THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



53 



yet in that year, wliich entirely destroyed Indian 

 corn, tliere was almost a doul)Ie crop of rye and 

 wheat. As often are tlie crops adapted to their cli- 

 mate cut down by the late and early frosts in Geor- 

 gia, Alabama and Louisiana, as in New England ; 

 as fatal to the hopes of producers there are the va- 

 rious causes of cutting down production as they are 

 here. So that move where he will, the farmer or 

 planter is destined to casualty : the same wind 

 that wafts him health may also bring disease — the 

 same elements that cause the growth of animal and 

 vegi'table life may destroy animal and vegetable 

 life in lightning, tempest, or eartliquake. In mov- 

 ing to wliat we suppose a better, a more auspicious 

 climate, we shall undoubtedly encounter other in- 

 conveniencies and evils that will fully counterbal- 

 ance those we would avoid. 



Highways in New England, 



Tlie first settlers of every new country well com- 

 prehend the want of good roads. Like the stumps 

 and hillocks and rocks of their recently cleared 

 fields, are the highways over which tliey pass. A 

 wheel carriage of any sort with them is seldom 

 broviglit into use — a carriage of pleasure for the 

 transport of persons is out of the question. Not 

 only are the first highways of a country rougli and 

 uneven, but as the better grounds for making path- 

 ways are the higher lands, so in the first settlement 

 of "New England the zig-zag roads were almost in- 

 variably carried over the highest hills. Those of us 

 who can cast back forty years, remember full well 

 that rarely was a cliaise, and never was that pres- 

 ent convenient vehicle, a gig waggon, used as a 

 carriage of pleasure. Generally in the hill towns 

 twenty and more miles from the sea-board, the one 

 Congregational church was situated on the highest 

 bilinear the centre of the town; and, with saddle 

 and pilion, the horses old and young above three 

 years, sure of foot from the habit of climbing and 

 descending steeps and feeling the ground by places 

 of danger, transported double, to the house of wor- 

 ship, such of the family as were not competent to 

 wend their way on foot. 



More rocky and more hilly than any other por- 

 tion of the United States, it is a compliment to the 

 industry and enterprise of New England farmers, 

 that their roads are better than the roads in any 

 other part of this country. In the New England 

 States, law and custom have conspired to improve 

 our roads. If a traveller suffers injury from any 

 defect of the highway, the town where sucli high- 

 way is located is indictable for its negligence, and 

 public opinion sanctions the assessment and pay- 

 ment of damages. In New Hampshire if a road 

 is left in such a state as to render the passage over 

 it inconvenient, practical travellers generally take 

 so much interest as to go before tlie grand inquest 

 of the county ; and the authorities of the town, as 

 the most ready method of avoiding expense, pro- 

 ceed at once to make the road of easier passage. 



Of late years, such has been the passion for im- 

 proving roads, for evading had hills, shortening dis- 

 tances,' and turning travellers by particular loca- 

 tions, that burdens almost "grievous to be borne" 

 have been thrown upon some towns. Wo have 

 known an inexorable and unfeeling road committee 

 lay out a road longitudinally through a town where 

 a farmer of two or three thousand dollars would be 

 deemed a rich man, and carry the travel directly a- 

 way from the business places of the town, which 

 was obliged directly to incur an expense of three, 

 four, and sometimes six, eight or ten thousand dol- 

 lars to make the improvement. The consequence 

 of this passion for improving roads has been their 

 actual improvement to an extent beyond what the 

 first settlers fifty and sixty years ago would have 

 anticipated. 



Travelling directly among our mountains seem- 

 ingly almost impassable, v/e find smooth roads with 

 an elevation and depression rarely exceeding four 

 to six degrees,winding through the vallies, and car- 

 rying you towards your point of destination with- 

 out the halting of your horse from a steady trot. It 

 is indeed pleasant and delightful to travel upon such 

 roads in those seasons of the year when they are 

 either settled and dry after Ihe frost of winter is ex- 

 tracted, or when, covered with snow, the steel or 

 iron shod sleigh glides over the well trodden path. 

 The St.ites of the South and the new States of 

 tlie West know not the good and convenient roads 

 of New England. Our cross roads in our by-towns 

 are generally in a better condition than our larger 

 travelled roads : that highway which is not 

 rounded up so as to drain otf the water which falls 

 upon it, if it be in a soil with a hard pan, would not 

 be considered wortiiy the name of road. We well 

 remember the time when an oval or rounded road 

 was unknown here, and when most of the country 



wheels were covered with sod and interrupted with 

 stumps and rocks over which every wheeled car- 

 riage passed with a jolt. In the Southern States — 

 we are quite sure this is the case in Delaware, Ma- 

 ryland and Virginia — there is little mending of the 

 public roads other than what is done by the wheels of 

 the carria'i-e cutting f.own and levelling the inroads 

 made by frosts and rains. Excepting the turnpikes 

 and bridges on which heavy tolls are generally ex- 

 acted, there are few roads in tlie Southern States 

 that deserve the name. At some points, in wet 

 seasons, where the deep clay mud becomes abso- 

 lutely impassable, the carriage is taken out of the 

 road into the adjoining fields, and a new track is 

 formed either in the open ground or among the 

 trees of the forest. 



The seasons of fall and spring never fail to make 

 the New Entrland roads bad, especially in our deep- 

 est hard wood soil. Until the frost of the spring is 

 entirely broken up, deep mud for several days and 

 sometimes fir weeks cannot be avoided : a sudden 

 freezing, after roads immersed in rain have been 

 poached by travel, makes our roads extremely hard 

 of tr.avel : so also a long sucoession of rains, with 

 the frequent passing of heavy wheeled teams at a- 

 ny time of year, makes our best roads very bad. 

 Yet so much has travel increased, so great is the 

 transit of heavy goods, as well as of many travel- 

 lers to and from the interior and sea-board, that at 

 the worst period of the roads there seems, if possi- 

 ble, to be most travel. 



We have observed an improvement in the most 

 springy and spongy lands that is worthy the atten- 

 tion of the superintendents of roads. In almost 

 every vicinity of such roads,there is plenty of small 

 round stones, weighing from one to twenty pounds 

 As the cheapest method of making a road scarcely 

 less easy of passage at all times than a M'Adaui 

 road, lay these pebbles for the space of twenty to 

 twenty -five feet in the centre of the road, rounded 

 up in turnpike position — let the bottom of the stone 

 be still liigher than the gutter on each side which 

 carries off the water, giving opportunity to drain 

 the ground under the travelled path, so that the 

 frost^shall not shove the rock.^ from their places : 

 the pebbles should be packed into the ground to the 

 depth of six to twelve inches— upon the top let 

 gravel be placed, and the whole will be speedily 

 trodden into a mass that cannot be easily displac- 

 ed. A road with stones twelve inches tliick, it is 

 believed, will resist for many years the heaviest 

 teams. Such a road at all times will be compara- 

 tively dry ; and the season of frost coming out of 

 the gronnrl, or the season of much rain, to teams 

 or carriages heavy or light will hardly be consider- 

 ed an inconvenience. Sooner or later — and the 

 sooner the less expense — must our principal roads 

 be treated in this way. 



The improving ami improved roads of New Eng- 

 land are bey on d question of great value to the people. 

 Every rod of road improved so that the same team 

 can draw two tons with the same strength that it 

 could before draw one ton, adds something to the 

 value of each acre of land whose products .ire to be 

 transported over that road. Even the rail roads, 

 which from the nature of thi'ir management can be 

 considered in no other light than as monopolies, 

 which shall lessen tlie cost of transportation to and 

 from the principal markets, can be considered in 

 no other light than as valuabk to all that commu- 

 nity and that soil which either supplies or is sup- 

 plied from such markets. 



Much labor is thrown away on our roads from 

 want of skill and science in the application of labor. 

 The mere shovelling and laying on of the sand and 

 gravel is often money spent in vain. Our road su-^ 

 perintendents should bo trained and instructed, if 

 not as civil engineers, as men vvho can unite theo- 

 ry and practice. We have observed in some parts 

 of the country — and we name a new road leading 

 from Fitchburg to Worcester, Massachusetts, as 

 one instance— roads constructed on what we deem 

 the true principles. The method of constructing 

 canals and rail roads applies to the common roads. 

 If the former are to be graded on a level or very 

 near a level, the latter may be graded so as never 

 to exceed in the rise and fall so many degrees or so 

 many feet to the mile. If the one is constructed so 

 as to carry off the redundant water without injury, 

 so should be the other— carefully guarding against 

 the effects of water upon the surface, or water un- 

 der n-round, having all the courses so located as to 

 be assured that every obstruction shall be carried 

 through and out of the way without injury. Again, 

 the inaterial of which a travelled road is made 

 should be of that kind not only to stand against 

 wind and water, but to present as little friction as 

 possible to tlie passing vehicle. 



If the citizens of our towns most interested in 



in the future construction and improvement of 

 roads — if they would employ well instructed 

 and well trained men as superintendents of roads — 

 if indeed regulations or law.s could be adopted de- 

 fining scientifically die method of constructing and 

 repairing roads on same general scale — we do not 

 doubt that their rapid improvement would follow, 

 and that ultimately one half the money now ex- 

 pended on roads might be saved. 



Iriishurgli, Orleans Countij, Vermont, April 1, 1839. 



To the Editor ; — I have read a part of three num- 

 bers of the Monthly Visitor, in which you ask for 

 information from farmers. 



In the year I7ii6, I lived with my father in Rye, 

 N. II. whose farm is about two hundred rods south 

 of the old Congregational meeting house. A part 

 of this firm is low swamp. We applied sea weed 

 at the rate of twelve loads to the acre, and sowed 

 carrots and beets. The carrots yielded six bush- 

 els and the beets ten bushels to the square rod. Of 

 the carrots we raised 287 bushels. On the 15th 

 August, lily father weighed ten swine, three of 

 which were yearlings ami seven pigs ; and to these 

 and twenty-one geese, we fed out the carrots until 

 we consumed 140 bushels. Then he weighed again 

 and said he had gained seven hundred pounds of 

 dressed pork. The geese, when dressed fit for 

 cooking, weighed eight and a half pounds each. 

 We had a very poor cow sixteen years old : left off 

 milking her about the first of November — llien gave 

 her fifty bushels of carrots, and killed her at Christ- 

 mas : she had ">0 pounds of rough tallow, and the 

 beef was very fiit. 



My business that season was, beside the ordina- 

 ry farm work, to attend the hogs, geese and cow, 

 as well as to weed the carrots, beets and a field of 

 about 20O0 cabbages : this extra work I did night 

 and morning generally before sunrise and after 

 sunset. 



The swamp I have spoken of, where the carrots 

 and beets were grown, I think might be made 

 to produce one thousand bushels of carrots or 

 other root crops to an equal amount; yet I be- 

 lieve the owners do not make much use of these 

 lands. WILLIAM LOCKE. 



Note. — We have some of the Locke family in our 

 own vicinity, who originated in Rye: they carry 

 with them the habits of industry and enterprise, 

 demonstrated by the appear,anee of that pattern 

 town for farmers. As the editor has probably vis- 

 ited Rye since the writer of the foregoing letter, the 

 information that the farmers of Rye are fa.st bring- 

 ing into profitable cultivation their swamp grounds 

 may be pleasing to the aged gentleman whose 

 homely letter will bo interesting to many young 

 farmers. 



was UUKliOWll IICIC, ailU V\ in. 11 lllUJl. Ui 1,11.- ^^^>.y.Lj ~. -41 ■ * ir nn 



roads which were not traced with the ruts of the I good roads would unite science with mtelligence 



Moullonhorough, March 2Stk, 1339. 

 Hon. IsA.tr Hii.r, — Dear Sir: — Permit me to 

 compliment you on the merit of the Monthly Vis- 

 itor. In this part of the State it seems to give more 

 life and spirit to agriculture, than any thing that 

 has been done amongst ns. I am confident that, 

 when more generally read, it will result in the 

 greatest good to the agricultural conamunity. 



A ni.NT FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF "^HE GROWERS 

 OF WHE.AT. 



Smut in wheat has become very prevalent within 

 a few years; and to ascertain the true cause would 

 be a great discovery, and might lead to the discov- 

 ery of a remedy to prevent it. 



It is doubtless a lack of some necessary ingredi- 

 ent of the soil which prevents the wheat from com- 

 ing to maturity. It has been suggested by men of 

 science, that lime is a very important ingredient for 

 the growing of wheat. It has been also ascertain- 

 ed by analyses that the lower soil contains double 

 the quantity of lime of the upper soil. When wheat 

 is sown on land exhausted by frequent and shoal 

 ploughing, it will produce smut, or the straw will 

 rust, and the kernel blight. 1 have noticed, and 

 more particularly last summer, that where wheat 

 was sown on land cultivated under the usual prac- 

 tice of shoal ploughing it was very smutty ; and 

 tliat where it was sown on land where the usual 

 practice was deep ploughing, the wheat was free 

 from smut. If this should be the case on further 

 observation, it would be evident that lime is a great 

 preventive against smut; for by deep ploughing 

 it turns up the lower or sub-soil, which contains 

 the greatest quantity of lime and gives a greater 

 facility to the growth and brings it to perfection. 

 But when land is ploughed shoal the lime lies in- 

 active. I have given these hints, that some scien- 

 tific growers of wheat might make the same obser- 

 vation and give us the result of their research. 



JOHN BROWN, 2d. 



