The Daily Herald

Northampton, (Mass.) Oct. 14.
The old oil mill in this town is to be converted into a silk-mill—this is as it should be, and much credit is due Mr. Whimarsh for raising a company with a capital of $100,000. to manufacture silk, which ought and will give employment to all the children in Hampshire county, not in factories. but in the open fields, cultivating mulberry hedges, and feeding silk worms. Now that we have lost the use of flax and flax-seed, the cultivation of which gave business to our whole population, both male and female, it is pleasant to anticipate a return to another branch of rural economy to make good the loss of that which has been so severely felt by an agricultural people. Who is there now living in this town, of 40 years of age. that does not remember when this oil mill was annually filled with flax seed, so much so, that the bran, as well as the oil, became an article of commerce--who does not remember also, the autumnal boats descending the Connecticut with casks of flax seed, and ascending it with salt, for which it had been exchanged in Hartford.