THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



41 



from the time of mother Eve — if we may credit 

 the saying of a very clever old gentlemen, one 

 Mr. Jolin Milton, who wrote many handsome 

 lines to that effect, and who was very much ad- 

 mired in times when every body could'nt write such 

 fine poetry as they can now-a-days. We seii- 

 ously tliink that it is every woman's province, as 

 far as in her lies, to see that the outside of her 

 dwelling is well arranged, trimmed, and orna- 

 mented, as to endeavor after bright brasses, pret- 

 ty carpets and handsome china, in the inside. 



"What is the use of flowers!" exclaims a 

 thrifty house keeper, meanwhile busily polishing 

 her fire-irons. What is the use of bright fire- 

 irons, Bay we in reply ? or of any fire-irons atall ? 

 could not you make a fire on two stones, that 

 would keep you quite as warm ? What's the use 

 of handsome table cloths and bed spreads ? one 

 might eat on a board, and sleep under a buffalo 

 skin, and not really starve either ! 



So much for the "utile." Perhaps many of 

 our readers will remember how involuntary was 

 t)ie judgment they have formed, in riding by 

 houses, as to the cheracter of their inmates. 

 When you see a house standing all alone, bare 

 of shrub or flower, except perhaps some volun- 

 teer bunches of thistle and pig-weed ; what do 

 you infer of its inmates ? And when you have 

 passed even a log cabin, where the sweet briar 

 was carefully trained around the door, while veils 

 of morning glories and of scarlet beans, shade 

 the windows, do you not immediately think of 

 the dwellers there, as neat, cheerful and agreea- 

 ble ? This is more especially the case in regard 

 to the homes of the poor. The credit of the rich 

 man's groinuls may belong to his gardener, but 

 they who can keep no gardener, and whose sim- 

 ple flower-garden springs out of moments stolen 

 from necessary labor, possess n genuine and cor- 

 dial love of the beautiful, to render a humble 

 dwelling so fragrant and fair. 



" But then the time and expenses of keeping 

 an ornamented garden !" — says some one. Good, 

 my friend, this is a consideration — but I have 

 used up my sheet of paper. Next month, how- 

 ever, I may show you how to find both time and 

 money. — Jf'estcrn Far. 



New Hampshire Enterprise. The King's Cha- 

 pel--Quincy Granite. I'resh Pond and the 

 Ice traffick. Lobster catching. 



The superior enterprise and acumen of the na- 

 tives of tho Granite State are becoming prover- 

 bial throughout the Union. There is no State so 

 new or so distant that will not present as com- 

 ing from New Hampsliire men of some one or 

 all the learned professions who are dij^tlnguish- 

 ed for high talent and promise ; there is no mer- 

 cantile city that has not acquired a i)ortion of its 

 most ready enterprise and intellect from the 

 youth tiiat were born and nurtured among and 

 ujion our mountains and hills. You can hardly 

 find a point where enterprise is likely to produce 

 wealth iu which the sons of New Hampshire do 

 not fix themselves. 



Gov. Hancock's house near the State House, 

 and the " King's Chapel " at the head of School 

 Street in Boston, were the first granite buildings 

 erected in that city. The old Chapel was erected 

 as an Episcopal church : the Episcopal became 

 Unilariau on the induction of the late Rev. Dr. 

 Freeman about the year 1790 ; and on account of 

 his rejection of the doctine of the Trinity, Bish- 

 op Seal>ury at that time refused him the usual 

 ordination, ai;d the ceremony which should have 

 been performed by the Bishop was turned over 

 to some of the under officers of the church. 

 This church continues to be of the Unitarian 

 fiiilli, and has a distinct printed service similar to 

 the book of Common Prayer in all other respects 

 than in the Apostles' creed and invocations ac- 

 knowledging and recognizing three persons in 

 the Godhead. King's Chapel was the pet church 

 of royalty in Boston before the revolutionary war, 

 and it continues to be the church of many of 

 the more wealthy families of the city. There 

 are wealthy inen, one or more of whom are mil- 

 lionaires, belonging to the King's Chapel, who 

 went from New Hampshire with no more than 

 the property of the sons of common farmers. 

 Although erected nearly a century ago, it is said 

 the interior of King's Chapel is more splendid 

 and beautiful than the interior of any other church 

 in Boston. 



King's Chapel is erected of square blocks of 

 jTu'iite roughly prepared: it is said these granite 



blocks were brought from Braintree (now Quin- 

 cy)and were selected with much trouble and af 

 ter long digging and searching ; and we are in- 

 formed that there is among the archives of the 

 town of Boston a letter from the Selectmen of 

 Braintree declaring that there were not granite 

 rocks within the now present limits of Braintree 

 and Quincy sufficient to erect another public 

 building. The fact that granite sufficient to erect 

 thousands of buildings has since been taken from 

 Quincy and carried to all parts of the country 

 appears at this time to confound the statement 

 of the ancient town officers of Braintree. Of the 

 stone taken from Quincy within a short time 

 there are splendid specimens in the granite 

 blocks of the new Custom House now erecting 

 near tjie head of Long Wharf, and some of the 

 finest specimens of sculptured granite we have 

 ever seen are in the front fence of the Granary 

 burial ground between the Park street church 

 and the Tremont House: blocks of granite full 

 three feet in thickness and between thirty and for- 

 ty feet in length, more beautilul than the purest 

 and finest marble, lie at the base of the fence ; 

 and the posts surmounting pedestals of the gate- 

 way to tins burial ground are the most pure and 

 beautiful specimen's of primitive rock that proba- 

 bly can be found in any part of the world. 

 These specimens are all of the Quincy granite, 

 where the work of preparing blocks for various 

 parts of the United States is now but begun. 

 Such rocks as were used in the erection of 

 King's Chapel would now be rejected as desti- 

 tute of the requisite form and beauty : the deeper 

 the incisions are made into the granite ledge, the 

 more perfect the blocks taken out. And so well 

 understood is the art of preparing them, that 

 blocks of every possible shape are rived from 

 the rock and manufactured with equal ease as 

 that of workmanship in wood. It is here wor- 

 thy of our notice that a large portion of the work- 

 ers on Quincy granite are young men from New 

 Hampshire, where the trade of preparing granite 

 extensively was carried on some twenty years 

 ago. Many young men from this State have 

 there earned with their own hands in the prepa- 

 ration of granite money, with which they have 

 purchased farms. It is common for the New 

 Hampshire young men who go to Quincy to 

 come home during the severity of winter and re- 

 turn there in the spring. They can earn in this 

 business considerably more than the wages of a 

 common farmer. 



Among the sources of wealth to the enterpris- 

 ing laboring men in the vicinity of Boston is the 

 traffic in ice. More than from any other source 

 this ice is procured from Fresh Pond situated 

 within the limits of Cambridge and Watertown 

 about five miles out of Boston. Forty thousand 

 tons or eighty millions of pounds are"laken from 

 this pond in a winter. Houses are erected on 

 the shores of the pond for its reception ; these 

 resemble large barns on the exterior. They are 

 filled in with tan on the sides ; and although 

 erected above ground, the ice is more completely 

 preserved than if it was under ground. Salt hay 

 or common meadow hay selves as a covering. It 

 is said to cost only abotit a shilling a ton to take 

 the ice from the pond and deposite it in the store- 

 house. It is cut with a machine propelled by 

 horse power into cakes of the suitable size; and 

 by the same power it is taken to its point of des- 

 tination. When the ice houses are filled, the ar- 

 ticle is carried in winter directly to the ships at 

 the wharves in Charlestown, whence it is trans- 

 ported and sold in the West Indies and in the 

 southern cities of this coimtry. It has become 

 an article used to purify and render the poorwa- 

 terof the cities palateable as well iu winter as in 

 summer. For the purpose of transporting ice 

 with more facility to the ships, the tyrant for a 

 rail road from the wharf at CharUistown to Fresh 

 Pond has just been procured from the Massa- 

 chusetts Legislature. This enterprise will with- 

 out doubt much increase the quantity of ice tised. 

 It has now come to be considered an article of 

 health and economy in the use of families in th? 

 cities; and in jjroportion to the increased facili- 

 ties for furnishing it, will the price of the article 

 be reduced and the demand for it be increased. 



The price of the ice as it is carried about and 

 sold in Boston is half a cent a pound. The 

 weight of this is somewhat diminished when ta- 

 keuYrom the house in summer before it is dis- 

 posed of. Mr. H . a young ninn recently 



from Northfield, N. H. has settled down on the 

 south shore of Fresh pond for the purpose of 

 furnishing ice to the Boston market. He lays in 

 and sells fifteen hundred tons of ice annually ; 

 and he keeps four teams running in the suujmer 

 rieason from the ice house to the city. His retail 

 price is halfa cent a pound; and'if we allow 

 one third for wastage it will readily be perceived 

 that he obtains a round sum of money tor his 

 year's efforts. This is one of the new devices 

 of thrift sought out by a son of New Hampshire 

 who has been born and educated since we first 

 strayed from Massachusetts into New Hampshire 

 to pursue that business in which we had been 



insti-ncted. We fell in company with Mr. H 



in the stage when returning from a visit to his 

 friends in his native town. We had just left this 

 gentleman when on the same day we were in- 

 troduced to 



Mr. W , one of the "fathers of the 



town " of Lynn, who has resided for the last 

 nine or ten years at Swamscot, a village on the 

 seashore of that town famed during a century 



past for the manufacture of shoes. Mr. W 



was an old customer of ours for many years in 

 the town of Meredith, N. H. : he has grown to 

 wealth and to the first importance in his village 

 in the pursuit of a business of which no man 

 brought up and living in the interior of New 

 HatTipshire could have ever dreamed: it is the 

 business of lobster catching, in the pursuit of 

 which he sends his boats and men who are ei- 

 ther hired or work on shares all along the coast 

 and inlets of the Atlantic shore eastward of 

 Boston. He is the greatest of the lobster ven- 

 ders in the Boston market : his clear profits are 

 undoubtedly several thousand dollars — better in 

 all probability than the best salaried officer in 

 the six New England States. 



The i)reparation of granite — the extensive use 

 of ice— and the owning of sloops and employ- 

 ment of men exclusively for the taking of lobsters 

 —are three items, which if we had been told 

 thirty years ago would be the annual sources of 

 gain to the amount of several hundred thousand 

 dollars, we should have laughed in the face 

 of the narrator. But bo it surely now is ; and 

 it is equally certain that the enterprise of New 

 Hampshire boys has a hand in each of these 

 kinds of business. 



From the Nashville Agriculturiet. 

 Agricnltnre in Tennessee. 



Covington, Tenn., Dec. 28, 1840. 



Messrs. Editors : — I promised some time 

 since to give you an account of the result of a 

 trial upon the Sugar Beet ; and also of my suc- 

 cess with Irish potatoes in corn ground — and the 

 reason I have not sooner written yoy, is, that cir- 

 cumstances were such that I could not give that 

 attention to them I should, and of course the re- 

 sult was not favorable. I sowed the beet seed, I 

 think, early in May, they came up well, but in a 

 few days more than one half Mere destroyed by 

 the worms, and the rest, although not thick e- 

 nougb, (some places three feet apart,) grew off 

 finely ; some were very large, I did not weigh 

 them, but suppose they would weigh 6 or 8 lbs. 

 I planted tl>e seed in drills, two feet apart, with- 

 out manuring. From the eipetiment made, I am 

 saii.^ed it is one of the best crops raised. I put up 

 10 or 12 bushels, and my wilt; says she discovers 

 the increased quantity and richer qualily of the 

 milk, vyhen our cow is fed on the beets, (and tee 

 only milk one new, uhich gives vs more good milk 

 than three did before I commtnced reading the South- 

 ern Cultivator.) 



My impression is, that potatoes and com will 

 grow better in separate ground. 



I enclose you two dollars for the Cultivator, al- 

 though my year is not out — and I would be glad 

 I could induce not only every farmer in the coun- 

 try, but every family who has ever so small a 

 piece of ground to cidtivate, to take yours, or 

 some other agricultural paper. I am certain I have 

 never derived more profit, (beside pleasure,) from 

 the same amount of money. The reading of a 

 good agricultural paper will certainly stimulate a 

 person to industry. Most persons with whom I 

 am acquainted, are content to raise from the gar- 

 den a few cabbage, Irish potatoes, (for early use 

 only,) snap beans, cucumbers, and perhaps occa- 

 sionally onions. Now it ia certain no person can 

 live irell with thesc.l n)ight say many persons cvrn 



