140 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR 



September, 1842. 



A Hymn of the Sea. 



BY W.C. BRYANT. 



The sea is mighty, but a mightier sways 

 His restless billows. Thou, whose hnnds have scooped 

 His boundless nulls and built his shore, thy breath, 

 That moved nf the beg 



Mn 





fall. 



motion, roll and rise ai 

 Still Ironi that realm of rain thy clouU goes up, 

 As at first, to water the great earth, 

 And keep he valleys green. .\ hundred realms 

 Watch its broad shadow warping on the wind, 

 And in the dropping shower, with gladness, hear 

 Thy promise of the harvest. 1 luok forth 

 Over the boundless blue, wheru. joyouiiy. 

 The bright crests of innumerable waves 

 Glance to the sun at once, as when the hands 

 Of a great multitude are upward flung 

 In acclamation. 1 behold the ships 

 Gliding Irom cape to cape, from isle to isle. 

 Or stemmins toward far lands, or hastening home 

 From the old world. It is thy friendly breeze 

 That bears them, with the riches of the land, 

 And treasures of dear lives, till, in the port, 

 The shouting seaman climbs and furls the sail. 



But who shall bide thy tempe.st,who shall face 

 The blast that wakes the fury of the sea ? 

 Oh, God ! thy justice makes the world turn pale, 

 When on the armed fleet, that, royally. 

 Bears down the surges, carrying war, to smite 

 Some city, or invade sonic thoughtless realm, 



Descends t!:r :.■ <• ■■ ; 1-. The vast hulks 



Are whirl. J L, 1 ■"> the wave; the sails 



Fly, rent li, micr ; the masta 



Are 8na|.iir.,,i . -i ; i.vu ward, from the decks, 

 Downward art; .-iuni-. ..ilu Ih.- fathomless gulf. 

 Their cruel eiiiini-js, and their hosts, arrayed 

 In trappings of the battle-field, ar,; whelmed 

 By whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks. 

 Then stand the nations still with awe, and pause, 

 A moment, from the bloody work of war. 



These restless surges eat awav the shores 

 Of earth's old continents, the fertile plain 

 Welters in slialloivs, h.-adlaiids cruiillilc down, 



In the -". ,1 : ' , . m .■ .,:i, 



Whore l..-..i. -; ,■" '" ' ' '"' the line 



Sinks def,...-r,l, ^^^.U' .. ' ■■...■ Uci.l.l. lliV work. 

 Creator I thou d.ist teach the cji.i1 worm 

 To Lay his mighty reefs. From age to age, 

 He builds beneath the water, till at last, 

 His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check 

 The long wave rolling from the Artie pole 

 To break upon Japan. Thou bidst the fires. 

 That smoulder under ocean, heave on high 

 The new made mountains, and iqilirt Iheir peaks 

 A I. :...■-• .-r rtfu-f rnrtlio -Tirin .Irivon bird. 

 ■1' . ! ' 'I ■•. ■::!-• '> " • til. -rifts 



Its valleys, glorious with their summer green, 

 Praise theein silent beauty, and its woods, ^ 

 Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, joi 

 The mnrniuring shores in a perpetual hyinu. 



3Ieniorandn. 



Tlic week before liist, we spent n i)leiisaiit lioiir 

 Willi lion. Daniel P. King, of Daiivers, in walk- 

 ing over liis fuiiii. On liis pieniises we met vvitli 

 various crops and operations that are not com- 

 inon in this vicinity. Millet sowed in the sprina 

 failed tD^now: sowed in June it hfoaiiie luxuri- 

 ant : souiil .Inly 12, on land iVoin which a crop 

 of hay u as tak<n this seasot), it looks vigorous, 

 and i;iv('s |iruinise of a good result. The facts 

 indicate that ii is decidedly a summer plant, and 

 will not orow well if sowed in the spring. 



Oats and peas together, li bush, of oats and 2 

 bush, of peas per acre of seed, for a crop when 

 seeding down to grass, though common in the 

 interior, is unusual along the sea-board. Mr. 

 King has tried it, with apparently profitable re- 

 stilts. Tlie crop he describes as having been 

 lar^e, and the grass speaks lor itself, and much iti 

 its own praise. 



His winliiiyc he fed down in May and June, 

 anil yet olit.iiiii'd a good crop. Nor is this all — 

 for he sowed grass .seed upon the rye field in 

 March, and let nature cover it. This grass also 

 looks well, though on light land, and this not 

 much enriched by cultivation. 



The manure used u|iiin the firm this season, 

 eontaineil a large ad-nii.\tin-e (three or four hun- 

 dred per cent.) of muck from the swanij), and yet 

 the crops are very green and flourishing. 



How TO MAKE A CONTRART HoRSE GO. — Put 



yoia- hand into bis mouth back of his teeth and 

 pull out hia tongue. You can lead him by it 

 ju.st i\n you please. He will go, or be will stop. 

 This will in time break him of his ugliness. 



TRV IT. 



Gaming Houses of London. 



The gaming houses of London — at least those 

 on a great scale — are all situate in the modern 

 and elegant quarter of the town, and are among 

 the greatest wonders of this world of houses and 

 human beings. In the slang of the town, such 

 dens of vice ami plunder are designated Hells — 

 a name too applicable lo the nature of the busi- 

 ness transacted within them. We are credibly 

 informed by the author of Life in the If'est—a re- 

 cent production, that these bouses are fitted up 

 in a style of e.\traordinary splendor, and that 

 Iheir e,\penses are enormous, though nothing in 

 comparison to the profits realized. One house 

 is supported at an expense of a thousand pounds 

 a week. The next in eminence costs a hundred 

 and fifty pounds a week, and the minor ones va- 

 ry from fifty to eighty pounds. Each house has 

 a regular compliinent of ofiicials, who are paid 

 extravagant salaries. The inspectors or over- 

 Iookers,~'are paid from six to eight pounds a week 

 each ; the "croupiers," or dealers, three to six 

 pounds ; the waiters and porters, two pounds ; 

 and a person who keeps a look out after the po- 

 lice officers, to give Wiirning of their approach, 

 two ])Ounds. The money disbursed for secret 

 information, wines, &c., cannot be easily ascer- 

 tained, but must be very large. 



Every thing in the inteiior of these mansions 

 is elegant ; but certain things betoken the dread- 

 ful au'd hazardous nature of the establishment. 

 The doors and w indovv shutters are fortified with 

 strong iron plates, so that an ingress by violence 

 is a tardy and difficult matter. There is one of 

 these iron doors at the bottom of the stairs, one 

 near the top, and a third at the entrance into the 

 gaming room. These are opened and closed 

 one after the otiicr, as the person ascends or de- 

 scends. In each of the doors there is a little 

 round glass peep bole, for the porters to take a 

 deliberate view of all persons desirous of admit- 

 tance, in order to keep out or let in whom they 

 clioose. 



An unsophisticated i>crson would naturally 

 enough suppose from this account, that none but 

 those of great courage would dare to penetrate 

 into the heart of these establisbmenis ; but it 

 must be explained that there is nothing like gruff- 

 ness or jailorism in the keepers of the mansion. 

 Tlie w hole is placed on an easy genteel footing. 

 No civility can equal thtit of the waiters, while 

 the condescension of the proprietors, or bankers, 

 the refreshments and wine, all combined, have 

 an interesting and deceptive influence upon the 

 inexperienced ;ind unreflecting mind. But what 

 kind of people are they who keep such houses ? 

 are they bom a particular class? By no means. 

 In Lonilon there is always a large number of in- 

 dividuals, the refuse of every rank, and the na- 

 tives of every country floating on the snrlace ot 

 society, readv to engage in any desperate under- 

 taking, providing it can bring money into the 

 pocket, and indidgcnce to the passions. The 

 proprietors of these houses are composed of a 

 heterogenooiis mass of worn-out gamblers, black- 

 legs, bor.si? dealers, jockeys, valets, pettifogging 

 lawyers, low tradesmen, men in busine.''.s who 

 have failed through their debauchery, and others 

 of a similar stamp. Tiiey dress in the first style 

 of fashion, keep country liouses, carriages, horses, 

 and fare siimpmously :" bedizen themselves out 

 with valuable gold watches, chains, seals, dia- 

 mond and other rings, costly snuff"-boxes, &c.-— 

 property, with but little exception, originally be- 

 loiiKinglo unfortunates who had been fleeced of 

 every thin;,', and who, in the moment of distress, 

 parted with them for a more trifle. Some have 

 got into lai-c- private mansions, and keep first- 



i.ito o.-tal,li-l nts. Persons, with a very super- 



fii iai kiiuuliMJ-t: of the world, can easily discern 

 ihruiigh the thin disguise of gentlemen they as- 



Tlie degree of blackguardism, villany, and 

 wastefid profiision which characterize these infa- 

 mous esiablishnients, will, doubtless, appal the 

 minds of llioiistiuds of our respectable and in- 

 dustrious readers; but there is a use in thus un- 

 folding scenes capable of scaring the unwary 

 man of property, or those in desperate circum- 

 stances, from the gaming table, while the virtuous 

 portion of the community, in leadmg such ac- 

 counts of what is hourly transacting— night and 

 day, Sunday as well as every other day in the 

 week— in the metropolis, will draw closer to- 

 gether, and learn to be thankful that their simple 



and honest occupations do not lead them into the 

 way of such unhallowed temptations. 



Effects of Expansion. 



A cannon ball, when heated, cannot be made 

 to enter an opening, through which, when cold, 

 it passes readily. A glass stopper sticking fast 

 in the neck of a bottle, may be released by sur- 

 rounding the neck with a cloth taken out of 

 warm water, or by immersing the bottle in the 

 water up to the neck : the binding ring is thus 

 heated and expanded sooner than the etop|ier, 

 and so becomes slack or loose upon it. Pipes 

 for conveying hot water, steam, hot air, &c., if 

 of considetable length, must have joinings that 

 allow a degree of shortening and lengthening, 

 otherwise a change of temperature may destroy 

 them. ."Vn incom|)etent person undertook to 

 warm a large maniifaclory, by .steam, from one 

 boiler. He laid a rigid main "pipe along a pas- 

 sage, and opened hiteial bianclies through holes 

 into the several apartnionts, but on hisfirst admit- 

 ting the steam, the expansion of the main j)ipo 

 tore it away froin all its branche.". In an iron 

 railing, a gate which, during a cold day may be 

 loose and easily shut or opened, in a warm day 

 may stick, owing to there being greater expan- 

 sion of it, and of the neighboring railing, than of 

 the earth on which they are placed. Thus also 

 the centre of the arch of an iron bridge is high- 

 er in warm than in cold weather: while, on the 

 contrary, in a suspension or chain bridge the 

 centre is lowered. The iron pillars now so 

 much used to support the front walls of houses, 

 of which the ground stories serve as shops with 

 sjiacious windows, in warm weather really lift up 

 the wall vvliich rests upon them, and in cold 

 weather allow it again lo sink, or subside. In a 

 degree considerably greater than if the wall were 

 brick from top to bottom. The pitch of a piano- 

 forte is lowered in a warm day, or in a warm 

 room, owing to the expansion ol the strings be- 

 ing greater than the wooden frame-work ; and 

 in cold the reverse will happen. A harp, or 

 piano, which is well timed in a morning drawing- 

 room, cannot be perfectly in tune when the 

 crowded evening party has heated the room. 

 Bell-wires too. slack in summer, may be of the 

 proper length in winter. There exists a most 

 extraordinary exception, already mentioned, . to 

 the law of expansion by heat and contraction by 

 cold, producing unspeakable benefits in nature, 

 namely, in the case of water. Water contracts 

 according to the law only down to the tempera- 

 ture of forty degrees, while, from that to thirty- 

 two degrees, which is its freezing point, it again 

 dilates. A very curious consequence of this pe- 

 culiarity is exhibited in the wells of the glaciers 

 of Switzerland and elsewhere, namely, that when 

 once a pool, or shallow well, on the ice com- 

 mences, it goes on quickly deepening itself until 

 it penetrates to the earth beneath. Supposing 

 the surface of the water originally to have nearly 

 the temperature of the melting ice, or thirty-two 

 degrees, but to be afterwards heated by the air 

 anil snn, instead of the water being thereby dila- 

 ted or sfiecifically higher, and detained at the sur- 

 face, it becomes heavier the more nearly it is 

 heated lo forty degrees, and therefore sinks down 

 to the bottom of the l)it or well ; but there, by 

 dissolving some of the ice, and being conse- 

 quently cooled, it is again rendered lighter, and 

 rises to be heated as before, again to descend ; 

 and this circulation and digging cannot cease 

 until the water has bored its way quite through. 

 ^mott. 



For the Farmers Monthly Visitor. 

 Cape Cod. 



" Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ?" 

 was an ancient question; "can anything good 

 come from Cape Cod ?" is frequently a modern 

 one. It is surprising to all who visit the C.npe, 

 especially the upjier (lart of it, to see how difter- 

 ent almost everything is from what lying rumor 

 would have it. 



The soil is supposed to be miserable. We 

 have seen children of a large growth back in 

 this part of the country standing astonished, 

 when told by some wag, that the grasshoppers 

 in many places on the Cape are seen contending 

 for a spear of grass, and that the cows live prin- 

 cipally on codfish head.s. It is true, the soil is 

 thin and principally sand ; but there are farmers 



