Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI.

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On a bright day we take our seats in the cars at Jersey City, provided
with the talisman to insure an attentive reception. Onward we whirl
through fertile fields and smiling villages; Newark, Brunswick,
Princeton, are successively passed; shortly we reach the Delaware at
Trenton; a run of a few miles through Penn's Manor, the garden-spot of
the Proprietary Governor, brings us to Bristol, the station from which
we most readily reach our destination. As we approach the grounds from
the front, a prominent object meets the eye, a noble white pine of
gigantic proportions, somewhat the worse for many a winter's storm, but
which still stands in all its majestic grandeur, as it has stood whilst
generations have come and passed away. On entering the premises, we find
ourselves in the midst of a lawn of ten acres in the English style. To
enumerate the various trees, in groups or single specimens, which most
invite our notice, would interfere with the main object of our visit. We
have come for a special purpose, and we can only allude to a very few
of the species to which our attention may be supposed to be directed. A
white spruce, in rich luxuriance, measuring, as the branches trail upon
the sward, upwards of sixty feet in circumference; the Himalayan white
pine, with its deep fringe-like foliage, twenty-five feet in height; the
Cephalonian fir, with leaves as pungent as an Auricaria, twenty feet
high, and many specimens of the same kind of nearly equal magnitude;
yews, of more than half a century's growth; a purple beech, of thirty
feet in height, its branches as many in circumference, contrasting with
the green around; numerous specimens of balm of Gilead, silver firs, and
Norway spruces, unsurpassed in beauty of form, the last presenting every
variety of habit in which it delights to sport: these are some of the
gems of the lawn. But we must hurry onward to the practical business in
view.

The harvest, which, in seed-culture, lasts for many consecutive weeks,
has just commenced. The first important crop that ripens is the
turnip,--which is now being cut. The work is performed by the use of
grass-hooks or toothless sickles; stem after stem is cut, until the hand
is full, when they are deposited in canvas sheets; as these are filled,
boys stand ready to spread others; men follow to tie up those which have
been filled; others succeed, driving teams, and loading wagons, with
ample shelvings, with sheet-full piled on sheet-full, until the sturdy
oxen are required to test their strength in drawing them to the
drying-houses; arrived there, each sheet-full is separately removed by
rope and tackle, and the contents deposited on the skeleton scaffolding
within the building, there to remain until the seed is sufficiently
cured and dry enough to thresh. These drying-houses are buildings
of uniform character, two stories in height and fifty feet square,
constructed so as to expose their contents to sun and air, and each
provided with a carefully laid threshing-floor, extending through the
building, with pent-house for movable engine. When the houses are full
and the hulm in a fit state for threshing, the engine is started and
the work begun. One man, relieved by others from time to time, (for the
labor requires activity, and consequently is exhausting,) feeds the
thresher, which, with its armed teeth, moves with such velocity as to
appear like a solid cylinder. Here there is no stopping for horses
to take breath and rest their weary limbs,--puff, puff, onward the
work,--steam as great a triumph in threshing as in printing or spinning.
Men and boys are stationed at the rear of the thresher to remove the
straw, and roughly separate the seed from the shattered hulm,--others
again being engaged in thrusting the dried crop from the scaffolds, and
placing it in suitable position for the feeders. When one drying-house
has thus been emptied, the engine is removed to another; the same
process is pursued until the circuit of the buildings has been made, and
thus the ceaseless round (ceaseless at least for a season) is continued.
As soon as the crop in the first house has been threshed, the work of
winnowing is commenced, and skilled hands thus engaged follow on in the
track of the engine. As each crop is cleaned and put in merchantable
order, it is placed in bags of two bushels each and carried to the
storehouses and granaries, there to await a requisition from the
city-warehouse.

We have just witnessed the process of saving the crop of turnip-seed.
And how much may that reach? is a natural inquiry. Of all the varieties,
including the ruta-baga, about one thousand bushels, is the response. We
should have thought a thousand pounds would supply the entire Union; but
we are reminded it is in part exported to far distant lands. And what is
the crop so much like turnip, but still green, and apparently of more
vigorous growth? That is one of the varieties of cabbage, of which
several standard kinds are under cultivation. Another adjoining is
radish; still another, beet; and thus we pass from kind to kind, until
we have exhausted a long catalogue of sorts.

Let us stop our walk over the grounds for a few moments, taking seats
under the shadow of a tree, and make some inquiries as to the place
itself, its extent, the course of culture, the description of manures
used, etc. Our cicerone assents to the proposal, and proceeds to answer
our general inquiries. Bloomsdale contains in round numbers four hundred
acres; it has a frontage on the Delaware of upwards of a mile, is
bounded on the west by the Delaware Canal, and is divided into two
nearly equal parts by the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad. The soil is
a light loam, easily worked, suited to rapid percolation, admitting of
labor immediately after heavy rain, and not liable to suffer by drought.
The manures used are principally crude, obtained from the city, and
landed on the premises from shallops continually plying, laden with the
"sinews of farming." Street-scrapings are more used than stable-manure;
bone-dust and guano enter largely into the account; and the aggregate
annual expenditure foots up a sum almost equivalent to the fee-simple of
an ordinary farm. The culture is that denominated drill; but of course
much of it is simply straight lines drawn by the plough, in which the
roots for seeding are planted by hand. The ground, with the exception of
the lawn and a portion occupied from time to time by grass for home use,
is divided by wagon-roads into squares and parallelograms; cross fences
are not used; and each crop forms a distinct feature, accessible at any
stage of growth. The several varieties of each kind, as, for instance,
those of turnip, cabbage, beet, lettuce, are planted widely apart, to
guard against possible admixture; but the chances of that result must
be much less than is popularly supposed, efforts having been used
experimentally to test its practicability, and that between kindred
closely allied, without success. Although the extent of the grounds
would appear to be formidable, even for a farm conducted in the usual
mode, it is insufficient for the demands on the proprietors, without
diligent exertion and prompt recropping,--two crops in each year being
exacted, only a small part of the land escaping double duty, the extent
annually ploughed thus amounting to nearly twice the area of the farm.
The heavy hauling is performed by oxen, the culture principally by
mules, which are preferred to horses, as being less liable to injury,
and better adapted to the narrow drill culture practised.

The seeds of Bloomsdale have attained a world-wide reputation, and, to
quote an expression used in reference to them, "are almost as well
known on the Ganges as on the Mississippi or Ohio." They are regularly
exported to the British possessions in India, to the shores of the
Pacific, throughout the West Indies, and occasionally to Australia.
The drier atmosphere of this country ripens them better than the humid
climate of England, adapting them to exportation; and it is no slight
triumph to see them preferred by Englishmen on English soil. At home,
thousands of hamlets, south and west of Philadelphia, until interrupted
by the war, were supplied with Landreth's seeds. The business, founded
nearly three-quarters of a century ago, is now conducted by the second
and third generations of the family with which it originated. Thus
has success been achieved through long and patient industry steadily
directed to the same pursuit, and a reputation built up for American
seeds, despite the want of national protection.

THE EAST AND THE WEST.

[This poem was written by THEODORE WINTHROP seven years ago, and after
his death was found among his unpublished papers.]

We of the East spread our sails to the sea,
You of the West stride over the land;
Both are to scatter the hopes of the Free,
As the sower sheds golden grain from his hand.

'Tis ours to circle the stormy bends
Of a continent, yours its ridge to cross;
We must double the capes where a long world ends,
Lone cliffs where two limitless oceans toss.

They meet and are baffled 'mid tempest and wrath,
Breezes are skirmishing, angry winds roar,
While poised on some desperate plunge of our path
We count up the blackening wrecks on the shore.

And you through dreary and thirsty ways,
Where rivers are sand and winds are dust,
Through sultry nights and feverish days,
Move westward still as the sunsets must:

Where the scorched air quivers along the slopes,
Where the slow-footed cattle lie down and die,
Where horizons draw backward till baffled hopes
Are weary of measureless waste and sky.

Yes, ours to battle relentless gales,
And yours the brave and the patient way;
But we hold the storms in our trusty sails,
And for you the life-giving fountains play.

There are stars above us, and stars for you,--
Rest on the path, and calm on the main:
Storms are but zephyrs, when hearts are true;
We are no weaklings, quick to complain,

When lightnings flash bivouac-fires into gloom,
And with crashing of forests the rains sheet down,--
Or when ships plunge onward where night-clouds loom,
Defiant of darkness and meeting its frown.

These are the days of motion and march;
Now we are ardent, and young, and brave:
Let them that come after us build the arch
Of our triumph, and plant with the laurel our grave.

Time enough to rear temples when heroes are dead,
Time enough to sing paeans after the fight:
Prophets urge onward the future's tread;
We,--_we_ are to kindle its beacon-light.

Our sires lit torches of quenchless flame
To illumine our darkness, if night should be;
But day is a friend to our standards, and shame
Be ours, if we win not a victory!

Man is nobler than men have been,
Souls are vaster than souls have dreamed;
There are broader oceans than eyes have seen,
Noons more glowing than yet have beamed.

Creeping shadows cower low on our land;
These shall not dim our grander day:
Stainless knights must be those who stand
Full in the van of a world's array!

When shall we cease our meagre distrust?
When to each other our true hearts yield?
To make this world an Eden, we must
Fling away each weapon and shield,

And meet each man as a friend and mate,
Trample and spurn and forget our pride,
Glad to accept an equal fate,
Laboring, conquering side by side.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE.

_Cairo, Egypt, February 6th, 1862._ I am afraid I repeat myself in
talking about the beauty of the climate here, but to-day is so lovely
that I cannot refrain from recurring to the subject. While you are
shivering under the blasts of winter, we have a genuine June morning:
the air soft and pure, the atmosphere clear, innumerable birds chirping
in the trees opposite the windows, (for the Arabs never interfere with
birds,) and the aspect of things from our balcony overlooking the
Esbekieh, or public square, as pleasant as one could wish. The beautiful
weather, too, is constant.

But I must tell you of my dining yesterday with Mrs. R., to meet Mr.
Buckle, the author of the History of Civilization, who has just returned
from his two or three months' voyage upon the Nile, in which he pushed
as far as Nubia. He is now staying for a little while in Cairo, or
rather in his _dahabieh_, or boat, (which he says is more comfortable
than any hotel,) moored in the river at Boolak, the port of the town.
Mrs. R., the daughter of Lady Duff Gordon, and granddaughter of Mrs.
Austin, is a most attractive and accomplished young lady; her husband is
the manager in Egypt of the great banking-house of Briggs and Company,
in which he is a partner. Their usual residence is at Alexandria; but
at this season "all the world" of Egypt comes to Cairo, to enjoy the
beautiful weather here, while it is raining incessantly in Alexandria,
only a hundred and thirty miles distant. Mrs. R. in asking Mr. Thayer,
our Consul-General, to meet Mr. Buckle, with very great kindness
included me in the invitation. The only other lady present was Miss
P., a niece of the late Countess of Blessington, herself the author
of several pleasant stories, and of a poem which gained a prize in
competition with one by Mrs. Browning and another by Owen Meredith: she
is spending the winter with Mrs. R. There were also present C., who
conducts the house of Briggs and Company in Cairo; O., another banker;
and Hekekyan Bey, an Armenian, a well-read and intelligent man, formerly
Minister of Public Instruction under Mehemet Ali, and still, I believe,
in receipt of a pension from the Viceroy's government, in consideration
of his public services, which have been valuable.

The dinner was at an hotel called the Restaurant d'Auric. We assembled
in Mrs. R.'s drawing-room, an apartment in the banking-house at a little
distance, and walked to the hotel. The company fell into two groups,
each lighted by a swarthy _boab_ or lackey carrying a _mushal_ or
lantern; and I happened to walk with Mr. Buckle, so that I had a brief
talk with him in the street, before the general conversation began at
the table. He remarked upon the extraordinary devotion exhibited by
Delane of the London Times to the interests and politics of Lord
Palmerston. Becoming interested in our conversation, we strayed away
from the rest, and were walking about a quarter of a mile down the
_bazaar_, when (are you surprised to hear?) Mr. Buckle was missed,
the two _boabs_ came running after us, and we were cited to the
dinner-table.

Buckle, of course, was the card. He talked with a velocity and fulness
of facts that was wonderful. The rest of us could do little but listen
and ask questions. And yet he did not seem to be lecturing us; the
stream of his conversation flowed along easily and naturally. Nor was it
didactic; Buckle's range of reading has covered everything in elegant
literature, as well as the ponderous works whose titles make so
formidable a list at the beginning of his History, and, as he remembers
everything he has read, he can produce his stores upon the moment for
the illustration of whatever subject happens to come up.

In the first place, let me say how delightful it was to discover his
cordial interest in our own country. He expresses a strong hope that
England will take no part against us, and do nothing to break the
blockade. He is going to write about America; indeed, his next volume,
besides containing a complete view of the German philosophy, will treat
of the United States. But he will visit us before he writes. Although
appreciating the great work of De Tocqueville, he complains of the
general inadequacy of European criticism upon America. Gasparin's books,
by the way, he has not seen. For his own part, he considers the subject
too vast, he says, and the testimony too conflicting, to permit him
to write upon it before he has seen the country; and meanwhile he
scrupulously refrains from forming any conclusive opinions.

Subject to this reservation of judgment, however, he remarked that
he was inclined to think that George III forced us prematurely into
democracy, although the natural tendency of things both in America and
England was towards it; and he thought that perhaps we had established
a political democracy without having yet achieved an intellectual
democracy: the two ought to go hand in hand together. The common people
in England, he said, are by far the most useful class of society. He had
been especially pleased by the numerous letters he had received from
working-men who had read his book. These letters often surprised him
by the acuteness and capacity displayed by their writers. The nobility
would perish utterly, if it were not constantly recruited from
commoners. Lord Brougham was the first member of the secular peerage who
continued after his elevation to sign his name in full, "H. Brougham,"
which he did to show his continued sympathy with the class from which he
sprang. Buckle remarked that the history of the peasantry of no European
country has ever been written, or ever can be written, and without it
the record of the doings of kings and nobles is mere chaff. Surnames
were not introduced until the eleventh century, and it is only since
that period that genealogy has become possible.

Another very pleasant thing is Mr. Buckle's cordial appreciation of
young men. He repeated the story, which I believe is in his book,
that, when Harvey announced to the world his great discovery of the
circulation of the blood, among the physicians who received it was none
above the age of forty. Mr. Thayer described to Buckle some of our
friends who have read his book with especial satisfaction. He evidently
took pleasure in this proof of appreciation, and said that this was the
class of readers he sought. "In fact, the young men," he said, "are the
only readers of much value; it is they who shape the future." He said
that Thackeray and Delane had told him he would find Boston very like
England. He knows but few Bostonians. He had corresponded with Theodore
Parker, whom he considered a remarkable man; he had preserved but one of
his letters, which he returned to Mrs. Parker, in answer to her request
for materials to aid her in preparing the memoir of her late
husband. Buckle says that he does not generally preserve other than
business-letters.

Mr. Buckle gave an amusing account of the origin of the wigs which the
lawyers wear in England, and which, by the way, struck me as infinitely
ludicrous when I saw them on the heads of the judges and counsel in
Westminster Hall. Originally the clergy were forbidden to practise law,
and, as they were the best lawyers, the wig was worn to conceal the
tonsure. He had anecdotes to tell of Johnson, Lamb, Macaulay, Voltaire,
Talleyrand, etc., and quoted passages from Burke and from Junius at
length in the exact words. Junius he considers proved to be Sir Philip
Francis. He told a good story against Wordsworth, contained in a letter
from Lamb to Talfourd, which the latter showed to Buckle, but had
considered among the things too personal to be published. Wordsworth
was decrying Shakspeare. "Pooh!" he said, "it is all very easy: I could
write like Shakspeare myself, if I had a mind to!" "Precisely so,"
rejoined Lamb,--"_if you had a mind to_."

Mr. Buckle does not think much of the ancient Egyptian civilization,
differing in this respect _toto caelo_ from Hekekyan Bey, who finds
in the monuments proofs of the existence of an expansive popular
government. Buckle declares that the machines, as figured in the
hieroglyphics, are of the most primitive kind,--and that the learning,
by all accounts, was confined to the priests, and covered a very narrow
range, exhibiting no traces of acquaintance with the higher useful arts.
He says it is a fallacy to suppose that savages are bodily superior to
civilized men. Captain Cook found that his sailors could outwork the
islanders. I remarked, in confirmation, that our Harvard boat-clubs
won the prizes in rowing-matches against all comers. Buckle seemed
interested, and asked for a more particular account, which, of course, I
took great pleasure in giving. C., like a true Englishman, doubted
the general fact, and said the Thames watermen out-rowed their
university-clubs.

For Turkish civilization Mr. Buckle has not the slightest respect,--said
he could write the whole of it on the back of his hand; and here
Hekekyan Bey cordially agreed with him. Buckle is very fond of chess,
and can play two games at once blindfold. He inquired very particularly
about a native here who it is said can play four or six in this manner,
and said he should like to try a game with him. He had seen Paulsen, but
not Morphy.

Mr. Thayer asked him if in England he had been subjected to personal
hostility for his opinions, or to anything like social ostracism. He
said, generally not. A letter from a clergyman to an acquaintance in
England, expressing intense antipathy to him, although he had never seen
the writer, was the only evidence of this kind of opposition. "In fact,"
said he, naively, "the people of England have such an admiration of any
kind of _intellectual splendor_ that they will forgive for its sake the
most objectionable doctrines." He told us that the portion of his book
which relates to Spain, although by no means complimentary to that
country, has been translated and published separately there. T. remarked
that to this circumstance, no doubt, we may ascribe some part of the
modern regeneration of Spain, the leading statesmen being persuaded to a
more liberal policy; but this view Buckle disclaimed with an eagerness
seeming to be something more than the offspring of modesty.

After dinner we returned to Mrs. R.'s apartments, where we had tea.
Buckle and Hekekyan now got into an animated discussion upon the ancient
Egyptian civilization, which scarcely gave the rest of us a chance to
put in a single word. It was, however, exceedingly interesting to sit
and listen. Indeed, although there was nothing awful about Buckle, one
felt a little abashed to intrude his own remarks in such a presence. You
will be amused to hear that Mrs. R., who had seen me but once before,
told T. that she did not think I seemed to have much to say for myself.
Pray tell this in circles where they accuse me of monopolizing the
conversation. We stayed until nearly midnight, and then, taking our
leave, Buckle accompanied T. and myself as far as the door of our hotel.
Buckle received most kindly all suggestions made to him of books to be
read upon American affairs, and people to be seen in the United States.

_February 7th_. To-day we made a party to drive to see the Howling
Dervishes, who howl on Fridays. Friday is sometimes called "the
Mahometan Sunday," which is a correct phrase, if the especial
celebration of religious services is meant; but it is not at all a day
of rest: we found the people continuing their various avocations as
usual. At the mosque we met Mr. Buckle, a little careless in his
dress,--in this respect affording a not disagreeable contrast to
the studied jauntiness which Englishmen are apt to affect in their
travelling-gear. Nobody is allowed to press the floor of the mosque with
shoes upon the feet. T. and I, warned by our former experience, had
brought pieces of cotton cloth to tie over our shoes; and some cloth
slippers of a bright orange color, such as the Arabs are fond of
using, had been provided, which Miss P. slipped directly over her
walking-boots. Buckle, with careless indifference, pulled off his shoes
and walked in in his stockinged feet. His figure is tall and slender,
although he is a large man; he stoops a little in standing; his head,
well-shaped, is partly bald; and although his features are not striking
in themselves, they are rendered so by his animated expression. The
photograph which I have seen is a wretched caricature.

The performances of the Dervishes were precisely the same as those which
I witnessed in the same place a fortnight ago, and may be found most
exactly described by Mr. Trollope (who saw them two or three years
since) in his admirable novel of "The Bertrams," Chapter 38. If I
desired to tell you what we saw, I could not do better than to adopt
Mr. Trollope's language without alteration. This will prove to you the
sameness of this singular religious rite. Driving back, Miss P. helped
us to recall some of the incidents of the dinner of the preceding day.
She used to see almost all the distinguished literary characters at the
house of her aunt; but she told us that she never met anybody whose
conversation could bear comparison with that of Buckle, excepting Lord
Brougham and Alexander Dumas. The latter disgusts by his insufferable
egotism. Miss P. also gave us a very entertaining account of an Arab
wedding which she attended a day or two ago in company with Mrs. R.
As soon as they were inside the house they were separated from their
escort, and were admitted to the apartment where the bride was obliged
to sit in state for three days, covered with jewelry, clusters of
diamonds literally plastered upon her cheeks and forehead.

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