260 



KEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



June 



stantly running through. I did not understand 

 from your correspondent whether his water run 

 through his pipes, or remained until pumped or 

 drawn off as wanted. 



Your correspondent, "A. S. Hall's," account of 

 raising potatoes in Brewer, Me., put me in mind 

 of a crop of potatoes raised in Frankfort, Me., the 

 cheapest I ever knew. A fire had run over a lot 

 of low meadow and burnt off all the vegetable 

 matter to a white sand. Near by was a quantity 

 of old spoiled meadow or fresh hay in stacks. A 

 poor man in the neighborhood got from his 

 friends a quantity of small potatoes from the bot- 

 toms of the pens, for little or nothing. These he 

 scattered broadcast over the burnt tract, and cov- 

 ered them with the old hay, which cost him noth- 

 ing but his labor; they had no hoeing, and in the 

 fail he raked off the hay and had the land covered 

 with nice clean potatoes, and nothing to do but to 

 pick them up. RuFUS McIntire. 



Farsonsfield, Me., March 31, 1860. 



JUBILEE! THE YEAR OP KEDEMPTION 

 IS AT HAND! 



For more than forty years past, the farmers on 

 the banks of the Concord and Sudbury rivers, in 

 Middlesex county, this State, have been endeav- 

 oring to regain rights, or in other words, to re- 

 lieve themselves of an unjust and grievous wrong, 

 Inflicted upon them by the inconsiderate and im- 

 provident acts of former legislatures. This op- 

 pression was in the form of damage to vast tracts 

 of the most fertile and valuable lands in the State, 

 traversed by rail and county roads, and surround- 

 ed on every side by the largest and best markets 

 in New England. During this long period of 

 trial and vexatious losses, and amid the annually 

 increasing encroachments of the water upon these 

 once fair lands, nearly every form of the law known 

 to our best legal minds has been resorted to in 

 the courts, but without avail. The sufferers have 

 been turned out upon the merest technicalities of 

 law, scourged with the bitter taunt that they once 

 had a year of grace, but did not improve it, or 

 their opponents, squat in the charnel-house and 

 amid the dead bones of a breathless and rotten 

 corporation, would shake a musty old parchment 

 in their faces, and declare that they held a char- 

 tered right for their ungodly power ! 



Harrassed and perplexed with these vexatious 

 and expensive delays, and having become satis- 

 fied'that no hope of redress remained through the 

 courts, the people came to the conclusion once 

 more to seek a remedy, and to seek it from anoth- 

 er source. They became satisfied that the law- 

 making power itself, when informed of the facts, 

 would not longer sit calmly by and see a poi'tion 

 of its citizens thus outrageously wronged and op- 

 pressed, merely that a few might realize inordi- 

 nate gains ; they knew the public was cognizant 

 of this monstrous wrong, and that its voice was 

 ready to declare it everywhere, and that for more 



than a million of dollars' toorth of property de- 

 stroyed by these jlowages, not an individual had 

 ever received a shilliny as damages ! 



In accordance with these views, a plan of ope- 

 rations was devised, and the first point gained, in 

 securing a committee of both branches of the Leg- 

 islature to view the damaged lands, and to sit in 

 hearing of the facts in the case. This committee 

 made a thorough exploration of the flooded lands, 

 bridges, causeways, bars, and the dam at Billerica, 

 and the hearing that followed occupied some thir- 

 ty days. Soijie of the ablest legal talent in the 

 State was employed on both sides, and every step 

 in this memorable hearing was contested with all 

 the acumen and skill which counsel of acknowl- 

 edged ability usually bring to bear upon an im- 

 portant case. For the petitioners. Judge Hoar, 

 of Concord, acted as counsel until he went upon 

 the Supreme Bench ; then Judge Mellen, Da- 

 vid Lee Child, Esq., Judge French, of Boston, 

 and before the case closed, George Isl. Brooks, 

 and the Hon. John S. Keyes, of Concord, and 

 R. F. Fuller, Esq., of Boston. The remonstrants 

 called to their aid in the beginning. Judge Ab- 

 bott, and the Hon. B. F. Butler, of Lowell, G. 

 A. SoMERBY, of Waltham, and G. H. Preston, 

 Esq., of Boston. The explorations were made 

 with the Commissioners by both parties being in 

 attendance, and the hearing throughout was con- 

 ducted with that courtesy and urbanity which dis- 

 tinguishes gentlemen in every walk of life. The 

 contest was often sharp, and the rebuttals and re- 

 joinders expressed with more vehemence some- 

 times than the rules of rhetoric demanded, but 

 no passages occurred to cause unj^leasant regrets. 

 During the hearing the testimony of ninety-four 

 witnesses was taken, and speeches and arguments 

 were "as thick as leaves in the vale of Vallam- 

 brosa." All these were taken in short hand by a 

 sworn reporter, and the whole report of the Cora- 

 mission, including arguments of counsel, testi- 

 mony of witnesses, plans, maps, surveys, sand 

 bars, ford-ways, deeds, charters, and the dam at 

 Billerica, printed at the public cost, making in all 

 a book of nearly five hundred pages. 



A new joint committee of the Legislature which 

 has recently adjourned was appointed, to which 

 was submitted the report of tke flrst commission, 

 with instructions to print, and then recommend 

 such further action to the Legislature as the facts 

 suggested and the necessities of the case seemed 

 to them to require. In accordance with these in- 

 structions, they made a brief, but most compre- 

 hensive report, relating the leading facts in the 

 case, and presented a bill authorizing the Governor 

 and Counsel to appoint three persons to act as 

 Commissioners to take down thirty-three inches 

 of the dam at any time after the first day of Sep- 

 tember next. If any person considers his prop- 



