Litchfield enquirer., 1873-07-31
N. Y. AGR'L ED. EXCURSION. ! STEAMER FLEETWOOD, ON THE OHIO,
 July, 18th, 1873.

1ofk on the morning of July 10th, for trip through Virginia. West Virginia Texas, Indian Territory, Colorado, ant the peaks of the Rocky Mountains. T, describe all We have seen in this frs week would require volume. We hay, passed over routes recently opened, bring ing to light resources of agricultural ant mineral worth little known and imperfect Y developed, and scenes of the highes historic interest and and of the greates natural beauty and grandeur. These art only equalled by the most wonderful rail roads spanning rivers and chasms, anG with tunnels making their way through the mountains. We passed by specia train on the Penn. Central Rrailroai through West Philadelphia, Lancaster York, to Baltimore beneath which we passed i'll a tunnel two miles in length thence by new Baltimore < Potomac rail road to Washington. We ran twenty seven miles in thirty minutes, and kep the same speed most of the distance Thence by newly finished branch of B. O. R. R. to Harper's Ferry. This fol first day.
 Second day: B. & O. R. R. up the Shen andoah Valley to Harrisonburg. Stage ride twenty-five miles to Staunton Chesapeake < O. R, R. to Charlottesville
 Third day: c. < O. R. R. to White Sulphur Springs. Breakfast at Altor of the Blue Ridge.
 Fourth day: Same railroad to Charles ton, capital of West Virginia, with visits to iron and coal mines.
 Fifth day: Steamboat excursion to salt works on the Kanawha, then by sail tc Huntington terminus of the railroad or Ohio.
 Now we are off for sail down the Ohio to Cincinnati, where we are to spend the Sabbath. Numerous receptions have greeted the party thus far, and the pleas. ure has been heightened by finding old neighbors successfully engaged in these works ofpublic improvement. Congress. man Barnum is just completing, under the charge of Mir. Ensign from Canaan, a car=wheel foundry at Hunt. ington, Q city of two years growth and a population of 5000. Enough for one week.
 These things cannot be described. It will do New England people good to come thus far Uia the Shenandoah Valley and West Virginia. Our party are in fine health and spirits, and you may hear from me again from Utah or Colorado.
 T. s. GOLD.
 Correspondence of the N. Y. Evening Postl
 From the Connecticut Woods.
 FAIRFIELD, July F, 1873.
 It is fearfully dry here yet, and ihere is some comfort in touching even with the pen your city, which was yesterday so re. freshed by showers The rain has gone all about us, but 1t does not touch us, and from hill top yesterday I could see a great cloud over Bridgeport, that was pouring upon that thriving city the mercy denied to us. It is dull, too, as well as dry along this shore, and there is Hull in the tide of thrift that has been for years setting up from New York to New Haven. although it is probably only the pause before fresh and more vigorous in building and traffic.
 CHANGES IN THE OLD TOWNS. sS
 In the old towns here, which date from SO remote an origin land this town oi Fairfield Is older than Harvard College il there are several currents oi life that present themselves to thought. full observers attention. First of all you may note the general drift of population capital and enterprise, from the old agri' cultural, territprial centres, to the new centres of manufactures and locomotion. This place, which has now next to no bu. siness, once had quite a thriving trade and saw yesterday an old clock in $ farm house which had the makers name and the date, Fairfield, 1723, 15O years ago. Now nothing is made in this village to my knowledge, and the death of { OA&A4CJ hCSbCOI Uu6 CAOSCu t1IC OI11I SuOt shop in the place. This desertion is re lieved in some degree by the coming o thrifty merchants from the city, who have built or bought the fine houses upon the principal street, and by the increasing number of frugal laborers, chiefly Irish who are buying land and putting up snug houses for their decidedly. increasing fam lilies. Apparently these people are des tined to occupy the abandoned farms il our old towns, although they are met by a new and vigorous movement on the par of intelligent farmers, who are applying the new tillage to their grounds and in some cases raising profitable crops, espec tally of small fruits, such as enable then to enlarge their stock and their buildings
 HOUSES, DRESS AND SPEECH.
 Among the people generally the most memorable change seems to come iron the tendency of education and the taste that goes with it. Houses are moro care fully looked after inside and outside, bet ter painted and furnished and far nor, adorned with gardens than before. Young persons of all grades are more particulal in their dress and dialect. The school: have put away the rustic idioms that wer, once so general in the country, and . prominent public man of New Haven late ly told me that although few years agt he generally heard from even the childre1 of well-to-do farmers the old fashioned bar barism of pronunciation, as in the word COW, house, now, &c., he now seldom heard anything of the kind, ant that recently he attended normal schoo examination in New Britain, where tn, girls surprised him not only by the excel lence of their compositions, but by tn, accuracy and elegance of their articula tion. Their dress also pleased him b, its fine taste, and the handsome Congre gational church in which the services wer, held, as we'll as the audience, was 8 ney and cheering phase of the rural popula tion and the present state of Puritan cul ture. As We were talking he called m, attention to throng of people who wer, passing along the sidewalk. He said tha they belonged to the Methodist churcl near by. and that few years ago the, wore the severe costume of their order but now they were quite in the mode o modest gentility, without Eingle speci men of the old regulation bonnet that dit such good sefsiee against the world in it