140 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



March 



the persons employed are of this description, and 

 number about 900. The amount of sales is $400,- 

 000 annually. All kinds of bonnets are made. 

 The stock of most of the "lace" or fancy hats is 

 imported from Englan(], Italy and Switzerland. 

 The nicest laces, made of horse hair, come from 

 Switzerland, made of hair imported from South 

 America at prices almost fabulously cheap, show- 

 ing that the wages of those who manufacture 

 them must be at the starvation point. The most 

 expensive and fashionable bonnets are made, how- 

 ever, by Yankee girls, of rye straw. Tha names of 

 tlie firms are A. E. Daniels & Son, H. M. Green 

 & Baker, Davis Thaver, Jr., A. II. Morse & H. 

 C. Fisher. 



Franklin was once, we believe, an agi-icultural 

 town of considerable note, but for several years 

 past her farming interests have shared but too 

 largely in the general decline, aggravated no 

 doubt by the superior attractions which the man- 

 ufacture of straw has presented to the young 

 men. There are encouraging signs, however, that 

 farming has reached its lowest point, and that it 

 has already begun to ascend again. Among those 

 who have aided in this good work are Dr. Oliver 

 Dean, vrho, after a life of successful enterprise, 

 has returned to his native town, purchased a farm 

 and is showing his neighbors the value of scien- 

 tific farming; Dr. S. AxwooD, who has been 

 turning his attention to stock-raising ; E. A. Met- 

 CALF, who has entered somewhat largely into 

 reclaiming waste lands with great success. Dr. E. 

 A. Miller, of Dorchester, a native of this town, 

 has entered upon the culture of the cranberry on 

 a large scale. He has some fifteen acres of 

 meadows Avhich he can cover with water in two or 

 tiree hours, so as to protect them from frost or 

 fiomthe cranberry Avorm when the young fruit 

 has just set. He has expended some $7000 in his 

 operations. The plants are just beginning to re- 

 turn to him something of this outlay. Last fall 

 he gathered 80 or 90 barrels, which, at the high 

 prices cranberries commanded, paid a handsome 

 return on the cost. Mr. Whiting Metcalf has 

 entered somewhat largely and successfully upon 

 the enterprise of transplanting forest trees, most- 

 ly pines. 



A Farmers' Club has been fornjed, and an eligi- 

 ble room fitted up for its accommodation, and it 

 has a library of well-selected agricultural books. 

 In this room is the identical library given by Dr. 

 Franklin, in 1786, for the honor conferred on him 

 of calling the town by his name. 



Several distinguished men have originated in 

 Franklin, and among them Hon. Tiieron Met- 

 calf, of the Supreme Court ; the late Judge Em- 

 mons, of Maine ; Horace Mann and Prof. Fish- 

 er, of Yale College, who gave promise of being 

 one of the most distinguished mathematicians of 



our country, but who died young, being lost by 

 the wreck of "The Albion," on the coast of Ire- 

 land, in 1822. 



Hon. Jabez Fisher was a citizen of Franklin. 

 He was for more than fifty years a deacon of the 

 church, and for about twenty years he represented 

 the town in the Legislature of the State, either as 

 a member of the House or of the Senate, or of 

 the Governor's Council. lie was prominent in 

 the days and deeds of our revolutionary struggles, 

 and is said to have originated the oft-quoted 

 phrase — "The times that tried men's souls." 



We intended to speak of visits to Waltham, 

 North Wrentham and Southboro', but have al- 

 ready occupied all the room we can spare at pres- 

 ent. 



For the New England Farmer. 



FAKMERS' CLUBS AND AGKICULTUBAIi 

 FAIKS. 



Mr. Brown : — I saw in the Farmer a commu- 

 nication from Mr. Flint, stating that towns wish- 

 ing to form clubs can have assistance from an 

 agent sent at the State's expense. I regret that 

 our farmers are not capable of forming clubs for 

 themselves. Farmers' clubs are useful, and where 

 farmers take an interest in farming, they will meet 

 and form clubs without any assistance from the 

 State. The majority of farmers of this State do 

 not want any aid from a source they are taxed to 

 pay for ; what we want most is to lessen our tax- 

 es. We are spending a large amount of money 

 every year on our county societies, wliich were in- 

 tended to benefit the farming community, but, 1 

 am sorry to say, are doing but little good, under the 

 present management. Those societies have ex- 

 pended large sums for- land and board fences to 

 pen up all manner of exciting shows, to entice 

 young and old to go in and pay their quarters to see 

 the sights they have collected, and so we are taxed 

 twice to see what does but little good. The work- 

 ing farmer gets but little of the premium money. 

 Most of it is taken by men of large means who 

 have bought farms that have been improved by 

 good fai'mers, and our societies are managed prin- 

 cipaUy by such men. 



Market fairs have been much talked about of 

 late. I have thought very fovorably of them, but 

 I do not think they will remedy all the evils that 

 some do. As to speculators, or middlemen, they 

 can buy at market fairs as well as others. But the 

 middlemen are not so much at fault as many 

 think they are ; for the consumers' way of living 

 is such at the present time that, if it was not for 

 the middlemen, I think some of them would go 

 without their dinner, for a large part of them 

 live from hand to mouth. As the fashions were 

 once, when professional men and mechanics laid 

 up their winter provisions, market fairs would 

 have been a help to both farmer and consumer. 

 But our sons and daughters are not educated to 

 know how to live ; they are kept at school till 

 they lose their health, and then what they learn 

 is of but little practical use. A large part of them 

 who get married at the present day would not 

 know what to do with f^^'o or three months' T>ro- 



