October, 1842. 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR, 



151 



here from Mny till OctoBer, 

 ows or iiioiviiij; grouiiils 



tlie great abiiiuliince of rocks. These tliey sel- 

 dom overstock, aiKi the lower or swanipy jiarts 

 always hold out as a resort in a season of ex- 

 treme dryness of the uplands. They pasture 



-^ " that their mead- 



lO more invaded 

 than their corn-fielils. Tliis, with a treat of ma- 

 nure once in four or five years, with turnin;; of 

 drains and the wash of roads over them where- 

 ever there is a cliance, enahjes them at all times 

 to procure ample cattle feed corresponding with 

 •e grounds. 



I.reud-suifts for the Church 

 e loll from their mill— the 

 connly and perhajjs in the 

 liich is ihe inovins,' power of 

 con^idcrahle mills and ma- 

 le stream in successive falls, 

 artificial res 



their extended 



A jiocd sup; 

 family is fmini 

 very host mill in the com 

 State. The water, which i 

 this mill and other con^i 

 ehinery upon the same str 



gathered almost exclnsi^ 



ervoirs made in the valley (in- two miles ahove. 

 Originally no stream of water was here ; hut 

 collections of water have been made in different 

 positions from the melting of snow and the 

 abundance of rain in the spring; and this water 

 is reserved for the use of the mills in the dry 

 season. This grain mill supplies meal for the 

 surrounding country when other mills upon the 

 best streams fail. The flour manufactured here 

 is so superior that wheat is brought by other 

 mill.s fifteen and twenty miles. The cost of the 

 grist mill alone without the water power was 

 llO.OOO: attended by only one faithful hand, it 

 mills for customers annually about 8000 bushels. 



Half a mile west of the village this (imiily has 

 a swamp meadow of sixty acres, through which 

 runs a brook, which furnishes a small water 

 power for machinery to the second or middle 

 family above. The meadow, formerly produc 

 live in the natural swamp grasses, had partially 

 rmi out from repeated mowing. Dr. Jackson, 

 when he visited it, ascertained by analyzation 

 that the peat which lay at various depths upon 

 this meadow contained fertile elements almost 

 equal to the best barn-yard manure. Last win- 

 ter more than a hundred loads, taken from seve- 

 ral ditches, were carried to the yards, and have 

 assisted in tlio making of compost for the mow- 

 ing grounds. To bring this meadow into more 

 coiii)dete cultivation, the process of cutting 

 through a hard pan and rocky barrier at the low- 

 er end was commenced. The object was effect- 

 ed at much less expense than was anticipated 

 last spring. A portion of the peat ground yvas 

 broken up and turned over, on which at the time 

 of our visit potatoes were growing. The suc- 

 cess of the crop this year has been complete. 

 The work of cutting ofl'the marginal cold springs 

 has been commenced by digging outside drains. 

 We have no doubt that very soon, with the aid 

 simjily of lime and ashes, this meadow will be 

 converted into a most productive spot either for 

 the best English hay or for crops of corn, pota- 

 toes and other vegetables. The digging of a 

 channel at the lower end lets off" three or four 

 feet of water, so that a highly rich vegetable 

 mould of several feet in depth may be brought 

 into action in aid of the crops. Upon a com- 

 paratively small spot nearly two hundred bushels 

 of potatoes were raised the jiresent year. 



The providence of the Shakers iu Pjel is wor- 

 thy of imitation. Their position at Canterbury, 

 in'this northern climate, is cold and bleak ; yet 

 their rooms in the severest winter are kept as 

 a summer atmosphere. Their lodging chambers 

 are well warmed and well ventilated. The con 



sumption of fuel is very 



small : it consists in a 



great measure of that part of the wood that ran 

 not be used in the various wares which are made 

 for sale and for their own use, and for the build 

 ings which they from time to time erect. Pass 

 ing on the way to the meadow through a grove 

 of second growth hard wood with the small tin 

 derwood trimmed out, wliicli reverberated the 

 melody of the evening songsters, we observed 

 small piles of wood carefully laid up from the de- 

 caying trees and broken off limbs, evenly sawed 

 and prepared for the stove. This clearing of the 

 forest and preparation was tlie exclusive work 

 of the oldest man of the establishment, Josiah 

 Edgerly, now between ninety and a hundred 

 years of age, who is too infirm to engage in other 

 field work. Deac. Francis Winkley, long the 

 active business man and manager of the peciini- 

 nry affairs of the Society, having retired to the 

 less laborious work of daily pursuing his trade 



smith working in iron, at the age of over 

 eighty years, by an active life has nearly recov- 

 11 paralysis which affected one year ago 

 the whole ol' one side of his body and limbs. 

 I of stronger minds — few, who 

 from education, and hahit and knowledge of the 

 ways of the world, have less of siiperslitiou than 

 this venerable man ; yet he is fully impressed 

 with the conviction that he has had personal in- 

 tercourse and conversation with George Wash- 

 ington and other sainted spirits who have de- 

 parted this life. Michael Tucker, another of this 

 liimily, has prepared himself more than half a 

 mile of granite walks which enable females in 

 wet weatlier to pass in all directions about the 

 village ; and at the age of eighty years continues 

 this and other arduous labors. Peter Ayer, the 

 hunter, who has done an almost incredible work 

 in constructing stone wall upon an outer farm, 

 depositing in their place large rocks alone with 

 the aid of a single yoke of o.xen, with a sure eye 

 and an untired pace, pursues and overtakes the 

 wary fox at the age of the octogenarian. Like 

 the sages of patriarchal times his business is the 

 care of the flocks and herds, for the breeding 

 management of which Jacob himself in the 

 charge of the cattle of his uncle Laban scarcely 

 discovered more tact. John Wadleigh, eighty- 

 six years old, and a soldier of the revolution, 

 loses no day's work when there is any thing 

 abroad to be done. Early in the day we over- 

 took him nearly two miles out of the village on 

 the stage road with his hoe clearing the road of 

 rocks and other obstructions to make the path- 

 way more easy and safe for the travellers. These 

 men are the remnant and samples of an extraor- 

 dinary association who enjoy all they possess in 

 common and upon equality, and whose great and 

 uniform success in life, giving them every thing 

 necessary for their support, beyond that of any 

 other class, is to be attributed mainly to the car- 

 dinal doctrine of contracting no debts and ma- 

 king no pecuniary promises which are not dis- 

 charged at the moment. 



Of the products of agriculture the society raise 

 little for sale. The butter and cheese made from 

 forty cows is of that kind which would bring the 

 highest price in the market. The dairy, where 

 these are made and kept, is a pattern of neatness; 

 Ihe fifty pound cheeses, made of the richest 



milk, some of them of the age of two 



years, are a little better than the best that any 

 market affords. No appetite could pall on them 

 in the fear that they had ever been touched by 

 uncleannees. 



The saving of labor is an object to which the 

 Shakers are ever looking forward. The laundry 

 establishment removes to one place the disagree- 

 able washing day of every common family. And 

 here ingenuity has been put in requisi 

 ease oft' the labor of females : steam power and 

 horse jiower extracts the dirt from the soiled 

 garments — machinery conveys them to the dry 

 ing room ; and the ironing coin|ilet 

 in uniform whiteness and cleanline 



The cows are turned to and from the pasture 

 twice a day, night and morning. The morn 

 milking, done by the sisters, is finished before 

 c'clock : the evening milking takes place after 

 the cows are brought to the yard, and is done in 

 season to have them returned to pasture before 

 sundown. 



Their establishment for keeping and rearing 

 domestic fowls relieves them entirely from the 

 mischief and depredations usually made in the 

 gardens and fields. Lnprisoned in an extensive 

 yard, the fowls have still sufficient space and 

 variety for the object of contentment. With lit- 

 tle expense and trouble the chickens are hatched 

 and raised ; and at all times eggs, so useliil and 

 convenient in various preparations of food, and 

 so palateable for food alone, are obtained in abun- 

 dance. 



The preiiaration of different vegetables for 

 medicinal and culinary purposes, is a business 

 pursued to great advantage under the direction 

 of Doct.Corbett at the Canterbury family. With- 

 in a few years this has come in aid of the prep- 

 aration of garden seeds now in so great compe- 

 tition as to make it less than formerly an object 

 The Botanic garden set on foot twenty years ago. 

 by Dr. Corbett has brought to their knowledge 

 the value of many herbs that arc too little re- 

 garded. A large building devoted mainly to the 

 drying of herbs has lately been erected. The 



It of compressing these herbs into solid cakes 

 ke tobacco was here first carried into execution, 

 laking many dried herbs a portable article to be 

 sold in the shops of apothecaries. Dr. Corbett 

 has paid in a season $300 to children employed 

 icking the leaves of the checkerberry. Dif- 

 ferent roots and barks are pulverized as more 

 convenient for the retail trade. Slippery elm is 

 procured in large quantities and manufactured 

 for sale ; and to obtain the better kind of that 

 article persons are engaged whose sole employ- 

 ment is the gathering of it in the wilds of Cana- 

 da where there are no stationary inhabitants. 



Our remove fi-om the Shakers was to ihe farm 

 of Mr. Benjamin F. Neal of Loudon, who exhib- 

 ited two fields of the Tea wheat. One field of 

 three acres and four bushels of seed was sown 

 April 25, and another piece of 130 square rods 

 and one bushel of seed was sown on the 3d of 

 May. The first was ripe, and the second nearly 

 so. Mr. Neal obtained his seed from Moulton- 

 borough neck on the Wimiipisseogee lake. The 

 stalk of the wheat was tall and bright in a very 

 clean field — the heads of grain were uncommon- 

 ly long. Mr. Neal's farm is upon one of those 

 elevated swells of land where the rust or the 

 weevil is much less to be apprehended in the 

 crop of wheal than in lower positions. 



Upon ground still more elevated about nine 

 miles north-east from the State-house in Con- 

 cord, is the farm of Mr. Samuel Moore, a mem- 

 ber of the committee: this position has a full 

 view of the Monadnock and the mountains in 

 Fiancestown and the back bone ridge to the 

 Massachusetts line. Mr. Moore was among the 

 first to introduce the Black sea wheat. This 

 season he had growing for the first time wheat 

 whose seed came from Odessx This wheat re- 

 sembled barley, and from the hardness of the 

 kernel was called the flint wheat. He had one 

 and a half acre of Black sea wheat sowed on 

 the 16th May. But his most promising crop was 

 a field of corn, a pan of which was The Brown 

 corn, and another part a later kind the seed of 

 which came from Massachusetts. 



Returning again within the limits of Canter- 

 bury, we passed wheat fields worthy to be entered 

 for a premium upon the fine iarms of Air. Jere- 

 miah Davis an<l Mr. William Wheeler in Loudon 

 — also in Canterbury those of INIessrs. Mark Da- 

 vis, Andrew Taylor, Joseph Whitney, tlie large 

 and highly productive farm of Mr. John Peverly, 

 and several others whose names are not now rec- 

 ollected. 



Mr. Fisher Ames entered his crops for premi- 

 um; and it is remarkable that the Black sea 

 wheat entered was growing upon the same field 

 as the same kind of wheat entered by the father 

 of Mr. A. the late Thomas Ames, Esq. four years 

 previous to this time. Mr. A. has no family, but 

 resides upon this farm with his widowed mother. 

 Upon this farm the father had performed an al- 

 most incredible amount of labor in making smooth 

 and beautiful fields from lands that were rocky 

 and rough; and the eon follows well in his foot- 

 steps. Much heavy and permanent stone fence 

 has been made upon the fiirm by both the father 

 and the son : the latter had this year cleared the 

 stones from an apple orchard which had been 

 many years in bearing, on which, with the ground 

 broken up for the first time in many years, he 

 had growing three acres of potatoes very prom- 

 ising without manure. Mr. A. had four acres of 

 wheat in three pieces : the one and a half acre 

 on the same ground aa that exhibited four years 

 ago was quite equal in appearance to the crop 

 then raised — it was the earliest sowed, the clean- 

 est field, the tallest and stoutest, and would un- 

 doubtedly give the best yield. This field was 

 sowed about the middle of April: another piece 

 of one acre was not sowed until the 25lh of Maj'. 

 A field of Indian corn, prepared with twenty 

 loads of manure to the acre, stood well upon the 

 ground without hills: it was planted at the dis- 

 tance of between four and five feet. One half an 

 acre of beans looked very well: so did a quantity 

 of carrots and ruta baga sown in drills. Mr, 

 Ames, in accordance with the practice on the 

 market farms near Boston, planted his pumpkins 

 and squashes by themselves, which we think to 

 he decidedly preferable to the common mode of 

 planting them among the corn. His mowing 

 ground embraced between fifty and sixty acres, 



Vom which the crop 



lly obtained was about 

 sixty tons— this sfiason not us much by nearly 



