222 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



MAf 



tation it sustained was a soft carpet of moss. This 

 being drained, and set with vines, has produced a 

 large crop of berries, very superior in size and 

 color ; the location being such that they could re- 

 main on the vines till late in the season without 

 danger from frost. 



CRANBERRY VINE WORM. 



Last June nearly an acre of my best cranberry 

 vines presented an unusual appearance. The 

 young shoots seemed to be blighted, and I soon 

 found webs forming over the vines, with here and 

 there a worm. Wherever they went the crop was 

 destroyed. ' Some few of the vines were out of 

 water during the winter. 



Can these worms live where the vines are com- 

 pletely covered with water during the winter ? 



What is the remedy for them ? 



Is late flowing sufficient ? Addison Flint. 



North Beading, Mass., March 14, 1862. 



VISIT TO THE GREAT "VtrAIili OF CHIWA. 

 Mr. Fonblanque communicates to the London 

 Times a graphic description of a visit to the Great 

 Wall of China. The following are extracts : 



Accompanied by Mr. Dick, an excellent Chinese 

 scholar, and attached as interpreter to the Com- 

 missariat, I left Tien-tsin on the ISth of March, 

 and after a three days' ride through as uninterest- 

 ing a country as can well be conceived, came in 

 sight of the fine solid wall which encloses the 

 straggling mass of ruin, dirt and decay, called 

 Pekin. 



Chinese villages are, at best, dreary and squalid 

 looking, but on this route, where the dogs of war 

 have so recently been let loose, there is something 

 haiTOwing in the misery and desolation of the 

 scene. Has grinding oppression and long sufi"er- 

 ing deadened the heart of the Chinese peasant to 

 all sense of injury ? Or has he, after all, a Chris- 

 tian feeling of forgiveness toward his enemies, for 

 which no orthodox churchman would give the 

 Pagan credit ? I cannot explain it, but I own to 

 something like a sense of shame having come over 

 me as we two solitary, unarmed strangers passed 

 through crowds of men, wemen and children, 

 standing by the charred ruins of their homesteads 

 and among their shattered household gods, with- 

 out being met by a single angry look or gesture 

 — nay, more, always receiving a ready and friendly 

 reply to every question. Perhaps they felt grate- 

 ful that we had, at any rate, spared their lives, 

 which is more than they can expect from their 

 countrymen, the rebels, when they pay them a 

 visit. 



Some of the villages along our road were mere 

 heaps of rubbish : others retained more or less 

 the semblance of human habitations. In the larg- 

 er ones, such as Ho-si-woo, which it may be re- 

 membered was for some time in occupation of our 

 troops, the late enemy's inscriptions on doors and 

 walls seem to be piously preserved as agreeable 

 relics, and such familiar garrison words as "Offi- 

 cers' Quarters," "Canteen," "Fane's Horse," "Com- 

 missariat," "General Hospital," &c., meet one at 

 every turn ; though one cannot but remark with 

 regret that the buildings which appear to have af- 

 forded shelter to the invaders are sadly devoid of 

 everything in the shape of wood-work, which was 



probably used as occasion required for cooking 

 dinners and boiling water. A celebrated and im- 

 posing pawnbroker's shop, which was "looted" 

 here, has not yet recovered itself. But let it be 

 borne in mind that in pillage, as in wanton de- 

 struction, the Chinese themselves far excel the 

 British or even the French soldier ; the bonds ot 

 restraint once removed, and a Celestial mob have 

 no patriotic or religious scruples as to the property 

 of Mandarin, priest or peasant — ^as they fully ex- 

 emplified at the sacking of Yuen-ming-yuen and 

 the Llama temple, the proceeds of which are to 

 this day openly offered for sale at more or less ex- 

 orbitant prices in the shops of Tien-tsin. 



A FRENCH BISHOP IN CHINESE ATTIRE. 



At Ho-si-Avoo we met a French mdssionar)' bish- 

 op on his way to Europe, after having passed twen- 

 ty-five years in China. He was dressed in the 

 native costume, even to the pigtail, and appeared 

 to 1)6 treated with great reverence by the unbe- 

 lieving crowd who flocked in to see the "Manda- 

 rin priest." The self-devotion, the zeal, and as a 

 very general rule, the pure and simple lives led 

 by the French missionaries in China, (and their 

 number throughout the empire and the kingdom 

 of Siam exceeds 1500,) are not without their ef- 

 fect upon the people, although this is not dis- 

 played by wholesale and indiscriminate conversion 

 to nominal Christianity. 



THE GREAT WALL. 



Another day's journey brought us to Chataou 

 — a hamlet at the foot of the Great Wall. The 

 road for the last fifteen miles had been so bad that 

 we were obliged to leave our horses at Nankan, 

 hiring in their place Tartar ponies. Nothing less 

 sure-footed than these shaggy, hardy little beasts 

 could have carried us through those rugged moun- 

 tain paths, which we would have done on foot, but 

 that one mile's march over the shaip rock which 

 forms the pavement would have left us shoeless. 



At daybreak on the following morning we 

 climbed the highest peak of the mountain range, 

 and there, standing on the top of the great wall, 

 reflected upon the stupendous folly of this won- 

 derful work of human industry, which is said to 

 have cost the country two hundred thousand lives 

 from sheer physical exhaustion. The wail, which 

 is built of stone and brick, is twenty feet high and 

 fifteen feet broad, surmounted by a double parapet, 

 loopholed on the north side. As far as the eye 

 can follow the mountain range it winds over the 

 ridges of the precipitous black rocks like a gigan- 

 tic serpent crawling along, and with its bi-eath 

 poisoning all around ; for turn where you will, 

 nothing meets the view but the desolate, dreary 

 tract of rock, unrelieved by a blade of grass or a 

 tuft of moss, and huge boulders strewing the base 

 of the mountain sides. It was the whim of a ty- 

 rant to build a wall where Nature had already 

 built a barrier far more effectual than anything 

 that human art could construct. However, there 

 it remains, after a lapse of nearly two thousand 

 years — a monument of the cruel folly of one man, 

 and the patient industry and sufferings of many 

 thousands. 



Having made an abortive attempt at a sketch, 

 and tried in vain to discover one redeeming fea- 

 ture in this vast scene of desolation, I secured 

 my brick, and descending to the pass, remounted 



