368 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
MR. FRENCH’S FARM, BRAINTREE, MASS. 
During our recent visit to Massachusetts, we took notes 
in reference to several farms, which we had the pleasure 
of visiting. We have put these notes in form, and shall 
give them to our readers in the present and future num¬ 
bers of the Cultivator. 
The farm of B. V. French, Esq., is situated in the 
town of Braintree, ten miles from Boston. Within the 
last few years, Mr. French has made great improvements. 
The farm is naturally wet, and very stoney. It has been 
divided into small inclosures, and the stones disposed of 
by putting them into substantial walls. Trenches are 
dug and filled with small stones for the foundation of the 
wall. This not only gives a firm basis for the walls, but 
by a little attention in the arrangement, they serve as 
drains also. Mr. French has proved, pretty thoroughly, 
the efficacy of under-draining and subsoil plowing. The 
benefits of these operations, are obvious and striking. 
Cold, springy land, with a close subsoil, which was be¬ 
fore so wet in the early part of the season that it was im¬ 
possible to work on it, and which at best only produced 
a crop of rather inferior hay, is now made to yield good 
crops of garden vegetables and grain. We were shown 
a piece of this formerly cold, wet land, where an enor- j 
mous quantity of stones had been dug out, and the ground 
afterwards plowed and subsoiled to the depth of fifteen 
to eighteen inches, that produced last year a crop of car¬ 
rots of nearly eight hundred bushels to the acre. Anoth¬ 
er piece of four acres, naturally very stony, but not so 
cold as the former, having a south-eastern aspect, had 
been thoroughly gone over, and the lot fenced by the 
stones taken out. It was then subsoiled, and is now ap- 
appropriated to a nursery. The various kinds of fruit 
trees thrive remarkably well. The spaces between the 
trees are cultivated with carrots, and the yield will be a 
heavy one—not much less than one thousand bushels to 
the acre. Noticing the great depth to which the carrots 
penetrated, we tried the soil with a stick and found it ve¬ 
ry easy to push it down eighteen inches. This land was 
naturally a hard stoney gravel. 
Mr. French uses a good deal of peat muck, as well as 
mud from the salt marshes, in making manure. It is laid 
over the cattle yards, thrown into the hog-pens, and made 
into compost. He obtains the salt lye from a soap man¬ 
ufactory. Heaps of peat muck are saturated with this li¬ 
quid, and found to be a powerful manure. 
The principal objects of production with Mr. French, 
are milk and fruit. He sends a man to Boston with milk 
every day, and the same man usually finds a market for 
all the fruit, vegetables, &c. 
The cows obtain but a small portion of their support 
from pastures, but are mostly fed on crops raised for that 
purpose. They are put in the barn every night, where 
they are fed with a small quantity of wheat bran or 
shorts. Carrots, potatoes, or beets, are likewise fed at 
the rate of half a bushel to each cow per day, during the 
season of the year when these vegetables are in a proper 
state for use. Mr. French gives the preference to the 
carrot, as producing richer milk and giving the cows a 
better appearance. He raises both the white carrot and 
the yellow kinds. The white is easiest grown, and 
yields best, but perhaps is not quite so nutritive. In good 
weather, the cows are turned during the day into small 
enclosures, where they have shade and plenty of pure 
water. They are at all times well fed, and when they 
get so fat that they are worth more for beef than for 
milk, they are sold to the butcher. 
Mr. French’s collection of fruits is extensive. He has 
upwards of two hundred varieties of apples, and about the 
same number of pears. Among the latter, are most of 
the choice kinds which have been originated within a 
few years by Knight, Van Mons, and others in Europe. 
Keeping hens in yards —Mr. French showed us a yard 
where he kept his hens. The yard may contain an eighth 
of an acre, and has several plum and other fruit trees in 
it. There is not much grass in the yard. Hens have 
been kept there for a few years, but they have not done 
very well. Besides grain, they want grass or something 
of that kind, and some sort of animal food. The great 
desire they have to get something as a substitute for grass, 
was strikingly shown by their having picked off and 
swallowed every leaf and bud of the trees, so that they 
were left totally destitute of foliage and nearly dead. 
In addition to his farming, Mr. French carries on con¬ 
siderable other business. He has a mill, lately erected 
near his residence, from which he sells about two hun¬ 
dred bushels of meal, (mostly corn-meal,) per day. It is 
[one of the most neat, convenient and perfect establish¬ 
ments of the kind we have ever seen. 
Order and neatness are prominent characteristics in all 
Mr. French’s arrangements and management. Seldom 
has it been our good fortune to find the motto, (< a place 
for every thing, and every thing in its place,” so prompt¬ 
ly lived up to as here. Every implement wanted on the 
farm, or in the garden or orchard, is provided. They 
are all of the most approved kind, and when not in use, 
are always in the right place. 
Mr. French was so kind as to accompany us on a visit 
to the noted granite quarries, which are in Quincy, on a 
part of a range of highlands called the Blue hills. A 
vast quantity of stone has been taken from here within 
the last twenty years. The first operations, we believe, 
were commenced by the Bunker Hill Monument Associ¬ 
ation—the stone of which that noble work is constructed, 
I having been obtained here. A rail-road made for the 
purpose of conveying the stone from the quarry to tide¬ 
water, a distance of three miles, was the first undertaking 
of this kind commenced in the United States. Soon after 
its completion, we took our first rail-road ride on* it, 
which we shall never forget. This was in 1823. The 
granite of which many of our large public buildings were 
made, the Exchange at New-York, the Custom-house at 
Boston, &c. was obtained at these quarries. For the cus¬ 
tom-house, there were 26 pillars, each 32 feet in length, 
and four and a half feet in diameter. We were informed 
by Mr. Willard, the architect and superintendent of the 
work, that these immense blocks of stone were got out 
and finished here, carried on a massive frame constructed 
for the purpose, nearly three miles, to the water, and 
thence to Boston, without the slightest accident, and 
without defacing the pillars to the value of a cent. The 
quarry where these stones were obtained, was not acces¬ 
sible by rail-road, and the transit from the quarry to wa¬ 
ter navigation, had to be effected by teams—each pillar 
requiring, when placed on the frame, about fifty oxen to 
| draw it. 
j The town of Quincy is likewise noted as having been 
'the birth-place and residence of two of the Presidents of 
!the United States—John Adams, and his son John Quin- 
!cy Adams. Mr. French pointed out to us the dwellings 
j where both of these distinguished men were born. They 
[are simple old fashioned New-England wood houses, and 
[are in so good a state of preservation, that they may stand 
long enough for several more Presidents to be born in 
them. The present residence of the Hon. John Quincy 
Adams, is not far from those just mentioned. This is al¬ 
so an unassuming wood building, of a style which was 
quite common in this part of the country seventy-five 
years since. 
Salt for Fruit Trees _A writer in the Boston Cul¬ 
tivator says a pear tree was killed by a quantity of salt 
j having been left in an old flour barrel near the body of 
[the tree. A heavy rain dissolved the salt and forced it 
J into the ground among the roots. The tree soon exhi¬ 
bited signs of blast or decay, and on cutting off and exa¬ 
mining the branches, he “ found the leaves not only 
highly impregnated, but encrusted with a visible saline 
matter.” During the summer, the tree died. Too much 
salt was undoubtedly the cause of the trouble. A small 
quantity has been recommended to be put round trees for 
the destruction of insects. The editor of the Boston Cul¬ 
tivator says two quarts is enough for a tree of <c middling 
size.” 
The Ark, and Odd Fellows’ Western Monthly 
Magazine, devoted to the cause of Odd Fellowship. 
From what we have seen, we think it a well managed 
work. It is a neatly printed octavo, published monthly 
at Columbus, Ohio, by John T. Blain and Alex. E. Glenn. 
One dollar a year in advance. 
