1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



223 



in the orchards, and among the growing crops 

 and in preparation for fall seeding and for early 

 harvest. Cool weather is the more fitting time 

 for heavy exhausting work ; teams are strong, 

 the men vigorous and come to their tasks with a 

 will. As much can be accomplished now at some 

 kinds of labor in eight hours as during ten in 

 August. Hoeing follows planting, ha} ing fol- 

 lows hoeing and the grain and fall harvest 

 follows haying so closely that there is little op- 

 portunity for doing more than attending strictly 

 to the growing crops. 



The complaint is often made here that the 

 winters are too long, and the season for grow- 

 ing crops too short, and that those States 

 where ploughing can be begun in February or 

 March are more desirable locations, l)ut one 

 difference between farming in New England 

 and further South is simply a change in the 

 order of work. We raise as large a variety of 

 crops, and we take one crop during the year 

 from the land, they do no more ; but here 

 many things must be done before seed-time 

 and after harvest, which are done there dur- 

 ing planting and while crops rre growing. 

 Both may begin the work about the same time. 

 Spring time is invaluable to those who have a 

 fair proportion of their farms in tillage. 

 Either under cover or in the fields there is 

 work enough to be done. N. s. T. 



Laicrence, Mass., March 1, 1870. 



For the Kew England Farmer, 



EKOAD INSTEAD OP NAKKOMT 

 ■WHEELS. 



During the past open winter our highways 

 have been badly cut into deep ruts, and it will 

 cost a good deal of money to repair them in 

 the spring. How much of this expense is 

 justly chargeable to the use of narrow wheels P 

 I was long ago satisfied that it costs twice as 

 much to keep our roads in repair with nar- 

 row wheels as it would were ordinary wagon 

 wheels not less than four inches wide, and 

 heavily loaded wagons six inches. When 1 

 was eleven years old I drove an ox team from 

 Reading to Salem, generally loaded with 

 wood. This was my general employment for 

 some years. I am now eighty-one years old, 

 and consequently have had seventy years ex- 

 perience on highways ; perhaps as much as 

 any man in the State. 



In the month cf April, 1835, I made an 

 agreement with Patrick T. Jackson to move 

 Ptinoerton hill in Boston. The work was to 

 commence on the 5th day of May, and to be 

 completed in six months from that day. In 

 order to do this I found it needed one hun- 

 dred and twenty-six working oxen. These I 

 could buy ia a very short time ; but carts 

 enough I could not get made to commence 

 this business with at the time. This put me 

 under the necessity of buying or hiring of ev- 

 ery farmer that would sell or let a cart, until 

 1 could get new ones built. 



In a very short time after commencing the 

 work, all my teamsters who used the narrow 

 wheeled carts, complained that they run harder 

 than the wide wheeled ones did. I was not a 

 little surprised at this, as it had never entered 

 my mind that it made any difference, on hard 

 pavements, whether the wheel was narrow or 

 wide in drawing a load. But I was determined 

 to know the real cause why it was so. For 

 this purpose I walked beside a cart with nar- 

 row wheels several times, watching the move- 

 ment of the wheels. I found that it was sel- 

 dom that the wheel would run rioht straight 

 over a paving stone, but would generally hit 

 on one side or the other and slide off into the 

 hollow. By these slides the load went down 

 without helping the team any, which had to 

 life it out. As near as I could calculate the 

 team had to draw the load up hill six inches 

 to every rod they went ahead. I then walked 

 alongside the cart with the wide wheels, 

 watching them in the same way. I found that 

 whtn the wide tire hit on the top of the stone 

 it would roll off and not slide either way, and 

 when the centre of the wheel came between 

 two paving stones, the wide tire would strike 

 both and pass over without sliding. Satisfied 

 of the superiority of wide rims even on pave- 

 ments, I got rid of all the narrow wheels on 

 the work as soon as I could consistently. 



Now Mr. Editor I think if no wheels were 

 allowed to go on our highways less than f jur 

 inches wide, and all those carrying heavy loads, 

 six inches wide, that it would make a saving in 

 Massachusetts of one-half of all the expenses 

 of repairing our highways. 



The question may be asked by some, if wide 

 wheels are bes-t, why have the people not found 

 it out before now ? I will answer this ques- 

 tion by saying I once knew a man of very close 

 calculations, but a very selfish man, who was 

 about getting up a very nice wagon to team 

 wood on. He went to Dea. John Sy mmes to do 

 the wood work, and to his brother, Marshall 

 Symmf's to do the iron work (allow me hereto 

 say that two better men never built a wagon.) 

 Tliis man took particular pains to find out how 

 wide the tires were that run on roads with 

 hi^avy loads. He found them generaUy from 

 two to two and a quarter inches wide. He 

 then said that h« would have his only one and 

 three-quarters inches. On being asked the 

 reason lor having such narrow wheels, he said 

 he did not want his wheels to bind in the fro- 

 zen ruts. Such being the reason for using 

 narrow wheels which cut up our highways, and 

 add largely to the expense of keeping them in 

 repair, we can never expect to bring about the 

 use of broad wheels without some act of tbt) 

 Legislature. I hope our present Gene^d 

 Court will take the subject into consideration, 

 and adopt such measures as in their wisdom 

 may appear just and eciuitable, both to those 

 who use and those who repair our highways. 



I have said nothing at all about the broad 

 wheels running the easiest on sandy or loamy 



