1866.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
397 
Good for the Deacon ! I believe he sincerely 
wishes me success — and that, I fear, is more 
than I can say for all my neighbors. They are 
all very nice people too. If I was sick, or in 
trouble, they would give me their aid and sym- 
pathy. If I want to borrow, they lend freely — 
and that is a pretty severe test of neighborly 
feeling, especially when you are not very prompt 
in retuiTiiug the articles. I have had many ev- 
idences of their kindness. But they don't think 
I shall succeed as a farmer— and possibly they 
don't want me to. Why? Will it hurt them? 
If I was a speculator and should buy their bar- 
ley at a dollar, and sell it again in two or three 
months for a dollar and a half, what I made 
they would lose. But if I should succeed in 
renovating my farm and should double my crops, 
would they be any the poorer? 
The great objection to my farming is, that I 
"spend too much money for hired help." But 
I cannot get along with less. And I find the 
best farmers expend the most money for labor. 
" I have always kept a great many men," said 
John Johnston, "but I was always with them 
and kept them at work." That is the point. If 
the labor is well directed, and is judiciously em- 
ployed — if the farmer plans his work so that 
there shall be no loss of time, he can better af- 
ford to hire extra help, than to let teams lie idle. 
We cannot farm now as when the country 
was new. If we attempt it, as many do, poor 
crops and run down farms will be the result. 
We must expend more labor and more capital. 
We must cultivate our land better, feed higher, 
make richer manure, and see that it does not run 
to waste. I am fatting over fifty hogs. " It 
would pay you," said a good old-fashioned farm- 
er in the neighborhood, " to let a man devote his 
whole time to feeding them." No doubt about 
that ; but you say I keep too many men already. 
My horse barn is separate from the other build- 
ings. Tlie Utter is thrown out into a loose heap, 
and if suffered to remain so, soon heats, and be- 
comes fire Tanged. I draw it with a one-horse 
carl into the barn j'ard, and the pigs work it 
over and make it into the richest kind of ma- 
nure. But tills takes labor. I clean out the pig- 
pens every day, and give fresh litter. But this, 
too, takes labor. One of my neighbors says, I 
wash my pigs with warm water and castile soap. 
This is one of his jokes. But I do try to have 
the pigs and the pens washed occasionally, by 
throwing water on to them with an aquarius. 
The pigs evidently enjoy it, and thrive better; 
but this, too, takes labor. I am drawing the po- 
tato tops into the barn yard for the stock to 
tread into manure. It will pay twice over, but 
it takes time. The diseased potatoes I steam up 
for the hogs, and mix some corn and barley meal 
with them while hot, mashing up the potatoes. 
It makes splendid food, and is the best way to 
use potatoes partially decayed. But the sorting 
out the decayed ones, washing them and steam- 
ing and mashing with meal, involves consider- 
able work. It would be much easier to have a 
pen of rails on the ground, to throw all ears of 
corn into the mud, and let the pigs do their own 
shelling, grinding, and cooking. I know more 
than one of my critics that adopt this "system," 
and of course, they do- not hire much extra help. 
To farm properly, we need capital and labor. 
The latter we are now getting at fair rates, as 
compared with the price of living. And the 
thousands of stalwart emigrants that arrive 
every month need work, and farmers, at present 
prices of produce, can afford to employ them. 
I have a Prussian working for me that came 
over a month or two ago. He cannot speak 
English, but when you show him what to do, 
he will do it foithfuUy and well. He is a right, 
good man, and I should not object to see all our 
shipping cng.aged in bringing such men by 
thousands to our shores. Wc have land enough 
and work enough. But we need more capital 
and a lower rate of interest. And surely those 
men arc to be honored wlio, having large capi- 
tal, (I could wish I was one of them,) go on to 
a farm and employ it in developing the resources 
of the soil. There are hundreds of such men, 
and the number is rapidly increasing. Their 
influence and example must tend to the im- 
provement of our general system of agriculture. 
The City Poor. 
No country resident can, without a personal 
examination, have any adequate conception of 
the poverty and low condition of multitudes in 
New York City — a center to which tend the 
poor and degraded from almost every part of 
the globe. The first week after coming here to 
reside, we called at the Ladies' " Five Point 
Mission," in the " Old Brewery," and on going 
into a school room where were some hundreds 
of children, gathered from the streets, and wash- 
ed, and combed, and dressed in the clothing 
contributed, almost the first object we saw was 
one of these children clad in garments formerly 
worn by our own recently deceased child. The 
garments had been added to a parcel made 
up for this Mission. Our emotions can be im- 
agined. Since then, we have often visited that 
famous locality to witness the success of the 
enterprise, though for a dozen years past, our 
residence in the country has made these visits 
less frequent than formerly. Last week our 
leading artist brought to us, without previous 
notice, the engraving on page 398, which he had, 
for a long time past, worked upon at odd spells, 
grouping together some of the scenes he had 
witnessed, in various visits to the locality in 
which he had become interested. These are 
mainly from the Five Points House of Industry, 
though their covmterpart are to be found in the 
Five Points Mission, occupying the site of the 
" Old Brewery," a picture of which, as it was, is 
seen at the left. Our readers will be interested 
in the picture, and a brief account of the locality. 
The " Fiee Points " is a small open space or 
square, a short distance Northeast of the City 
Hall, so named because the streets so meet here 
as to leave five points or blocks of buildings 
around the open space. This place was once a 
swamp or pond, where Fulton made some of his 
first experiments in applying steam to propel 
boats. It was subsequently filled in and drained, 
streets were made through it, and it became 
the residence of the poorest people, addicted to 
most revolting forms of vice. Little children 
learned to be thieves and drunkards ; they went 
about half n.aked even in winter, and lived by 
stealing and begging chiefly. Murders were 
often committed there, and respectable persons 
seldom, even in daylight, went there unless ac- 
companied by policemen. On the south side of 
the little square stood an old stone building, 
formerly used as a brewery, which, 25 years ago, 
was occupied by about 300 families of the low- 
est and poorest class, some above ground, and 
some below, crowded into small rooms, but few 
of which admitted the full daylight. Rag pick- 
ers, beggars, street women, etc., hired lodgings 
at sixpence or so per night, and thus about a 
thousand human beings of both sexes were 
nightly packed in upon the floors, like so many 
swine, and as thickly as they could lie down. 
In 18.50 the Ladies' Home Missionary Society 
of the Methodist Church, determined to try to 
do something for this terrible locality, though 
it seemed like bearding the lion in his den. They 
began in the building opposite, but soon bought 
the entire " Old Brewery " building and grounds. 
They were incorporated as a Society, by Act of 
Legislature, in 1856, and havecontined in active 
and very successful operation to the present 
time. The Old Brewery was demolished, and 
on its site was erected a large, commodious, 
brick structure (not shown in the engraving), 
containing several school rooms, chapel, bath, 
and washing rooms, offices, etc., and a large 
number of domicils or suites of rooms, which 
are furnished rent free, to poor, worthy families, 
and to others whom they attempt to reform and 
elevate. We have to-day seen, in different parts 
of the building, hundredsof poor, almost home- 
less, and parentless children, gathered in from 
the surrounding streets, alleys, and tenements, 
all neatly washed and clothed, and under the 
tuition of faithful, self-sacrificing teachers. 
During last year, over 1,200 such children were 
brought under its influence, the usual num- 
ber connected with the Mission at one time, 
being about 400. The children are clothed, 
receive food, and instruction, etc. Many of the 
first ladies of the city meet weekly at the Mis- 
sion, to prepare new garments, and assort and 
adapt the hundreds of parcels contributed from 
other places. Over 4,000 garments were used 
in 1865, besides boots and shoes, and about 
40,000 meals or rations, were given out. As fast 
as children are prepared for it, those who can 
be obtained from their parents, if they have 
them, are provided with permanent homes in 
the country. — We have not space to describe 
the work at length. Every visitor to the city 
should plan to drop into the Old Brewery Mis- 
sion, say between 9 and 10 o'clock A. M., or be- 
tween li and 3 o'clock P. M., and see for them- 
selves the hundreds of interesting human be- 
ings gathered there. Let others send 25 cents 
to the Superintendent, Rev. J. N. Shaffer, (Five 
Points Mission, 61 Park-st., New York City,) 
and receive for a year the monthly journal 
called the "Voice from the Old Brewery"— 
well worth its small cost. 
We have spoken particularly of the " Old 
Brewery Five Points Mission," as it is the orig- 
inal enterprise, and has continued on uniformly, 
and somewhat quietly in its large and efficient 
work. Other cnlerprises have grown out of it, 
eacli of whiJi is doing a valuable work — par- 
ticularly the Five Points House of Industry, 
under the charge of Mr. S. B. Halliday, and the 
Howard Mission, under Mr. Van Meter, who 
wiis previously employed as the Agent of the 
Old Brewery Mission for five years. 
In the PiCTtiBE, No. 1 is a group of the 
bright, ragged, saucy, dirty children as they 
come in from the streets and alleys. No. 3 is a 
view in the school room where the children are 
seen clean, combed, and clothed. No. 3 is a 
Hospital where the sick ones are, some in bed, 
others able to be about, and read or play quiet- 
ly. No. 7 is one of the great sleeping rooms for 
boys. No. 8 is the nursery. No. 9 the great 
play room on the ground floor — the samo 
room which is seen in No. 5, the middle picture, 
ornamented with greens, and with long tables 
set in it. This represents the children gath- 
ered for a Thanksgiving or a Christmas 
dinner; the blessing is being asked. The 
table is bountifully spread with the many good 
things sent in by the kind friends of the school. 
