■T '"TrT^T**y^-^"^* '^ 



Bilir.rira, Maij\7, '39. 

 Hon. Is,»Ac: Hii L : — Dear Sir, — Througli the po- 

 Iitene,ss of a New H. imps hire iViend, I lately re- 

 ceived the fourtli number of your Fanner's Visit- 

 or, containing, among otlier interesting articles, an 

 obituary notice of the late Gov. Pierce. I h.ercwith 

 Bend one year's subscription, and request ihe favor 

 of receiving the preceding and subsequent numbers 

 by mail. Although I am not e.-tactly an agricultu- 

 rist, it will aft'ord me niujh pleasure to sec monthly 

 epeciniens of tjiat peculiar style nf compusition 

 which I always seek and read with avidity. Al- 

 though in the splitting up of political parties, we 

 were not destined lo stand on the same side of the 

 fenre, yet you will do nic the justice to believe me 

 "when I declare to you that I have always felt a 

 deep interest in your personal welfare. I am not of 

 the number of those who believe that all tlie talent, 

 all tiie virtue, and all the patriotism, are ccniined to 

 your party or to mine. Who has not seen twenty 

 school boys attemptinj: to sv.'ing on the rack of a 

 passing sti^e coach.' Those who cannot get on, 

 invariably bawl out to the driver, '■ whip behind." 

 Now I do not think it of vital importance to the 

 passengers which of those boys hold sn, or which 

 are lof? sprawling hcl-.ind. 



Respectfully and truly vours, 



ZADOK HOWE. 



If we derived no other advantage from our la- 

 bors in the Monthly Visitor than the pleasure of 

 now and then receiving letters similar to the fore- 

 going, we sliould be well paid for every thing. An 

 old acquaintance of thirty years ago— a shrewd head 

 inquisitive of faults— opposed to our peculiar opin- 

 ions and of course disapproving tlie zeal with which 

 we eniraired in their propagation — without personal 

 intercourse for the last twenty years; we are al- 

 most inclined to the vanity of believing Ihaf he 

 puts a better estimate upon us than we do upon our- 

 selves, and tl!3.t our common place remarks and ev- 

 ery day observations are not altogether void of in- 

 terest. , 



We remember Docf . How e tor auid lan^syne as 

 one of the only two physicians in this place thirty 

 years a-ro : his oompetiS^, Doct. Grekn, had not 

 only IheMd vantage of greater age and experience, 

 but was eonnected in family relations with nearly^ 

 half of the villaie, now swelled into a population of 

 some tliree tiiou°sand people. It was related of the 

 elder Howard when he set up business in Boston 

 that he had few applications from patients, until, 

 following the advice of some old friend, he contri- 

 ved on Siind^ivs and other public days to be on his 

 way in a different direction from the crowd flock- 

 inn- to churches and places of assemblage. To 

 thfs practice, rathe, than to his early skill, did tiie 

 eminent physician probably owe his early intro- 

 duction to a most extensive business. Twenty-five 

 years ao-o, when every man, woman and child took 

 sides in" favor of one or the other doctor with as 

 nnieh zeal as we have always taken ground in pol- 

 itics, we used to see the good old Dr. G. upon t!ie 

 nun horse which he always rode when called out of 

 the street, bending forward as if it were a case of 

 life and death, meeting all the people while on their 

 way to the only service held in the town upon the 

 Sabbath. Every body tlien went to thi.'s meeting 

 but the sick, their attendants and the doctors ; Dr 



our lot to fall into the family relationship. The 

 last pill we ever took from the iiand of a physician — 

 it wasanot'.ble pill, which although soon discharg- 

 ed with the contents of a di;iordered stomach was 

 there distinctly felt for many snbsequentyears — was 

 administered by Doct. Green in the month of July 

 in the year ]Sl7. We had been reduced appar- 

 ently to death's door, and were then so uncharita- 

 ble as to form the opiiiion, contrary to that of all 

 friends about us, that the doctoring had done us 

 more harm than good ; and we then promised not 

 again to take doctor's medicine until we should be 

 very sick. The assertion of such a determination 

 required no common assurance — some persons a- 

 bout us jiredictcd that a just punishment for the 

 heretical opinion we had formed of doctors and their 

 frequent prescriptions would follow by uiaking'us 

 glad again soon to take their medicine. That time 

 has not yet arrived ; and we introduce this fact to 

 show that perhaps in one half the cases where 

 physici.ins are called, their services had hotter be 

 dispensed witli. Indeed we know one or rncre 

 physicians in whose skill and judgment we enter- 

 tain great confidence, v.'ho, when called in many 

 cases, advise to the administering of no medicine. 

 In such cases, if the physician loses a more profit- 

 able custom, he probably loses fewer patients. It 

 is a remarkable circumstance, worthy the consider- 

 ation of all who seek the true avenues of iiealth, 

 that those families wliich have no convenient ac- 

 cess to the doctor, enjoy much better general health 

 than those families v.hich have a favorite fami!;,' 

 physician directly at their door. 



Doctor Hott^e, since he left ua, has attained to 

 eminence as a man and a physician. He reside:^ in 

 an ancient town of Massachusetts, which presents 

 many ctamples of successful farmers who have 

 been in the habit of better cultivating the ground 

 than farmers farther in the interior. We do not 

 remember to have passed that town other than over 

 the Lov>'ell rail road, since 1S33. In the spring of 

 that year we recollect to have seen spread over a 

 mowing field what we had supposed most fanners 

 would not have thanked any body to put on, an al- 

 most entire covering of oyster shells. This was in 

 a field just by a recently erected meeting house, 

 near Concord river, one nfile \vesl of tha Doctor's 

 residence. Krom a dread of rocks and other obsta- 

 cles in the way of the scythe, we at first thought 

 the application must be fatal to the field, us destroy- 

 ing the edge uf the instrument atevcry clip. It has 

 since occurred to us, that a heavy roller might so 

 imbed the shells that the scythe could pass over 

 them without injury. We would like to be in- 

 formed by Dr. Howe or some one acquainted, of the 

 value of the aiiplication to mowing or tillage 

 grounds of oyster and clam shells from the salt wa- 

 ter. 



It occurs to us here that the roller may be and is 

 used to "real advantage on light and gravelly, or 

 rocky soil, when laid down lo grass, at the time of 

 sowing grain. Small rocks out of the way of the 

 scythe are of much value to a mowing field — they 

 contribute to keep the ground moist, light and 

 warm. A roller made from a solid log of hard 

 wood of very considerable weight will press the 

 small stones so far into liie ground as t.^ put them 

 out of the way ofllie scyllie. 



Cro; 



Mo'.iutajns of Xew 



sincT tiic width of N;iW 



England, 



G was the nearest neighbor of the clergyman and j considerable mountain ranges.^ Tiie westerly range 

 was a member of his church; but for all that, if 



some were so unkind as to suppose there might be 

 policy in bein"- in a hurry to visit patients precisely 

 at half past ten, A. M. or half-past one, 1'. M. on 

 Sunday, nobody will be so cm.?! as to say that Dr. 

 Howe's competitor had not a good and justihable 

 motive Whatever misrlit be the opinion ot the 

 good man who with all the heads of the five fami- 

 lies to which ho was related then living, has since 

 exchantrcd worl Is, there is not one who knew both 

 that will not yield the palm rather to the livnig 

 than to the dceeasrd in the practice of all the "arts 

 of the able physician." 



We may as well confess at once that Uoct. Green 

 was our doctor— not exactly because we esteemed 

 his competitor less, but because it happened to be 



commences at the rncks near New Haven in Con 

 necticut, which are to be seen as we pass up or 

 down L')n2 Island Sjund. This range forms the 

 high ground of Litchfield county in Connecticut— 

 the mountains of Berkshire in Massachusetts, and 

 almost the entire region of the Green Mountain 

 State, e-xtending north to Canada. The other rang, 

 may be said to commence at Montank Point in 

 Rhode Island, and composing the rough western 

 exterior of tint little State and the easterly part o; 

 Connecticut, takes up nearly the entire county o 

 Worcester, extending across Massachusetts, enter. 

 New Hampshire on its south line, embiacing- 

 principal part of both old Hillsborough and oh 

 Cheshire — puts on still a more mountainous aspec 

 in Grafton- rises to the highest altitude of any 



laud in the United States in the north county cf 

 Coos, and may be said even to extend by the head 

 of the longest river (the Connecticut) in New Eng- 

 land, and form that ridge of the highlands which 

 divides the provinces of Great Britain from the 

 United States, in whicli is the point or "northwest 

 angle of No;a Scotia,'' about which there is so 

 much uncertainty and dispute as to involve two 

 great governments in danger of collision and the 

 accumulated expense and bloodshed of v.-ar. 



Tlie second jilountciin Kan-ge. 



This second mountain range — the height be- 

 tween the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers — is 

 the subject of cur present attcnti'.m. It cmbrac'ea 

 the roughest of the rough country of New Eng- 

 land. The soil of this range is much harder than 

 that of the western or Green Mountain range — it 

 seems to be an older Ibrmation, the land of the west 

 having been submerged long subsequent to that on 

 the east, being covered liy a series of large and small 

 lakes, extending probably nearly to the tops of the 

 h'giicst hills until the waters nov.' composing tho 

 Connecticut broke through all their former harriers, 

 and finally discharged themselves in a continuous 

 stream into the sea through Long Island Sound. 



Some cf the mountains of this range are tha 

 Waehusett and Wetatick in ?<Iassachusett3 — and 

 in New Hampshire, the Monadnock, the Sunapee, 

 Kearsarge, Cardigan, Moosehiirc.jk, the :?andwich, 

 Franconia, and further north the magnificent range 

 of White Mountains, of v.hich Mount Washing- 

 ton towers about one thousand feet above the oth- 

 ers. 

 The County of \^orcester in Massachn- 

 sett?. 



We would on this occasion particuiaily notice 

 the great county of Worcester in Massachusetts, 

 scarcely secondary in point of improvement to the 

 widely famed Dutchess county of New York. This 

 county is of high elevation: its greatest height 

 is the mountain VVachusett, 2?iC0 feet above the 

 level of the sea. This is an isolated mountain, is 

 fifty miles at least from the coast, but is said to be 

 the first object descried to the south and southeast 

 at a long distance from land by the m-Jriner. Prince- 

 ton on the south, and Westminster on .the north, 

 border upon this mountain. In the first settlement 

 of Coflon and the towns in its vicinity, it is said 

 the farmers u.-icd to turn their cattle upon the high 

 grounds in the vicinity of thi.s mountain in the sum- 

 mer, to range on territory that had been prepared 

 for the purpose by the running of fires. A monu- 

 ment upon Waehusett is seen to the distance each 

 wav of more than twenty miles. 



'^I'he whole county of Worcester is now a most 

 beautiful agricultural country— iniproving and ren- 

 ovating its soil from year to year, and every season 

 increasing its products. We remember to have 

 seen in a volume of the Massachusetts Magazine, 

 a work of much interest, published in 17c8 to 1792 

 as a monthly periodical, a frontispiece representa- 

 ti.m of the "seat of His Honor Moses Gill" in 

 Princeton, which was then and there described as 

 a valuable and beautiful farm ; and we made it a 

 point to enquire at that time of every pi-rson who 

 had seen tliis farm, how- well it agreed with the 

 description. The same farm has been since known 

 as the property of Ward Nicholas Boylston, Esq. 

 There were other extensive and sj.lendid farms in 

 Worcester county prior to the Revolutionary war 

 — some of them owned by wealthy royalists who 

 espoused the cause of Great Britain. More than 

 forty years ago the famous Ruggles bull, kept on 

 one of tiiese farms, was talked of. The story then 

 went that the owner of this bull on one occasion 

 challenged the country far and near for a rival 

 champion to fight him ; that a man came of a 

 Saturday with an antagonist bull too late for the 

 fight on that day ; that on Sunday Ruggles invited 

 the stranger to attend church with his family, while 

 himself tarried at home. Concerned as to the re- 

 sult of the fight, left alone at home, the owner of 

 the premises went to the yard to let the bulls togeth- 

 er for a preliminary trial. The stranger bull, in- 

 stead of fighting an animal of his kine, made after 

 ■h.- man, who with difficulty retreated into the 

 liousc, with the bull .after him. The man retreated 

 to th'? kitchen : but the bull took the direct road to 



