If a carpenter in Salem or Concord has 
a contract to build a house, he sends to 
a shop like this for all his doors, sashes, 
blinds, rails, kitchen and bath-room fittings, 
which come to him, nicely packed, as 
freight, all thoroughly seasoned, both by 
natural and artificial process. 
There are not many men in the world 
who can create, or even conduct, an es¬ 
tablishment like this, because it requires 
a combination of faculties and talents such 
as are seldom found in the same individual. 
But in many a quiet country place there 
are carpenters who take pleasure and pride 
in their work; who have built for them¬ 
selves nice little houses, filled them with 
beautifully-made furniture, and established 
a limited but sufficient business. These are 
among the most fortunate of mechanics 
and men. They do not reckon their in¬ 
come in thousands, but their wants are few 
and moderate; they take a holiday when 
they need one. They bring up their chil¬ 
dren to be good citizens, and they have an 
inexhaustible satisfaction in doing their 
work in the best manner.— James Parton, 
in Youth's Companion. 
J. R. DODGE, M. A., 
STATISTICIAN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AG¬ 
RICULTURE. 
The excellent portrait we give in this is¬ 
sue is of a man who has become well- 
known to most of the farmers of our land 
Through his important labors in the De¬ 
partment of Agriculture. As chief statis¬ 
tician of that Bureau he has gained a rep¬ 
utation for accurate knowledge of the area 
and value of the growing crops unequalled 
by any other person in the United States. 
For upwards of twenty years he has been 
at the head of the Bureau of Agricultural 
Statistics, and during that time has writ¬ 
ten most of the reports, and for fifteen 
years revised and edited all' of its publica¬ 
tions. 
“As a statistician, he has evidently real¬ 
ized the absolute necessity for accurate in¬ 
terpretation of returns in a country conti¬ 
nental in extent, of knowing intimately the 
soil, climate, crop specialties, labor, condi¬ 
tions, and peculiarities in rural economy of 
every locality from which reports can come. 
With an intimate knowledge of the local 
condition of agriculture, the regular reports 
of two thousand counties may have an in¬ 
terpretation that will not misrepresent and 
stultify their meaning. With remarkable 
opportunities for such a study and a quick 
perception of salient points of observation 
he has personally examined prevalent me¬ 
thods in all departments of rural husbandry 
in nearly every State and Territory of the 
United States. 
“In preparation for this work after a 
youth in New England, (he is a native of 
Southern New Hampshire,) spent in ob¬ 
taining an education, academical and tech¬ 
nical, including the art of printing, he went 
South, remaining five years in Mississippi^ 
taking charge of an academy and incident¬ 
ally occupied in journalism, in the meantime 
studying closely the agricultural system of 
which cotton is the chief corner-stone. Re¬ 
turning, five years w T ere spent in Nashua, 
New Hampshire, and seven in Ohio, in the 
midst of the agriculture of the great Central 
Basin, editing an agricultural paper, th% 
American Buralist , an eight-page journal 
published at Springfield, Ohio, and circula¬ 
ting East and South, as well as West, at the 
commencement of the civil war. pie w^, 
also editor of the Daily Telegram, which, 
in 1861, was merged into the Springfield Be- 
publican , a paper that still occupies an in¬ 
fluential position in Ohio journalism* 
“In the long session of 1861-2, Mr. Dodge 
was Senate reporter for the Bepublican , and 
also for the old National Intelligencer while 
Colonel Seaton was still its editor. For four 
years subsequently he was connected with 
the New York Associated Press and also 
with the Department of Agriculture as edit¬ 
or, until acceptance of the position of stat¬ 
istician, with its burden of responsibilities 5 , 
precluded all other literary or journalistic 
work.” 
We are under obligations to Mr. Leu 
Crandell, manager of the enterprising Na¬ 
tional Farmer, of Washington, D. C., who 
kindly allowed us the use of the engraving, 
and also to that journal for the above ex- 
tiacts from the brief sketch of Mr. Dodge, 
which recently appeared in connection with 
his likeness. 
