THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



101 



teeu or twenty fat liogs Inst fall. Mr. C. has in- 

 troduced i'roiii Europe the finest breeds of cattle, 

 nnd with bis characteristic benevolence presents 

 and places some of the best in positions most 

 likely to jiropagate them, la his garden the 

 vvorkmeu were ini|iloyi'd in throwing from a hand 

 engine a hijiiiil |in|jar..tion calculated to destroy 

 the inseris uliich w.'ic upon them engaged in tlie 

 work of (It'stri'ciion. Afield of bay was curing 

 on his premises not by drying the article in the 

 sun, hut by being made up into large cocks over 

 each of which was thrown an artificial thatched 

 covering calculated and intended to shut out the 

 rain which the atmosphere then threatened and 

 which actually fell tliat same evening. 



To do the farming and gardening justice we 

 ought to have spent a week in viewing the jiro- 

 cesscs by which giant vegetation was procured 

 ami the kind of treatment which every variety of 

 thing coming from earth required. Our stop 

 was short: we went into several of the unfinish- 

 ed apartments of his splendid liou.se — we had a 

 full view of the Boston State House and city from 

 the balustrade in front; and we left the enchant- 

 ing scene with the reflection that a man of im- 

 mense wealth might make a much worse use 

 of his money than Mr. C. was doing at this point. 

 The intelligent neighborhood of farmers around 

 him will profit by every introduction of useful 

 breeds of animals and by every valuable experi- 

 ment which he makes — at the same time few of 

 them will envy his suiieiior ability to farm and 

 garden on an astonishing scale ; and none of 

 them will ever undertake to be his competitors in 

 producing the rarities and curiosities of nature 

 merely to gratify taste and with no view to re- 

 plenish the purse. 



In all our visits at West Cambridge we have 

 always found our friend Russell, who has pursu- 

 ed a lucrative practice long enough to give him a 

 comiietency, whose garden at this season of the 

 year never fails to be abundant in whatever is 

 gratifying to Ibeappetite, and whose accomplish- 

 ed wife always meets us with a smiling face — 

 ready to take us whithei-sofver we wilt go, lor 

 our instruction or :iiriM:> nirnt. At the different 

 seasons it is hanll\ |io>,~llr|c ih.it the mind should 

 be satiated even wiili a irpriiticju of the cultiva- 

 ted grounds that surround tlie spot of our nati- 

 vity. 



We have before described in the Visitor tlie 

 great products and improvements which Mr. 

 (Jeokge Pierce has made on a few acres of what 

 has hciv'tofore been considered the barren pint 

 plains of Menotomy. We were not early enougl 

 on the ground to see him; for with the lark he 

 rises nearly every week day to go to the market 

 with the loads of fruits and vegetables which tli ' 

 Hitle spot produces. Of the items at this time 

 carried daily to market were ten barrels of green 

 peas and as many of beans in the pod : the inar- 

 Iset article changes with the time of year. We 

 witnessed on going over his grounds no abate- 

 ment in the crops (iroduced by Mr. Pierce. The 

 labor hei-e is expended entirely with a view to 

 the production — little regard is paid to ornamen- 

 tal flnices, or merely ornamental trees and flow- 

 ers. No vegetable or tree is planted that is not 

 intended for use or profit. We noticed in the 

 Boston papers that Jlr. Pierce this year carried 

 the first green peas to the Boston market: these 

 were raised from ailificial land that had been 

 filled in upon the shore of the north-east corner 

 of the Spy pond. 



Mr. Russell on this occasion conveyed us on 

 our way towards home to the railroad depot at 

 the deep cut in Wobuni over a part of the coun- 

 try to which we had been a stranger. In the val- 

 ley down which passes the long travelled main 

 1 road — the road over which the British troops 

 ' inarched to Concord at the time of the Lexington 

 fight— rims a fine stream of water discharging it- 

 self into Myslic pond, on which are situated sev- 

 eral mills that tor many years have furnished 

 ; much of the rye and Indian meal long used for 

 li old fashioned New England brown bread in the 

 ,v Boston market : several millers here have made 

 . handsome estates in iiursning the meal business, 

 I' The principal mill seats are on the ))reinises 

 U which have been long owned by the Cutter fami 

 h ly, of which tradition says the purchase was 

 |{ made by the progenitor of the Cutters of the 

 I, squaw of an Indian chief at the price of 

 i iiicn jack-knife. 



IE RESULTS OF ENTERPRISE AND PERSEVER- 

 A.NCE. 



3Ir. R. invited our attention to soma ten acres 

 of a part of the Cutter estate north-westerly of 

 this stream, which was purchased five years ago 

 by Mr. Albert Winn, a young man who had 

 served an apprenticeshi|) with a West Cambridge 

 farmer. The land was in a poor state of cultiva- 

 tion at the time of its purchase — it was not nat- 

 urally rich and feitile. For it, with some old 

 buildings upon it, Mr. Winn ])aid something like 

 hundred and f}('ty dollais tlie acre. His pur- 

 cha.se ran to and up the side of the gravelly ledge 

 with a declivity to the south-east, through which 

 the mill stream in the great revolutions of time 

 had broken its passage. The advantage of such 

 a farmer's education as Mr. Winn hat! received 

 is at once discovered in the [irofitable use to 

 which he put this small tract of land : we might 

 select in almost every country town hundreds of 

 long-used pasture and mowing lots without ma- 

 nure that would have been as easily reclaimed as 

 was this spot of ground. Mr. Winn in the course 

 of three seasons had brought it into such a state 

 that in the summer of 1840, besides the con- 

 sumption of his own family and the feed of hay 

 for a cow and two horses, he took in the Boston 

 market rising of three thousand dollars fVir the 

 articles produced on this little spot. The land 

 in the state when he took it was not of better 

 quality or more productive than the Hospital- 

 farm in Concord as it now exists: much of it is 

 light land similar to the old Abbot farm de- 

 scribed in 'another part of this number of the 

 Visitor. 



Our readers will naturally inquire what crops 

 were raised on this ground which had produced 

 so much money ? We can only answer that fact 

 from what we saw upon the ground, not being s( 

 fortunate as to find the enterprising owner a 

 home, but meeting, with our friend, the interest 

 ing young wife in whose face we discovered he 

 relationship to a family of the neighborhood who 

 were once young with ourselves, but the most of 

 whom are now passed away as beings that were. 

 On a portion of the ground there were growing 

 rows of potatoes as a second crop after early 

 peas whose places at every other row had been 

 supplied with celery intended to be ridged up in 

 a <leep loam after the potatoes shall come ofl" 

 the distance of some five feet apart. In anoti 

 si.ot was a rich bed of flowing asparagus from 

 which large quantities were taken early in the 

 season, and whicli was no longer to be used for 

 this year. In another part horse radish covered 

 some fourth to half an acre of ground that had 

 already produced its cro|). In another place was 

 a less plat of ground with the growing rhubarb 

 from which large quantities had evidently been 

 cut this season. Near the side of the hill were 



of tomatoes, some of which were nearl; 

 for use. Peas of difierent kinds, some tit 

 icking, others growing to that state — beans j: 

 ed and bush in a similar state — rows of beets — a 

 large ouion bed — parsnips, carrots, &c. English 

 nips of different sizes were also growing here, 

 One or two acres were in strawberries, the crop 

 and growth of which had been lessened the pre 

 sent season by drought, as was supposed about 

 one-half There was all the variety of vines, 

 early and late cucumbers, squashes, melons, &c., 

 upon this ground. Mr. Winn commenced this 

 cultivation, we were informed, with little proper- 

 ty ; but on it he has found the means not only for 

 paying up a large portion of the original pin- 

 chase, but for erecting a handsome farm-house 

 and a barn with a cellar at the basement which is 

 a good model for a market farmer. 



The town of Charlestown runs from the War- 

 ren and Charles river bridge into the country by 

 the noith-easteily line of Cambridge and West 

 Cambridge on the one hand, and by the south- 

 westerly line of Medfbrd on the other, eight miles, 

 where itadjoins the flourishing town of Woburn: 

 this part of that ancient town reaches within half 

 a mile of both the meeting houses of West Cam- 

 bridge and Medfbrd — it is bounded for a consid- 

 erable distance by the Mystic or IMedfbrd pond 

 on the north, and at some points tlie whole width 

 of the town taking its eccentric flight into the in- 

 terior is not over eighty rods. We passed, in the 

 direction of this rihbanrl of that gre.-it town num- 

 bering nearly its ten thousand inhabitants within 

 the space of one mile below the neck, leaving the 

 I premises of Mr. Whin, to a 1(3W acres of land pur- 



chased by one of ihe bachelor cousins who has 

 single wife constituting his entire liimil}', 

 known by' the appellation of " Farmer," in con- 

 tra-distinctioii of " Lawyer" James Russell. This 

 man has also been a successful money-getter, by 

 husbanding well his resources and saving where 

 others expend. He was raised in the country 

 and well understands ftu-ming ; but lie lays out on 

 the few acres he has purchased in West Cam- 

 bridge only his own labor. His cultivation is re- 

 markable for its neatness; but we mention him 

 and his little place here on account of the suc- 

 cess he has had in grafting apple trees upon his 

 premises. The trees he has improved were such 

 as spontaneously spring up in old pasture ground 

 of which his lot consists. Of these there was 

 one tree that had been only three years grafted 

 ich produced last year several barrels of beau- 

 tiful Baldwin ajiples from the grafts— a fact which 

 to prove in how very short time with proper 

 treatment orchards of the best fruit may be ob- 

 tained. The "Farmei" jiointed out to us a new 

 fact in relation lo gialiing that should be under- 

 stood : he says that when the limbs of a tree are 

 filled with grafts that start out luxuriantly, if the 

 foliage upon the sprouts and limbs with the ex- 

 ception of Ihe grafts shall be stripped off", there 

 ■at a disparity between the abundance of 

 sap flowing into the "larger trunk of the tree and 

 the diminished number of leaves leaving the 

 grafts alone whose growth is supplied by the sap, 

 that they will be forced beyond their strength, 

 and be likely to cause the destruction of the tree. 

 Mr. Russell had growing several trees taken from 

 the remnant of a nursery doing >vell where the 

 grafting and setting out the present year had 

 been done at one and the same time. 



He mentioned a fact which goes with the ma- 

 ny |)roofs of usefulness to be offered in behalf of 

 the birds that are set down among the mischiev- 

 ous order. The foot of his lot runs down to the 

 shore of Mystic pond, and at the edge of the 

 pond is a quagmire .t-rowing uj) in bogs and wa- 

 ter grass, in which numerous black birds enjoy 

 perfect security against the invasion of boys. 

 These black birds clear his adjacent pasture and 

 field entirely of grass-hoppers and crickets as 

 well as of worms "and their larvte upon the culti- 

 vated ground and ajiple trees. While the cows 

 are in the i)astnre of a sunny day, the black birds 

 surround and follow them wherever they go in 

 pursuit of the insects which accompany them for 

 a different purpose. We have observed the san.ie 

 thing of a flock of young chickens keeping close 

 to calves kept in a yarded glass plat near our 

 dwelling. A flock o"f chickens orturkies destroy 

 innumerable insects which furnish a foundation 

 for great mischief; as do indeed all the birds 

 which are not killed and driven away from our 

 fields and gardens. 



Three or four miles on the way to Woburn the 

 old road winds its way through the narrow strip 

 of Charlestown, along the foot of the sharp ridge 

 which is marked as the first considerable rise af- 

 ter leaving the sea-shore ; for the several ponds 

 below furnishing the ice are so nearly on a level 

 with the salt water that there is not fall sufficient 

 in any case for a mill, and the waters of all uni- 

 ting in the Myslic river which merges with 

 Charles river at the point forming the site of the 

 Navy depot at Charlestown almost within musket 

 shot reach of Boston itself. On this road is the 

 beautiful farm whicli was for many years the res- 

 idence of Seth Wyman, Esq., one of the most 

 successful farmers in the vicinity of Boston— a 

 hard laborer and a man of great athletic vigor, 

 who is reported to have lifted from the ground 

 v/ith his feet the weight of fifteen hundred pounds, 

 and who went ahead in his own business— who 

 died leaving an estate of his own gathering worth 

 about one hundred thousand dollars. This gen- 

 tleman, living far out of the town of Charles- 

 town, for many years represented all above the 

 neck in the State Legislature. His home farm 

 still remains in the possession of the same name, 

 which is common in that vicinity both in Lex- 

 ington and Woburn. This fine farm, which has 

 for more than a century sent its many annua 

 tons of produce to the market— which yields all 

 the varieties of fruits and vegetables common to 

 the climate— abates not at all in its fertility. At 

 the size of less than two hundred acres, it is val- 

 ued for $2.5,000 to $30,000: a smaller farm of 

 sixty acres along-side of it recently purchased by_ 

 a son ol Mr. Wyman bore the handsome price of 



