354 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



siAY 20, usr. 



feet posts, and liokls nearly 3000 tons of ice. The 

 house is built of pine boards, and the ice is pro- 

 tected from external heat by filling in the walls, 

 which are a foot and a half thick, witli the ex- 

 hausted bark of tan pits — a non conductor of ca- 

 loric that has been foiuid perfectly efficacious. 

 The Mystic Pond Ice house is very happily located 

 being so situated that the ire may be discharged 

 directly from the house into the boats of the Mid- 

 dlesex canal, or the cars of the Lowell Railroad, 

 and can therefore be brought to tlie city at nuich 

 less expense and loss by waste, than from any 

 other establishment. The pond itself is supplied 

 with water from another i)ond just above it, which 

 upper pond is fed by such abundant springs, that 

 we are told it never freezes in the coldest season. 

 The water, therefore, is of the purest and most 

 limpid quality. Col. Metcalf has lately loaded 

 with this ice a vessel tor Rio Janeiro, and another 

 for Bombay. He has also sent freights to Nor- 

 folk, Savannah, and other southern ports. It is 

 transported on the canal, and hoisted on board the 

 vessel by machLnery, made for the purpose, with 

 great facility. 



The process of cutting the ice, getting it from 

 the water, and storing it in the ice house, is inge- 

 nious, but simple. The ice house is built on the 

 border of the pond, and one end i)rojects over the 

 water. At this end there are two openings or 

 doors, which extend from the floor to the roof. 

 When the ice has made to a sufficient thickness, 

 say 15 inches, a spot selected where it is of the 

 purest, most transjiarent, and solid quality. It is 

 then marked out into oblong squares, 21 inches 

 wide by 3i feet long. At every 21 inches of 

 width, a groove is ploughed, half an inch wide, 

 and 4 or 5 inches deep, by a plough made for the 

 purpose, and drawn by a horse ; the ice is then 

 sawed across, at distances of 21 inches, and one 

 series of blocks being removed, the rest is easily 

 set loose by a staff with a broad, chisel-formed 

 end, driven into the groove, and used as a lever. 

 A canal of a corresponding vvidtli to the blocks, 

 is then made from the place where tlie ice is se- 

 lected, to the house, and the blocks are pushed 

 along with a staff to one of the doors, where it is 

 received into an iron cradle and hoisted up to the 

 requisite height, when a spring, which has pre- 

 vented the block from falliiig off, strikes a projection 

 and being forced down, the ice slides into the 

 house, and is there received by persons who push 

 it into its jjlace with a staff. From the com- 

 mencement of the process to the end, the ice is 

 never touched with the hands. The average 

 weight of each block is about 400 pounds, and 

 being all cut of the same form and proportions, 

 they arc jiacked much more closely in the ice- 

 house, or in the hold of a vessel, than when cut 

 out as formerly, with an axe, in a negligent man- 

 ner. — Boston Transcript. 



Palm Leaf Hats. — The braiding of these 

 hats is an inq)ortant and increasing business, './hieh 

 has sprung up within ten years past, and which is 

 doubly valuable in consideration of its moral in- 

 fluence, inasmuch as it offers a remunerating do- 

 mestic employment for thousands of our indus- 

 trious country women. Fe*' are aware of the 

 extent to which the manufacture is carried on in 

 the country towns. In Ashby in Middlesex 

 County, according to the Yeoman's Gazette, 

 50,000 hats arc braided annually, for which the 

 braiders (more than half of whom are girls and 



small boys) receive between six and seven thou- 

 sand dollars. This is not a Idgh compensation 

 for the amount of labor bestowed ; but the ad- 

 vantage is that this labor may be bestowed at odd 

 times, and by those who might otherwise remain 

 unemployed. In Petersham and Barre, in Wor- 

 cester county, great numbers have been made. 

 We have been told that a single connnission house 

 in New York, sold hats made in that county in 

 one year, to the amount of ninety thousand dol- 

 lars. The Southern market was for a great while 

 the princijKxl outlet ; the sales have fluctuated 

 considerably, and the prices have been gradually 

 coming down. Recently, large quantities were 

 shipped to France and sold readily and with profit, 

 at one quarter of the rate at which the English 

 had been in the habit of selling an article not as 

 handsome, though rather more substantial. The 

 French Government have somewhat checked the 

 trade, by imposing a diUy of one franc (about 

 twenty cents) on the finer kinds of these hats ; 

 — the consequence is, that the common ones are 

 now principally sought for export. 



In this county the business lias been prosecuted 

 to some extent. A dealer in this town, who com- 

 menced a few weeks since, has already a hundred 

 and fifty braiders employed. In Shelburne and 

 in other towns we believe that a considerable 

 number are made. — Franklin Mercury. 



SIL.K CUIiTIJRE. 



Much allowance is to be made for the coloring 

 given by enthusiastic men, warmly engaged in a 

 new and untried pursuit; but after all deduction, 

 facts enough have been presented to show con- 

 clusively that the silk business is capable of being 

 made exceedingly profitable. And perhaps the 

 most inq)ortant fact of all is, that the culture has 

 not only maintained its ground, but has been ad- 

 vancing in Connecticut for many years, and that 

 under every disadvantage of inqierfect machinery 

 and want of capital, it has brought a far greater 

 amount of money into a small town possessing no 

 great natural advantages, than was ever realized 

 for any one article of produce,, from a similar ex- 

 tent of the most fertile bottom lands on the Con- 

 necticut. This culture seems likely too, to thrive 

 more particularly in New England, inasmuchas its 

 success depends more on the industry of the pop- 

 ulation than on the fertility of the territory. In 

 all kinds of produce which can be raised by slave 

 labor, the southern and westei-n planters will 

 always compete with ns successfully. Worcester 

 county, the finest agricultural county in New 

 England, cannot profitably raise bread stuffs 

 enough for its use ; many thousand bushels of 

 Southern corn are anmuilly imported and consum- 

 ed there. The cattle of Franklin county arc 

 sometimes competed with in Brighton market, by 

 droves which have been pastured on the parks of 

 Kentucky or the prairies of Illinois. It is " the 

 industry of iieedom" oldy, which has enabled New 

 England to maintain her ground against the ad- 

 vantages presented by the superior soil of some 

 parts of the Union, and the cheaper labor of other 

 parts. Every new occupation which free labor 

 can make j)rofitabl(-, and which is safe from the 

 conqietition of slave labor, is a thousand times 

 more consequence than the discovery of the rich- 

 est gold mine would be. — lb. 



American Silk. — The Philadelphia Herald 

 speaks of Mr Upton, of that city as having been 



for eighteen years engaged in silk manufacture. 

 There is a gentleman in this vicinity, (Mr Cobb of 

 Dedham,) who, for a shorter period has perhaps 

 been working as effectually as any other person 

 in the way of experiment. He began the eulti- 

 vation of the mulberry tree in 1826 ; and since 

 that time, notwithstanding the nature of the soil, 

 which is not the most favorable, has extended his 

 operations so much so as to be now in the habit 

 of bringing to the Boston market American silk, 

 manufactured, to the amount of about a hundred 

 dollars a week, the year round. Recently he has 

 introduced the great improvement of raising his 

 trees from slips, by which he gains two years in 

 the growth. Those planted by him the last spring 

 we understand, have grown over four feet already. 

 The mulberry, in this particular excels all other 

 trees. — Bost. Mer. Jour. 



FKRTILIZING PROPERTIES OP lilME. 



A writer for the Genesee Farmer, with the sig- 

 nature " Hakkam" gives the following remarks. 



When the writer of this article went, in the 

 days of his boyhood, to reside in one of the south- 

 ern counties of Pennsylvania, the land upon which 

 he lived had been purchased at the common price 

 in the neighborhood, £4 Pennsylvania currency, 

 per acre. A short distance to the northwest lay 

 tlie great limestone valley, that extends, with some 

 abrupt terminations, from New York to Virginia. 

 The serpentine ridge which bounds this valley on 

 the south-east, was considered by the inhabitants 

 as the limits of the grain country ; and although 

 the land adjoining it south-eastward was a good 

 sandy loam, it was thought that it would produce 

 nothing but grass, and the land in the valley was 

 then estimated at an average price of £15, or $40 

 per acre. In a few years, however, the farmers 

 began to haul lime from the valley, and make lib- 

 eral ajiplications of it on the land south of the 

 ridge. They have continued this process with in- 

 creasing industry for forty years, with increasing 

 success, and the consequence has been that the 

 valley, which was thought abundantly calcareous 

 without the application of lime, has remained sta- 

 tionary in value, with some fluctuations during the 

 late war, while the land upon which lime has been 

 liberally applied, has advanced from £4 to 80 and 

 $100 per acre, and from the abundance of its 

 crops fully justifies the purchaser. 



TO DJESTROY TICKS ON SHEEP. 



Friend Tucker — I have been a constant read- 

 er of thy valuable i)aper for more than two years, 

 during which time I have noticed several com- 

 munications on the best method of destroying 

 ticks on sheep, none of which seem to me so well 

 adapted to the end designed as that which an ex- 

 perience of sixty years in farming, has led me to 

 adopt, and which is now sulimitted to the public with 

 much diffidence. I have had for several years a 

 flock of sheep about one hundred in number, com- 

 posed of the Merino and Bakcwell breeds, and 

 when purchased by me the former were much 

 afflicted by " the scab," and all by ticks — the lambs 

 the most severely. For the destruction of the 

 ticks, I procured between one-half and three 

 fourths of a bushel of stems or refuse tobacco, 

 which I boiled, and when the strength was suf- 

 ficiently extracted, the liquor was put into a half 

 hogshead tub, as being the most suitable for the 

 operation intended — to this was added water till 

 the tub was nearly full. After the sheep were 



