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Their first appearance is on the immediate surface of the burnt ground, the same as in the case of fire-weed, and at a time when there were no seeds to be distributed, except such as must have come from the southern hemisphere, or been casually picked up by birds, and taken their slim chances of survival after passing through the natural "gristmills" of the birds.
Some families, it is said, can be traced steadily proceeding southward as they stripped off the forest, and started sawmills and gristmills on the little streams that trickled from the swamps, and like beavers making with their dams those pretty ponds which modern lovers of the picturesque are now so eager to find.
In 1820, there were in the villages of East Chelmsford, Belvidere, and Centralville, about two hundred and fifty inhabitants. Whipple's powder-mills and Howe's flannel-mill were then in operation, and there were several sawmills and gristmills. Ira Frye's Tavern stood on the site of the American House.
"This formed a nucleus, and soon quite a village sprang up. The sawmill and gristmill proved profitable, all my houses were tenanted, and I erected more, securing also additional land. In course of time I was induced to sell some of my houses, but I still own two stores, a dozen houses, the saw and gristmills, besides two outlying farms.
Their machine shop makes and repairs all their own machinery; their gristmills have to compete with those of the surrounding country; their cattle, horses, and sheep of the latter they keep no less than 1400 head are known as the best in the county; their hotel is a favorite summer resort; their store supplies the neighborhood; and they have found among themselves ability enough to conduct successfully all these and several other callings, all of which require both working skill and business acuteness.
The end of the world hasn't come. And that's something you and I don't need to worry about, anyhow." "What you heard was only the mill-wheels turning. You must have reached the gristmill before the miller had come to begin his day's work. That was why everything was so still. I don't wonder you were frightened when all that noise began. But gristmills are always like that.
Just as undue flattery awoke in the American people an exaggerated notion of their chivalry and their sense of humour, so the reiteration of savage and contemptuous criticism made them depreciate their general literary ability. It goes farther back than the "Who ever reads an American book?" Prairies, steamboats, gristmills are their natural objects for centuries to come."
For almost all the other little rivers of the South Shore, lazy as they may be by nature, yet manage to do some kind of work before they finish the journey from their crystal-clear springs into the brackish waters of the bay. They turn the wheels of sleepy gristmills, while the miller sits with his hands in his pockets underneath the willow-trees.
Birds of prey, and others subsisting mostly or entirely on animal food, have thin, membranous, and comparatively flabby gizzards; while those living on hard grains and seeds have extremely thick, powerful, and muscular ones, those capable of crushing up and thoroughly triturating all the food they take into their crops. These gizzards are nature's gristmills, and they grind exceedingly fine.
Therefore, for many years the little settlement had to be largely self-supporting. Such water power as the Huron could furnish was quickly developed; sawmills, gristmills, and a little later, woolen mills arose at favorable sites, the ruins of which are still to be seen where the relics of the dams now serve as hazards for the venturesome paddler.
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