man in the world, the aged 

 veteran has all the cheerfulness and much of the 

 activity of youth. He was twenty-five years 

 of age at the time of the battle of Lexington, 

 and sixty-four at the time of the passage of the 

 pension act of J8I8: he is the father of a num- 

 erous family of grown up daughters by a second 

 wife younger than himself, all born since he re- 

 ceived his annual pension of ninety-six dollars 

 per annum. He had no family previous to this, 

 having as he says no means of supporting them. 

 Born in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, 

 when Gen. Lafayette visited Concord in 1825, he 

 was among the soldiers of the revolution to do 

 him honor: he was deeply wounded because 

 Lafayette called him "African": not suffering 

 the supposed reproach to pass without a denial, 

 Clark procured the amende honorable by receiv- 

 ing from the hand of the illustrious visitor the 

 present of a dollar. He was of Gov. Brooks' 

 Massachusetts regiment, and was of the party 

 which accompanied Gen. Sullivan through the 

 Wyoming expedition. He served through the 

 war of the revolution and was present at the 

 surrender of Corn wal lis at Yorktown. Within 

 our recollection, when the annual State election 

 was more of a holiday than it is at present, An- 

 thony Clark and other colored men living in the 

 towns of this vicinity, then more numerous than 

 at this time, including several revolutionary sol- 

 diers — for the colored race of New England 

 fought well in resistance to British tyranny — 

 used to make their appearance with the soldiers' 

 uniform parading under the march of drum and 

 fife. Anthony was then in his prime — he was a 

 musician, and playing on the violin he would 

 throw himself through the window outward up- 

 on his feet without losing time. Among his feats 

 here in former times under an uncommon elas- 

 ticity of body, was that of throwing the body 

 backward with head and feet at once touching 

 the ground. His movements even at this great 

 age are quick as the man of forty years. 



Railroads. 



In Massachusetts there are 32 finished rail- 

 roads of an aggregate length of 1,047 miles, of 

 which 217 miles are provided with a double 

 track. The average of their dividends last year 

 was 7j; per cent., in 1847 it exceeded 8 per cent. 

 The average speed of the passenger trains in 

 .Massachusetts has been 23.13 miles, and of the 

 freight trains 12.35 miles per hour. In New 

 York the average speed of the passenger trains 



has not exceeded 13 miles per hour, but is fast 

 increasing. 



In New York there are 982 miles of railroad, 

 average dividends 34 per cent, in 18-18, showing 

 these works in New York to be vastly less pro- 

 fitable than in Massachusetts. But the roads 

 many of them are being re-laid with good rail, 

 and their profits will vastly increase. 



In Vermont and New Hampshire there are 

 about 500 miles of railroad finished and in pro- 

 gress. 



In Connecticut there are 410 miles of railroad. 

 The average dividend last year was only about 

 two per cent. 



The number of miles of finished railroad 

 throughout the Union is 6,500, and about as 

 much more in progress, at an uverage cost of 

 $30,000 per mile. 



In England there are 4,500 miles of railroad 

 completed at an average cost of £150,000 per 

 mile, all of it with a double track. The gross 

 receipts of the English railroads in 1848 were 

 $52,000,000 ; the nett income or dividend 4i pet- 

 cent. 



In England the average speed of the express 

 trains is 45 miles per hour, this speed is the rule 

 not the exception, some trains have been run at 

 the rate of 65 and some more. The older our 

 roads become, we will increase in speed, for wo 

 only want good tracks to equal England.— Scien- 

 ce American. 



A chapter on the Shakers. 



On the 15th April, 1849, died at Canterbury of 

 apoplexy after an illness of seventeen days, Jo- 

 seph Whitcher, at the age of 73 years. This 

 man was the son of Benjamin Whitcher, whose 

 connection with the Shakers dates from their 

 first establishment at Canterbury. We believe 

 Joseph was horn upon that ground then belon" 

 ing to his father, with other brothers and sisters, 

 which afterwards became the common property 

 of the first family. One brother of the Whitcher 

 name left them and married : of his children 

 three sisters who came with their mother to Can- 

 terbury are still resident there. 



At the lime of our last gratifying visit at Can- 

 terbury, spending with the first family two days 

 over the Sabbath in August last, John Whitcher 

 accompanied the editor of the Visitor about the 

 premises: he was horn upon that ground, and of 

 the seventy years of his life we have known him 

 nearly forty. Every thing that is creditable to 

 humanity may be inferred from the character of 

 John Whitcher, who drew his first breath upon 

 that ground and received a highly finished edu- 

 cation there under his own self-instruction with 

 the liberal means which were furnished by the 

 generation before him who planted Shakerism in 

 New Hampshire : such men as Job Bishop and 

 Francis Winkley in many respects as to things 

 pertaining to this life, the true economy of living 

 and adaptation of means to their true ends, were 

 in advance of the age in which they lived. The 

 matrons of the Shaker societies in New Hamp- 

 shire, noiseless and unpretending, were fully 

 equal to the males of the association. We might 

 cite as a true sample of these people, Francis 

 Winkley and his wife, the father and mother of 

 a highly promising family at the medium age of 

 between thirty and forty years, from the convic- 

 tions of conscience eschewing the evils of the 

 outward world, taking up their cross, and spend- 

 ing more than forty years out of the natural con 

 dition of man and wife — with the most generous 

 affections to the world, and with the stronger af 



