324 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



APRIL 17, 1839. 



N. E. F A R M E R 



The following remarks from the New-York Jour- 

 nal of Commerce, are so sensible, so well-limed, 

 and so mucli to the purpose, that we insert them 

 with much pleasure, and invite the attention of our 

 readers. 



N. Y. Agricultural Convention. — A late 

 number of " The Cultivator" contains the proceed- 

 in;Ts of a State Agricultural Convention, held at 

 Albany in February last; and also the proceedings 

 of the State Agricultural Society, held in the same 

 city about the same time. As we consider agricul- 

 ture the handmaid and support of commerce, — the 

 most natural, the most healthful, and one of the 

 most useful employments of man, — more favorable 

 to good morals and substantial happiness than any 

 other, and deserving to be considered at least as 

 honorable as any other, — we offer no apology for 

 introducing these proceedings to the notice of our 

 readers. And in so doing we cannot help remark- 

 ing, that the host of hangers-on for places as book- 

 keepers, clerks, &c. who throng our large cities, 

 would consult their own interests infinitely better, 

 (many of them at least,) by going back into the 

 country, and addressing themselves assiduously to 

 the plough, the hoe, and the spade. In this way 

 they might be sure of a competence, and almost 

 sure of more than a competence. But in preference 

 to this, they loiter about the city, month after month, 

 and some of them year after year, in search of em- 

 ployment, and wonder why they cannot find it ! 

 The reason is obvious. The business they seek is 

 overdone; and the reason of that is, the rush from 

 the country of thousands and thousands who ought 

 to have turned their hands to agriculture. Book- 

 keepers and clerks, with a few exceptions, are mis- 

 erably paid, receiving scarcely-enough, if they have 

 a small family, to make the two ends of the year 

 meet, — and yet, because a few ';,ave bkniderej in- 

 to fortunes through that door, every body else must 

 try their luck too! Let a man in this city adver- 

 tise for a farmer, and ho may have difficulty in find- 

 ing one, — but let him advertise for a book-keeper, 

 and he will be overrun with applicants from morn- 

 ing till night. It is painful to behold the disap- 

 pointment of so many worthy young men who are 

 only seeking an honest livelihood ; but they are 

 most to be pitied because they have not sagacity 

 enough to perceive that they are on the wrong 

 scent ; pursuing what but a small proportion of 

 them can obtain, and which, if they could obtain it, 

 is by no means as desirable as the state of indepen- 

 dent competence which is everywhere within the 

 reach of the industrious farmer. What adds 40 

 their distress while waiting so long for employment, 

 is the expense of living ; and this is occasioned in 

 a considerable degree by the high price of provis- 

 ions ; and this again by the fact, that instead of 

 being producers, as thejr would have been if they 

 had remained in the country, they have become 

 consumers. Let the thousands and thousands who 

 liave turned aside from the pursuits of agriculture 

 to make their fortunes in a day, and most of whom, 

 as they have grasped the object of their pursuit, 

 have grasped only a shadow, — let them harden 

 their hands with the plough and the hoe, and the 

 scythe and the pitch-fork ; and our word for it, they 

 will no longer complain of the dearness of provi- 

 sions. The false delicacy, wherever it exists, 

 which makes a man feel as if agricultural pursuits 

 were beneath him, shows, if it shows anything, that 

 he is beneath them. 



(From the Natchez Courier) 

 TRAVELLING AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS. 

 Mr. Black : Dear Sir — The following brief 

 summary of a recent journey from New- York to 

 New-Orleans, contrasted with one made in 1800, 

 will perhaps be interesting to some of your readers, 

 and serve to illustrate the modern improvement in 

 travelling. Yours, J. 



IN 1800. 

 " .April 3d. Left New-York in ferry boat for.Ter- 

 sey city. Took two-horse coach and got to Phila- 

 delphia the fourth day at 4 p. m. Left Philadel- 

 phia next morning in a one-horse chaise, with the 

 mail bag behind, for Lancaster, where we arrived 

 the third day. At Lancaster bought a horse, and 

 after nine days' journey through the forests, reached 

 Pittsburg. Here with some others, I bought for 

 eighteen dollars, a flat boat, in which we took our 

 departure for New-Orleans, floating with the cur- 

 rent. After divers adventures and escapes from 

 great peril by land and water, we reached Natchez 

 the fiftyseventh day after leaving Pittsburg, and 

 New-Orleans city in thirteen days thereafter, hav- 

 ing been from New-York on the journey, eighty- 

 four days, which our friends ia—New-Orleans did 

 say was an expeditious voyage;' My own personal 

 cost on the way was, in sum total, £27 lis. 4 l-4d." 



IN 1 83'. I. 



Left New-York Monday, January 2]st, at 6 a. m. 

 in railroad cars at Jersey city. Arrived at Phila- 

 delphia at ten minutes past 12. 



Time, 6h. 10 m.— Cost $4. 



At 2 left Philadelphia in cars for Baltimore. 

 Arrived at 8 p. m. 



Time, 6h.— Cost, $4. 



Left Baltimore next afternoon at 4, in mail char- 

 iot tor Wheeling. Arrived at Wheeling 5 minutes 

 before 12, Saturday noon. 



Time, 43 h. 50 m. — Cost, $23. 



Left Wheeling next morning in accommodation 

 stage for Cincinnati. Arrived at Cincinnati in 59 

 1-2 hours. 



Time, 59 h. 30 m.— Cost, $24 50. 



Left Cincinnati at 10 next morning, in the mail 

 boat Pike, and at 10 at night reached Louisville. 



Time, 12 h.— Cost .*4. 



Left Louisville next morning at 11, in steamer 

 Diana, amd reached Natchez the sixth day. 



Time, 149 h. — Cost, $35, 



Left Natchez same day, and reached New-Or- 

 leans the next evening. 



Time, 30 h.— Co.st, .*ia 



Incidental expenses at Philadelphia, Baltimore, 

 Cincinnati, and Louisville, $10. 



Total, 30G hours 30 minutes. — Cost, .$114 50. 



Thus making 12 days, 18 hours, and 30 mimites 

 the time of travel between New-York and New- 

 Orleans. 



Difference between 1839 and 1800, in time, about 

 71 days. 



Ditto in expense, about $25 in favor af 1839. 



N. 15. — This last journey was made in the win- 

 ter season. In the summer months it can be per- 

 formed for .§80, and in less tiinc. The above in- 

 cludes every item, both of expense, of " feed and 

 fare." Yours, Viator. 



[This is a document well worth preserving. For- 

 merly, and within the memory of many persons now 

 living, a journey to New-York and back, was an 

 affair of three weeks. Tlten, a man about to un- 

 dertake this great affair, it is often said, made his 



will, put up a note at church for his safe return, and 

 took a regular leave of his wife, children and ac- 

 quaintance. Now, he leaves Boston at 3 o'clock, 

 p. m., gets to New-York the next morning, before 

 the Knickerbockers are knocking about — has 12 

 hours for business, and is in Boston the next morn-' 

 ing, as soon as his coffee is clear, and perhaps be-i 

 fjre his wife is ready to turn it out. The passen-; 

 gers in that excellent steamer, the John W. Rich- 

 mond, reach Boston in little more than twelve hours 

 after leaving the great city of Manhattan ; and all 

 this too "without being broken of one's rest at 

 night" Some of our married friends may be tempt- 

 ed to try it, with a view to being spared the usual 

 lecture and getting a comfortable night's rest.] 



EXTRAORDINAKT PERFORMANCE A loCOmOtivB, 



built by M. W. Baldwin, Esq. of Philadelphia, drew 

 a train of 45 cars freighted with 150 tons of nails 

 and hoop iron and 28 men, and, including cars and 

 engines, making a gross weight of 223 tons, from 

 Reading to Bridgeport, at an average speed of 

 121-2 miles per hour. The quantity of wood con. 

 sumed was 1 3-8ths cords, which, allowing 2,000 

 pounds to the cord, is 2,600 lbs. or 11 lbs. 10 oz, 

 per ton for the 40 miles, or 4 2-3 oz. per ton per 

 mile. — Pittshurg Advocate. 



[This is an astonishing performance. How much 

 farther we arc to go is beyond conjecture. We 

 have not yet got to the feather which broke the 

 camel's back.] 



The largest Multicaulis story yet, is told by the 

 Bridgeton New-Jersey Chronicle. \ gentleman 

 in Georgia, some five or six years since, obtained 

 and planted a mulberry tree in his garden, where 

 it had stood untouched till the past winter, when it 

 attracted the attention of some one in the trade, 

 who offered the owner three cents a bud for the 

 top of it The bargain was struck, and on cutting 

 off the branches and countingthe buds, they amount- 

 ed to twelve hundred and fifty dollars, there being 

 41,601 buds on the tree, 



[The above is certainty well entitled to the des- 

 ignation which it everywhere receives, of very re- 

 markable. Yet after all it is not so remarkable a 

 the high prices, which are constantly given for 

 plant which is propagated with so much facility 

 and in such abundance.] 



K PLEASANT Country. — A western editor de- 

 scribing the great advantages which are peculiar 

 to the Maumee river country, says — 



"A stranger passing through Toledo the other 

 day, inquired his way to Monroe, Michigan. He 

 was told to take the road that appeared plainest and 

 the most travelled. He did so, and in the course 

 of^ a few minutes, found hiuiself in the burying 

 ground ! He did not stay there very long, but was 

 .soon seen running through the country, as if the ri- 

 der of the pale horse was at his heels." 



[Again, he states on " good authority," that that 

 portion of the country which lies on the south side 

 of the river will produce more rattlesnakes to the 

 acre, than any piece of land of its size in America. 



This must be a glorious country to remove to !] 



The N. Y. Journal of Commerce proves by a 

 mass of statistical facts, copied from an English pub- 

 lication, that the danger of loss of life on an average 

 railroad trip, is only as about one to four miUions. 



