132 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Makcii 



&c., and showed by illustration the difference in 

 soils, apparently the same to the eye, but which 

 contained properties rendering them quite differ- 

 ent in productiveness. He advocated the in- 

 struction of the farmer in these matters, express- 

 ing the pleasure it gave him to find that it Avas 

 proposed by the present Legislature to take steps 

 in this direction, and saying that any measure of 

 this kmd should have his hearty approval. 



The speaker contended that the farms in 

 Massachusetts were depreciating in value, and 

 showed from the returns of corn, potatoes and 

 sheep, in 1840 and 1850, that his argument was 

 correct. This he attributed to the fact that the 

 land had been despoiled of its fertilizing proper- 

 ties, and was not attended to. There might be 

 lands about Boston tliat had increased in value 

 and productiveness from the close proximity of, 

 and easy access to the multitude of fertilizing 

 compouTids, but the reverse was the case of the 

 great bulk of land in the State. 



Mr. Bishop then spoke of females, and said he 

 was in favor of giving them their appropriate 

 rights — God had given them, and man had no 

 right to circumscribe them. He said he did not 

 allude to political rights, but thought that, though 

 they were not allowed to vote, they exercised an 

 influence we were not aware of. He alluded to 

 gardens and orchards, and said that here they 

 would be found the co-workers with man. Speak- 

 ing of flowers, he passed in review the number of 

 exotics introduced into England from the reign of 

 Henry VIH. to George HL, and showed that while 

 under kings the number was insignificant, under 

 the reign of queens it was very large. He said 

 no one could deny that the garden was woman's 

 especial sphere. 



The speaker then passed to the subject to be 

 brought to the attention of the meeting, that of 

 Flax, and said he had not seen, for twenty-five 

 years, a square rood of flax gi'owing, but he was 

 brought up among men who grcM' flax, and made 

 a profit on it, and he remembered a farmer in the 

 section where he lived, on coming to take his 

 seat as a member of the Legislature, harnessing 

 up his horses to his sled, and putting on a load of 

 flax, which he brought to sell at the Boston mar- 

 ket. 



He said there was none cultivated here now, 

 and the reason for this was not that it deteriorat- 

 ed the soil, for it did not ; it was not for fear the 

 crop would fail, for it never failed ; but it was the 

 expense of getting the flax prepared for market, 

 the rotting and preparing the textile filament. It 

 is a crop, said the honorable gentleman, worthy 

 to be raised— a double crop — furnishing clothing 

 for day and night, and food for the animal. 

 Wheat and corn will not do this, and no animal 

 will, e.i£cept the sheep, (laughter) which furnished 



food for the table, and clothing — indeed, said he, 

 the sheep is to the animal world what flax is to 

 the vegetable world (increased laughter). 



The Chairman closed his remarks by introduc- 

 ing Stephen M. Allen, Esq., to the meeting. 



Mr. Allen commenced by saying that many of 

 the memories of youth which were gathered amid 

 the rocks, hills and valleys of Ncav England forty 

 years ago, had come down to him with pleasant 

 associations connected with the growth and manu- 

 facture of flax. The linen wheel, the warping 

 bars and the loom were indispensable elements in 

 the outfit of every farm-house, and the spinning 

 and the weaving of the fibre among the most 

 necessary accomplishments of the young farmer's 

 wife. What boy, thus born, said the speaker, ex- 

 ists, who cannot remember among his 'earliest oc- 

 cupations the pulling and the spreading of flax, 

 and his first perquisites of a roll of tow cloth, 

 which he sold at the country store at 12^ cents per 

 yard? 



Such memories as these, coupled with the hard- 

 ships and sufferings incidental to the life of the 

 farmer's boy of that age of New England history, 

 bring vividly before him, in whatever position he 

 may be ])laced, his true condition — what he then 

 was, what he now is, and what he ought to be. It 

 was such memories as these which gave the speak- 

 er an interest in agricultural pursuits, and though 

 thirty-five years and more had passed since he left 

 the mountain glen where he was born, yet the old 

 carol which was tuned on the mountain side from 

 the head waters of the Saco, to move, as was sup- 

 posed, the first flax spinning-wheel which Avas set 

 up in New England, Avas as vivid before his 

 mind's eye now as Avhen a child eight years of 

 age. These associations, to Avhich he had allud- 

 ed, together with the announcement in England 

 that flax could be cottonizcd, led him to lay the 

 subject before the Legislature of this State, of 

 Avhich then he then Avas a member, nine years ago. 

 The order presented was that the Committee on 

 Agriculture collect such information as could be 

 procured concerning the culture and growth of 

 flax, and its probable substitution for cotton in 

 the manufacture of cheap fabrics. Having been 

 called on by the Chairman of this Committee to 

 furnish such information as he could readily get 

 on the subject, jNIr. Allen furnished it at length, 

 and it Avas printed for the use of the Legislature. 

 During the following year, said the speaker, it 

 Avas pretty Avell demonstrated that the experiment 

 of cottonizing flax in England Avas a failure, and 

 his attention was given to a personal exami- 

 nation of the subject, in detail, of the mechanical 

 and chemical construction of the flax fibre, in 

 connection Avith building mills for its manufacture 

 at Niagara Falls. 

 In the year 1854, the lecturer said he became 



