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LXXV: TO JARED ELIOT - Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. II Letters and Misc. Writings 1735-1753 [1904]

Edition used:

The Works of Benjamin Franklin, including the Private as well as the Official and Scientific Correspondence, together with the Unmutilated and Correct Version of the Autobiography, compiled and edited by John Bigelow (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904). The Federal Edition in 12 volumes. Vol. II (Letters and Misc. Writings 1735-1753).

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LXXV

TO JARED ELIOT

Philadelphia, 25 October, 1750.

Dear Sir:—

I ought to have informed you sooner, that we got well home, and should have inquired after your health, as we left you in the hands of a fever. I beg you will excuse the delay, and desire you will remember in my favor the old saying, They who have much business must have much pardon. Whenever Mr. Francis and I meet of an evening, we drink your health, among our other New England friends, and he desires to be always respectfully remembered to you.

I am glad to hear you are got well again; but I cannot have the pleasure of seeing you again this year. I will write to Colonel Schuyler, and obtain for you a particular account of his manner of improving his banked grounds; and will also procure for you a specimen of our alum earth, with Mr. Syng’s observations on it. In return (for you know there is no trade without returns) I request you to procure for me a particular account of the manner of making a new kind of fence we saw at Southhold, on Long Island, which consists of a bank and hedge. I would know every particular relating to the matter, as the best thickness, height and slope of the bank; the manner of erecting it, the best time for the work, the best way of planting the hedge, the price of the work to laborers per rod or perch, and whatever may be of use for our information here, who begin in many places to be at a loss for wood to make fence with. We were told at Southhold, that this kind of fencing had been long practised with success at Southampton and other places, on the south side of the Island, but was new among them. I hear the minister at Southhold is esteemed an ingenious man; perhaps you may know him, and he will at your request favor me with an explicit account of these fences.

The fore part of the summer here was extremely dry, and the grass in many places was burnt up. But we had a good crop of wheat; and, rains coming on about the end of July, we had in August a new spring, the grass sprouting again wonderfully thick and fast, in fields where we thought the very roots had been destroyed. Our grave-diggers said they found the earth hot sensibly at three feet depth, even after these rains; perhaps the great heat below and the moisture above occasioned this sudden and profuse vegetation, the whole country being, as it were, one great hot-bed.

I am, with esteem and affection, dear Sir,

Your obliged humble servant,

B. Franklin.