THE FAIlMEil'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



83 



tipon the " thousand acres," reacliing to the top cf 

 .Icwcll hilI,fi-oin which some twonty steeples iii as 

 )nany towns can he (iescrictl, and thf liio-h gruinds 

 at the (1, stance of more than a hundred niiies c:in be 

 distinctly pointed out, on the last week of May pre- 

 sented a most delio-htful landscape: the "sweet 

 fields," the newly budded forests stood "dressed in 

 livinof green." So in tiie month of October 1S3G, 

 after the frost had scathed and sen red every thing 

 in a less derated region in New England, vegeta- 

 tion upon this high ground escaped, and even the 

 corn not yet ripe preserved its verdure until the 

 receding sun eked out sufricient warmth to ripen it. 

 The frost upon these hills, cold and bleak as they 

 are in winter and backward in vegetation as tlicy 

 sometimes are in spring, frequently holds off a month 

 later in ilie fiill than upon the plains below. 



The hard and rocky soil of Asliburnham at this 

 time will bear as higli a price as that of the easiest 

 and best faruiing tov\'ns on the Connecticut river 

 valley above perhaps Northampton. The more it 

 is cultivated the better this land becomes. At first 

 almost impervious to the best implements of the 

 farmer, with each successive turning up and mov- 

 in,^ of the surface, the soil increases in richness — 

 the mi.xed hard pan and gravel seem to change into 

 pruductive vegetable mould ; and the land year af- 

 ter year is more sure of a crop than the easy plough 

 land upon the rivers. There are many e.vcellent 

 farmers in this rough town of Ashburnhaui. The 

 enterprise which has used its water power, abund- 

 ant for the purposes to which it is applied, but 

 powerie:iS if applied to large establishments, has 

 raised the value of every acre of ground in the 

 town, by enabling th:r farmer to sell at a high price 

 at his own door every surplus article his farm may 

 produce. 



The most stony lands, deemed unfit for cultiva- 

 tion, having a growth of any kind of wood, are not 

 less valuable than the cleared lands ; for every tree, 

 and some of them not hitherto considered useful 

 even for firewood, is brought into requisition in 

 some of tile various manufactures which are car- 

 ried on in tlie town. 



We have selected this sample of a town of our 

 more intimate acquaintance in Massachusetts, to 

 show what tiie rou^li interior of New England is, 

 and what it may become. Its rocky and uneven 

 surface, its W'inter " hoary frost and fleecy snows" 

 and cold "bitter, biting north" winds, after all, aie 

 not a bur to that comfort of mind, the true joys of 

 friendship and social intercourse, the feasts of in- 

 tellect and "all the pleasures of the heart," which 

 are realized by tlie sons and daughters of the New 

 England yeomanry probably beyond any other pop- 

 ulation on eartli. 



Improvenient of Rough Lauds. 



It is now about fifteen years since we passed 

 over the road leading from ,\niherst by Bedford 

 meeting iiouse to this seat of the State govern- 

 ment. That road liad been much improved from 

 its first estate thirty years ago : for six or eight 

 miles it was as narrow, as hilly, as rough, as could 

 he well imagined. Passing over ground deemed 

 all but worthless, the road was a dreaded as it was 

 a dreary object — as uneomfortulile to the passenger 

 as it was straining to the carriage and Vv'orrj'iug to 

 the horses. 



The first improvement that struck us was a 

 nearly level road over new ground, extending 

 about four miles out of Amherst, made bj' the enter- 

 prizing citizens of that ancient shire of Old Hills- 

 borough — a road much better made than we are in 

 the habit of making; roads further north. It is re- 

 markable liow routes for roads can be found in al- 

 most every direction shortening distances and at 

 the same time avoiding hills. This new road is 

 constructed with the proper width, with adequate 

 drainage, with the projierly graduated pitch, on 

 the principle of tlie inclined plane surmounting 

 the ridges which may not he avoided., and is cover- 

 ed with suth soil and gravel as will tread hard and 

 supersede the necessitj' of repairs after every rain. 

 The road, it is understood, is to bo continued 

 through Kedlord to .'Viiioskeag, which in a single^ 

 season assumes all the appearance and business ol 

 a city. 



After leaving Amherst plain, the first decided 

 iininoveiiient we discovered was that of the owner 

 of the Stanley farm. We know not its proprie- 

 tor; hut the' present condition of the fields and 

 grounds constituting the farm, contrasted with 

 what it once was, is worthy of attention. Whether 

 the owner has obtained profit or not, his improve- 

 ments are such as probably to make every acre 

 worth four-fold the price it would command twen- 

 ty years ago. This was not then a new farm — it 

 had been many years under cultivation, and was 

 IS good as "a majority of farms. The soil was 



rough, and the fields had been occujjied while co- 

 vered with rocks ; myriads of these now csrted in- 

 to walls or other convenient places of disposal have 

 left the fields as smooth as they are verdant and 

 productive. The industrious |noprietor with liis 

 hands was at work as we passed near the new road / 

 which avoids liis dwelling and outhouses, in a field 

 of gr.^velly side hill, from which they were extri- 

 cating those incumbrances in the w'ay of the plough. 

 The work in which he was engaged taught us how 

 the present value of his farm had been gained; and 

 although to delve into a pan seemingly impenetra- 

 ble, where rocks large and small usurji nearly iialf 

 of the eartii's surface, be a discouraging business — 

 it is a fact creditable to the owner of the Stanley 

 farm as it is to hundreds of others who may be 

 p: inouncod to be the best because they are the 

 most thriving tanners of tiie Granite State, that 

 Ihey have made themselves farms under cireum- 

 stances so discouraging which will command a 

 higher price per acre tlian will many tiinns in the 

 most li-'asible land and by nature the most easy 

 soil. 



The farm to which we have alluded is not alone 

 in improvement — that further on which adjoins it 

 is likewise worthy of commcndal'.cn : indeed the 

 greater part of tlie cultivation of Amherst has con- 

 tinued sensibly to improve; and the appearance of 

 the buildings — new iiouses painted white, and en- 

 larged barns taking the place of the old ones — in- 

 dicates that most of the occupants are blessed with 

 competence and independence, the sure result of 

 industry and perseverance. The barn up.Mi the 

 Stanley farm with its granite basement reminds us 

 of the beautiful barns in the richest parts of Penn- 

 sylvania. 



It may be thought a trifling subject to notice a 

 fifteen years improvement in a region so rough and 

 forbidding as tiie "old county" road between Am- 

 herst and Piscataqiiog ; but particular information 

 of improvements in a country which owes less to 

 nature than to labor and art seein to be necessary 

 to fill up a more extensive outline. This portion 

 of Amherst and Bcdibrd, from loui- to eight miles 

 west of the Merrimack, was as rough as can be 

 well imagined — the ground was rocky, hard and 

 uneven, and what little soil that could be come at 

 was considered too light and feeble to yield a crop. 

 A tl-w years has put upon it an entirely new face. 

 Much of it now breaks upon our view m valuable 

 pasture or fruitl'ul fields of mov.-lng and tillage. 

 Not the least valuable ground is that which has not 

 vet been cleared. With twenty, thirty and fifty- 

 cords of excellent hard wood to the acre, worth at 

 the least estimate one dollar and fifty cents stand- 

 ins, the real value of this rough land is much 

 greater than the estimate of the standing wood up- 

 on it. The great improvements upon the river be- 

 low — the building up of Lowell, Nashua and other 

 villages — the construction of a Rail-road Hearing 

 the distance to Boston — have already doubled and 

 trebled and quadrupled the nominal price of this 

 land, which in o.?me instances before was consider- 

 ed for use so worthless as to make its owner the 

 poorer for the larger quantity with which he was 

 la.xed . 



Hop <;uUivatiou. 



It was formerly said that Bedford produced more 

 hops than any other town of New Hampshire. If 

 that town has not actually fallen off since the de- 

 cease of its enterprising farmer-merchant, the elder 

 Is.-v.vc RiDULE, we are inclined to think it must 

 yield the palm of hop growing to Milford, where 

 the business is persevered in with evidence of con- 

 stant improVvinent. Our friend. Col. Peabody, 

 has given in the second number of the Visitor an 

 essay on Hops combining information gathered 

 from his long experience as prebably the best ho]» 

 grower in the Slate, which is worth to every man 

 pursuing the business many times the price of our 

 annual lubseript. on. The fanners of his town 

 have greatly profited IVoiii the experience they have 

 had in the hop cultivation. They pat their soil in 

 a condition to yieW ^ greater produce; and tie 

 hop poles which are set and setting m their fields, 

 appear as taller trees of a sturdier growth compar- 

 ed with those which are seen in Bedford and other 

 ordinarv fields. . 



In the town of Milford there is a beautiful up- 

 land intervale extending some five miles across the 

 town from its handsome village situated less than 

 three miles from Amherst courthouse to the line of 

 Wilton. Milford was formerly a part of Amhe^rst, 

 and was incorporated into a separate town ml/:/,. 

 Over this intervale on the south side runs the stage 

 road from Nashua to Keene, connecting also with 

 the new staire route called the " Forest road lead- 

 ing to Charlestown, N. II. There is no part of tlie 

 Connecticut river vallev more heautilul or m >re 



fertile tiian this level of four miles in Milford. On 

 both sides of this river there are probably from forty 

 to fifty fUrniers who bring into the aid of their 

 other agricultural operations that of raising hops. 

 '1 he splend.d farm of Col. Peabody (lately the pro- 

 pel ty of h.s deceased father, William Poabody, 

 Esq.) is on the north side of the river. He proba- 

 bly cultivates more acres of hops than any other 

 man in the tov;n; but taken together the hop 

 growers of fvlilford do not bring home as the fruit 

 of their labors much less than fifty thousand dol- 

 lars a year for the article of hops. The evidence 

 of the increased wealth which this agriculture 

 brings is to be seen by the passer-by in the sub- 

 stantial, comfortable and comely buildings and 

 conveniences about them, in the handsome orna- 

 mented yards and gardens, in the excellent cattle, 

 sheep, and horses ranging their fields and pastures, 

 in the fine roads and bridges kept in good repair, 

 and in the well clad, intelligent faces old and 

 young, which are evei-y where met. 



Decidedly one of the best farmers in the State 

 is the Rev. IIi:;iphrev Moore, for many years, 

 pastor of the only church in Milford, which since 

 its division into two churches of the Congregation- 

 al order has lost the services, we hope not repudia 

 ted the affections, of its "first love." This gentle- 

 man Vv'as settled in Milford about the first year of 

 the present century — thirty-eight if not thirty-nine 

 years ago. A man of fine talents, his sermons 

 were short, sententious and generally much to the 

 point. He commenced the work of farming with 

 lii.s own hands early after his settlement as a min- 

 ister. Forty years ago it was the common remark 

 of the neighboring farmers that he did more work 

 on his farm, besides attending to his parochial du- 

 ties, than any man among them. Some of them 

 used to express fears that his labors on the farm 

 would destroy the interest of his sermons by depri- 

 ving him of the opportunity of study. We ever 

 considered him that kind of man who could im- 

 prove as much from observation and reflection in 

 the field, as from close reading and study in the 

 closet. Whatever may have been his success as a 

 divine, he has proved himself to be a constantly 

 thriving farmer : his elegant house, his commodi- 

 ous barns, his ample fields, his yards with their 

 beautiful shrubbery and parterres, are no less cred- 

 itable to his taste than to his industry. With ail 

 his labors in the field, in the desk, and among the 

 people of his charge, Mr. Moore has found time 

 to write more on practical agriculture than any 

 other farmer of the state. An agricultural book 

 from his pen was published at the expense of the 

 State some twenty years ago : this work we have 

 read only once, and that several years since. It 

 was dispersed with other books when we changed 

 places of residence in ISiiO. Hereafter we shall 

 endeavor to hunt up the book, and call tha public 

 attention to whatever of agricultural theory and 

 practice at that time may be found useful and in- 

 teresting 



Useful animals often destroyed as hnrtful. 



Multitudes of animals are most unmercifully de- 

 stroyed from ignorance of their uses, from an idea 

 that they are noxious or injurious to some petty 

 concern of a field or garden ; and at the very time 

 they are rendering important services to man, they 

 are mowed down as if they were his sworn enemies 

 and had conspired against h's life. Hence the 

 rooks in some parts of England were at one time 

 in dano-er of being extirpated, as we learn from the 

 author°of " A philosophical Survey of the Animal 

 Creation." " The rook," says he, " is a species of 

 crow that feeds upon worms produced from the eggs 

 of the May-bug. As these and all the winged in- 

 sects in general are to be supported by the roots of 

 plants, they deposit their eggs pretty deep in the 

 earth, in a" hole they dig for that purpose. The 

 worms and caterpillars upon which the rooK feeds, 

 are not exposed to the mercy of this bird till the 

 earth is thrown up. Hence it is, that rooks always 

 frequent lands recently cultivated, that the sight of 

 the husbandman with his plough puts them in ac- 

 tion, and that they search with so much assiduity 

 about furrows newly formed. 



" Some years ago, the farmers in one of the prin- 

 cipal counties of England entertained a notion that 

 these birds were prejudicial to their grain, and they 

 determined, as if with one accord, to extirpate the 

 race. The rooks were every where persecuted ; 

 their nests demolished ; their young ones destroy- 

 ed. But in proportion to the decrease of this ani- 

 mal,they found themselves overrun with swarms of 

 worms, caterpillars, butterflies and bugs, which at- 

 tached themselves to the grain, trees and fruit, and 

 occasioned greater desolation in one day than the 

 rooks would have done in the space of a twelve^ 

 month Manv fanners were ruined At length 



