Monmouth Museum Newsletter

Volume 10 No. 2 March-April 1997

 

Monmouth Museum Newsletter

 

Editor

Dr. Larry Buggia

 

Layout and Design

Toby R. Youngs

 

Major Writers

The Rev. Craig Cowing – Dr. Larry Buggia

 

The Monmouth Museum Newsletter is a bi-monthly publication printed by the Monmouth Press and mailed to all current Friends of the Monmouth Museum. Circulation: Annie Smith. Researchers: Dr. Larry Buggia and the Rev. Craig Cowing. 

In This Issue

 

Page 1 Up-Coming Museum Events

Page 2 Editor’s Comments

Report from the Treasures

Special Exhibit for 1997

Page 3 Spotlight of a Friend of the Museum - Mildred Flanders

Page 4 Care of and Cultivation of Wood

Page 5 Advantages of Raising Sheep

Page 8 Our Pulse - Goal for Archives

Editor’s Comments

Beginning with this issue, there will be a slightly different format. We hope to provide more information on the Museum, its collection, and its dedicated supporters.

Lea Clunie graciously typed our newsletters for the past three years. She also wrote two wonderful newsletters on women: "Lizzie Butler - The Lady of Monmouth Ridge," March-April 1994 and "Miss Sara Kimball - Aunt Sadie’" Aug.-Sept. 1994.

Mr. Toby Youngs of Monmouth Academy has now volunteered to be the desktop publisher of the newsletter. Rev. Craig Cowing, Mr. Toby Youngs and myself met at the Academy to formulate our new format. We would appreciate your comments.

Rev. Cowing has collected for this issue some additional essays of Oakes Howard that are located in our archives. Rev. Cowing’s first presentation of the Howard Papers appeared in the Vol. 9, No. 1 issue.

 

Report from the Treasurer

Ann Raymond

 

The Museum welcomes its new members:

Doug and Holly Stevenson

Lucille Christensen

Monmouth Market

Stanton and Irene Smith

Rev. and Mrs. David Suetterlein

Gary Price

Everett and Freda Day

Eugene and Karen Taylor

Louise Hinkley

 

The Museum gratefully acknowledges generous gifts from:

Doris Ferguson

Richs Radiator Repair

Rev. and Mrs. David Suetterlein

Gary Price

Eugene and Freda Taylor

 

Thanks to those who supported our April food sale which raised over $100. Thanks to Doug West and Doug Scott for their help.

 

Special Exhibit for 1997:

Technology Before

the Industrial Revolution

 

For the 1997 season Monmouth Museum presents a special exhibit on technology before the Industrial Revolution. This exhibit will introduce the public to the large woodturning lathe once owned by Joseph Metcalf of Winthrop. Metcalf moved to Winthrop from Massachusetts in 1789 and worked as a cabinet maker until his death in 1846. This lathe has a flywheel which is seven feet in diameter, and is quite a sight when in operation. The exhibit will officially open on Saturday, May 31 at 1 p.m., and will include a demonstration of the lathe’s operation.

The display on technology before the Industrial Revolution will focus on the changes in production of household goods such as clothing and food. It will also illustrate changes in communications and transportation. This display will feature some of the earlier artifacts owned by the Museum including a plow from the late 1700s or early 1800s and other early artifacts from the collections of the Monmouth Museum and local residents. Come this summer and learn how people lived before mass-production of household goods!

This season will feature a number of changes in the Museum’s displays as well. Come and see what’s new at the Monmouth Museum this year!

 

Part II of Oakes Howard’s Papers: Nineteenth Century Essays on

Timber Wood and Raising Sheep

"Uncle" Oakes Howard of Winthrop pursued a lifelong interest in agriculture through his involvement in the Kennebec County Agricultural Society, a body of which he served as president, among other capacities. Although he does not indicate that these essays on timber wood and raising sheep were intended for meetings of the society, they are written in such a way that he could have presented them at such meetings.

The originals are in the Howard Family Papers in the Monmouth Museum Archives. One note—the spelling, atrocious as it is, is left intact. Some of the longer sentences have been broken up for easier understanding where appropriate. The titles of sections in the second essay have been added to divide the various parts.

In Uncle Oakes Howard’s first essay, found on page 4, he discusses the rapid disappearance of wood and the importance of preserving what we have and caring for and cultivating where we can. He also talks about the most prudent and saving course to be pursued in cutting wood and timber.

In this second essay, Uncle Oakes spells out the advantages of growing root crops such as turnips as an alternative to growing hay for farm animals. He also gives his reasoning as to how sheep are a more profitable animal to raise than horses or cattle, and describes what he sees as the best methods of draining bogs to turn such land into productive hay fields.

 

 

A Paper on the Growth and Cultivation of Timber Wood

Care of and Cultivation of Wood

 

On looking around upon the country from any high emenance one cannot fail to be impressed with the part of the raped disappearance of wood is progressing in evry direction and the importance of preserving what we have and caring for and cultivating where we can, strongly impresses it self upon our minds.

The first question that presents itself to our minds on this subject, is the most prudent and saving course to be persued in cutting wood and timber for necessary purposes. It is thought by many who have had large experience in the business that wood and timber should be cut at time when the sap is not in a state of active circulation, that the wood is harder and the timber lasts longer. But one thing is essential in cuting off second growth trees, they should be cut close to the ground whether they are cut at time when the sap is in active circulation or not it gives a better chance for sprouts to start from the roots, and less danger of the roting of the stumps destroying the roots. Stock of all kinds should be kept from browsing and tramping on such land at all times.

All land lying at a distance from the farm buildings and though along course of croping have become exhausted and a too large expanse and outlay is required to restore them to fertility should be set a part for the growth of wood. And all rough and rocky lands that have been cropped and pastured for a great length of time and the seed that they produce is but small and the cost of clearing off the rocks and ploughing and dressing the same is not authorized by the income reasonable expected should be turned back to forest without regret or delay. Such lands require but little more care and labor than the keeping out of all kinds of stock especially if there are a few maple beach and birch trees standing on, and scattered over the premises to seed the ground.

But if you have quite a large tract you with to set a part for the growth of wood and timber, and it is a light soil and easily ploughed I should prefer ploughing and seeding to the kinds of timber and wood that you prefer. Or you might not plough the whole field but plough two furrows the whole length of the field, and six or eight feet from these plough two more and then sow through the whole field the distance of the furrows a part to be governed by the kind of timber you wish to grow.

On collecting seeds for sowing for the growth of timber and wood you will observe that seed of all nut barring trees such as the Beach Oak Walnut Chestnut and also the Pine Spruce Fir Seeder and Hemlock and Harmotar should be collected in the fall and keep in a cool damp place during the Winter, and planted in the Spring early as circumstances will allow. And all trees of the family of the Maple and the Birch and the Ash there seeds should be collected in the Spring, from the fact that they seed only in the Spring.

In the Spring as early as practicable on the land you have there set apart for the growth of wood and timber sow or plant your seeds liberally and give them slight covering and protect them from cattle. A few of the first years the growth will be small and feeble, but the growth will soon become more strong and vigorous and give promise of a good investment.

And now putting the nature of land that you intend to devote to the growth of wood and timber at what they are actually worth say four dollars per acre and allow it to be double in twelve years which is as much as you can reasonably expect as income from the most of this kind of land and you will have a cost of sixteen dollars per acre at the expiration of twenty four years, or thirty two dollars at the end of thirty six years, twenty cords per acre of wood on land devoted to grow wood for twenty four years would not be a high estimate, and thirty cords per acre on land thus reserved for thirty six years would not be high. Now every man must determine the question of the amount of land he decides to devote to the growth of wood & timber by the cost of his land and value of his wood when grown.

 

 

 

 

 

Advantages of Raising Sheep

The Advantages of Growing Root Crops for Farm Animals

The season past has been one full of instruction to the farmer, in these seasons when nature has not supplied us so bountifully with her productions as at other times. We are led from necessity to cast our thoughts about us and see what we can do to make the most and do the best we can with what nature has in her kindness bestowed upon us and such is emphatically the case with us the present season. The Earth has not brought forth so bountifully as at other times especially in our vicinity and particular in produce for stock, but we have reason to believe the Earth has brought enough to supply the wants if it is carefully and judiciously dealt out.

In those seasons when the Earth brings forth every thing most bountifully to our hands, we are apt to deal it as bountifully as we received, little troubling ourselves about the most equinomical way of feeding it out or that kind of stock that will give us the greatest profit at the least expanse of keeping. The present season is entirely the reverse. We are called upon to practice the tightest economy both in feeding out to stock and in selection of that kind that will return the greatest profit at the least expense. The present high price that all kinds of fodder hares in the market will induce every farmer to look about himself and see if he cannot devise some method to increase his quantity of fodder or diminish his stock. Some stock must be kept[;] cows must be kept in order to give us a good living, oxen and some horses must be kept to do your work. Then the question returns if stock we must keep and we must, what may we increase our fodder. We answer by the cultivation of roots, and we hope that the experience of last winter and spring has induced every man who attempts to get his living by farming to supply himself well with this most essential and all important article. The experience of last winter, we believe, has taught those who had much experience in feeding out roots that 1 1/2 lbs. of roots feed out to a creature ea. day was equal to 1 lb. of hay. A good healthy cow requires about 20 lb. of hay per day from the 20 of November till the first of May and some times longer and $20 per ton it would cost $36.60 to keep one cow during that time on hay alone; but if you would give that cow 12 lb. of hay a day and for the 8 lb. of hay give her 12 lb. of roots, it would cost $28.76 reckoning the hay at $20 per ton and roots at 20 cents per bushel and we believe the experience of every man who has been in the practice of raising roots would warrant in our saying that roots of all kinds either Roota Baga or Potatoes or Manged Wortrel may be raised for less than 20 cents per bushel. You will perceive that there is about $18 gained by feeding on roots and hay instead of hay alone without reconing any thing for the convenience condition and profits of the cow so fed.

The experience of the two last seasons has proved to our satisfaction that we must not rely so much on our crop of upland hay for wintering our stock, if so frequent, faster and when if fertile it involves us in difficulties that we cannot extricate our selves from only by sacrificing some time one half and at other times two thirds the ratio of our stock.

We cannot urge nor press the importance of cultivating roots for stock too strongly upon your minds. Potatoes and turnips are very important in making pork and Beef and in a country where the crop of corn is so uncertain We may be warranted in saying that good Beef and Pork cannot be expected from those farmers who entirely neglect the culture of roots. Potatoes and Turnips enter so directly into the consumption of a family that he who neglects the cultivation of them cannot be said of him that he is a good farmer more than it can of him who neglects the raising of Bread for his family. We perceive that the attention of our farmers are off late more turned to the raising of small grain, we rejoice in the change. We view it as an important step in agriculture an improvement, very important in rendering us independent of other States for bread, as long as so great an amount of money is drawn out of this State for Bread so long we shall be poor. We must supply ourselves with bread and rely upon straw and roots to feed our stock upon.

The selecting of stock is very important for the farmer. It is important that he should keep that kind that will afford the greatest profit at the least expense. We have observed that some cows must be kept and some oxen and Horses, but more than is absolutely necessary for the doing the work is questionable, and the raising of horses except those that will demand a price at four years old above $85 has been proved in a Report of your former Trustees to be a loosing business.

We will suppose (for the sake of comparing the advantages of different kinds of stock for profit) two men who have to the amount of 15 tons of hay in straw, corn, fodder, fresh hay, and roots they wish to feed it out to some kind of stock that will pay them the greatest profit (we do not expect that any stock that we do not receive nothing but growth will pay any profit at the price that hay now bares) but stock must be kept and these men wish to fodder this hay out to the most profit. One of these men provides sheep and it is allowed that a sheep in health requires 2 lbs of hay per day and generally we have to fodder sheep about 150 days some times not so long, then it follows that 100 hundred will consume his 15 tons of hay, and he buys them in the fall at 2 dollars per head it will amount to 200 and the interest in this sum till the next fall and the principle will amount to $212. We will allow him to raise 40 lambs from 100 sheep and to cut 3 lb of wool per head putting this wool at 50 cents per lb (Which I believe is about the avg. price of wool for the last five years although it has been at times considerable lower than that and at times it has been higher I think it would be safe to call the price .50, probably for many years to come good wool will not be less than 50 cents per lb.) his wool and lambs at Dollar in piece will amount to $190 and the summering of the sheep probably $30 and this will carry him around to the same time in the year that he commenced and he will have 100 sheep worth 200.19 worth of wool and lambs making the whole $390 deduct the amount paid for the sheep and interest and he will have left $178 for his 15 tons of fodder paying him about $10 per ton, and the manure will amply pay him for tending them.

The other man provides himself with young stock say yearlings (and I believe it is generally admitted that there is moor profit in this kind of young stock then any other) We suppose that he provides himself with this kind of stock at the moderate sum of $6 per head, and all one kind his 15 tons of hay to keep 17 head and $6 a piece they would cost him $102 and the interest on this for one year $6.12 and the summering of them at $2 a piece would be 34 and this would carry to the same time in the year that he commenced and now he sells them at the market price, and I believe it has not been much above $11 per head and they amount to $187 deduct from this there cost and the interest for one year and there summering and you will have left $43.88 cents which he receives for his 15 tons of hay not quite $3 per ton and manure as in the other case will pay him for tending. You will perceive by this calculation that the man who feeds his hay to sheep receives about $104 more profit on every hundred sheep to the man who feeds the same amount this kind of young stock, and I believe the proportion will be the same or nearly the same as any other kind of horned stock that we received no other profit from such there grown.

The Advantages of Keeping Sheep

With these facts before us, it may be asked why we do not keep more sheep. The question may be easily answered it is for the want of experience sheep are neglected in the heat of the summer and consequently very much troubled with the fly and come to the barn poor and feeble and little or no attention paid to them either in feeding or shelter and live alone till the warm weather commences in the spring and then they die with the poverty rot and worms in the head, and the shepherd never mistrusts that its in consequence of his neglect. This ends a considerable proportion of his flock, and he comes to the determination that he will not keep any stock that will not live without taxing him with so much care and trouble. We do not believe that worms in the head ever caused the death of a healthy sheep but they may be the exciting cause of other diseases that cause death and in order to prevent any injury from worms keep the noses of you sheep well tard during the warm weather keep in your pastures small booths with tar and salts mix the tar well with the salt and sprinkle some fine salt over it. If the sheep are loth to eat it and they will keep the noses tard continually and you will have no trouble from worms in the head of your sheep, and I believe it has been proved to the satisfaction of those who have had any experience in feeding out fresh hay, that there is no stock that will do as well on it as sheep if properly feed out, and here lies a great error in the managing a flock of sheep. It will not answer barely to feed out a great quantity of hay to a flock of sheep disregarding the opportunity that each and every one may have to get his proportion and share care and attention must be had that it is spread out over a surface sufficiently large so that every sheep may have an opportunity getting his supply.

 

 

Clearing Bogs for Producing Hay for Sheep

There is another subject so intimately connected with that of sheep husbandry that it ought not to be passed over in silence. I mean the cleaning up and getting into grass the multitude of swamps gullies and bogs that lie doting the farm as so many dark spots rendering unpleasant to behold and den for musketoes and frogs, whereas if once cleared up and into grass it is the most valuable land on the farm. [T]here is an error in revertation to some considerable extent in relation to mdows it has been thought by some that those meadows that could be land under water six or eight month in a year were the only meadow that were worth clearing and that would pay the cost to any considerable extent in clearing, but I believe that the practice of laying meadows under water six or eight months in the year has been proved to be not the most judicious course that such meadows produce less hay than those managed differently and of a poor quality. Foul meadow grass and all the best kinds of meadow grass will not live so long under water, the best meadows are those that produce the greatest quantity and the best quality of hay are plowed by ditches and dr[—]. [F]or instance suppose you have a piece of flat interval meadow on land through which there runs a small stream and you wish to plow it so as to produce the greater quantity and the best quality of grass at the least expense, cut a ditch nearly as accurate angle with the stream caring nearly to the high land on the rode of the meadow and stop up to the stream where the ditch intersects the stream. [T]he water will run into the ditch and run over the whole meadow and collect in the stream. [O]r go below then cut an other ditch on the other end and stop up the stream and carry it out on the other side and so on till you through the water all over your whole meadow every time there is a freshet, and meadows plowed in this way produce a great quantity and the very best grass and it is much the less expensive.

 

Mr. Lloyd McCabe found this contract while remodeling his Monmouth farmhouse.

 

Monmouth March 30 1836

 

For value received I promise to take of Amos Loomis fifty sheep on the first day of May eighteen hundred and thirty eight and keep them in good order on my farm where I now live one year from that time and render him the income which he is to wash and shear.

 

John Sawyer

 

Status of Special Projects

Charles Henry Robinson will be honored in the Blacksmith building with a wall dedicated to draft steers and oxen. We need to raise $300 for this project.

Mildred Robinson has provided us with many old photographs of Charles Henry and his many yoke of oxen. These are beautiful photographs which we would like to have enlarged and mounted on the wall along with the many yokes and ox shoes that were donated to the museum by Charles Henry. Among the collection is a sliding yoke which is very unique. We will also feature the ox sling that Charles Henry donated.

The exhibit will educate the many school children who visit the museum as to the importance that oxen have played early agriculture.

When the wall is finished, we will have Charles Henry cut the ribbon to open the display. This wall needs to be completed by July of this year.

All donations should be made to The Monmouth Museum, Inc. with a memo for the Charles Henry Robinson wall.

 

Larry Buggia

Bill Myers

 

 

 

Spotlight of a Friend of the Museum

 

Mildred Flanders

by Larry Buggia

 

Mildred Flanders is a native of Reading which is located just outside of Boston. She is the only child of Amos G. and Mabel E. Wheeler. Amos, a train engineer, worked fifty years with the Boston-Maine Railroad Company. He was the first engineer on the famous Flying Yankee. After high school Mildred attended Boston University for seven years. She received two degrees in education and one in social work.

While teaching in Wilmington, she took her students to all of the historical sites of Boston. One year during the April 18 special service for the re-enactment of Paul Reveres famous ride, she was asked to play the church organ. Her students sat in Paul Reveres pew and afterwards climbed the rickety steps of the Old North Church’s steeple to see where the lanterns were hung.

Mildred came to Maine to work at the Augusta Mental Hospital. One Sunday morning she had been asked to play the church organ at the Winthrop Congregational Church. The soloist that day was Earle Flanders. He approached her after the service in hopes of asking to see her again. Mildred, however, was hurrying to get back to the hospital by noon for her friend, Dorothy, could not cover for her after noon time. As Earle commenced his conversation, she cut him short and commented on his singing, then immediately left. Earle, thought to himself that she was either married or didn’t like his singing. He tried reaching her again at the hospital, but she was working late. He made a second attempt to reach her, but she was out late fishing. Undaunted, he tried a third time. He was busy with Charlie Walkers funeral but asked if he could see her at 9:00 p.m. Mildred told her father that she thought it was a strange line that Earle told her about why he would not be able to see her until such a late hour. Her father told her to be more trusting and that farmers had to have late funeral services due to haying and milking. Their first date was at the Weathervane Restaurant in Readfield along with another couple, the Manwells of Winthrop. While they were keeping company, before Earle proposed to her, he expressed his desire to start a museum in town. Earle had seen many historical artifacts in town sold to antique dealers. He wanted to preserve the things that belonged in Monmouth.

Earle was a matchmaker, a very successful one. He arranged for Rev. Joseph LeMaster to meet Mildred’s friend Dorothy. At the LeMaster’s wedding Earle sang and Mildred played the organ.

Their life together was busy. They raised two children, David and Mary (Muffet). They ran a funeral home and ambulance service together. Mildred was a substitute teacher at local schools for twenty years. In 1970 they started the Monmouth Museum. Fortunately, Earle had chosen the right woman for his wife. During Earle’s long illness, Mildred cared for him tenderly. Now, in his absence, she works hard to benefit the Monmouth Museum. She has been the driving force behind our fund-raising activities. We should all express our gratitude for her energy and enthusiasm.