14 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



The exports of that city would indicate not only 

 a general industry in the population which appears 

 greatly to the disadvantage of the present produ- 

 cers in the United States, but a former fertility in 

 the soil of Pennsylvania and the surronndingeoun- 

 trv of West Jersey and Delaware equal to the pres- 

 ent fertility of the great West. Every new coun- 

 try produces in .ibundance when the forest is hrst 

 taken away. The rough part of New Hainpsliirc, 

 the round hills and swells which are to be found in 

 the most elevated grounds that were settled during 

 and near the close of the revolutionary war, were 

 at first as productive as western New York or Ohio. 

 Previous to and during the revolution, New Hamp- 

 shire exported Indian corn and other bread stuffs. 

 It was the productive industry of that period which 

 l.xid the foundation of individual wealth and com- 

 fort that have since been enjoyed. 



The fault of this generation is, that it buys too 

 much and sells too little ; there is a great excess of 

 imports over exports. It is a bad sign that we can 

 buy cheaper than we think we can produce ; for 

 wherewith shall we find the means of buying if we 

 raise no surplus to sell .' Household manufactures 

 are not worth the attention of females when every 

 home-made article can be purchased cheap. When 

 handsome ginghams can be bought for twelve or 

 fifteen centu a yard, why should our farmers' wives 

 and daughters spin and weave them from cotton 

 that will cost more than half the price ? Why 

 should they knit stockings with many hours' labor 

 when beautiful wove stockinga can be bought by 

 the dozen at twenty-five cents the pair.' Why 

 should they card, spin and weave wool for fine or 

 coarse wear, when the price of a woman s wages 

 will buy moie cloth than she can manufacture in 

 the time i" If our home manufacturing establish- 

 ments filled up the space formerly occupied by the 

 industry of our fire-sides, the case would not be so 

 bad : but these manufactures are undersold, more 

 in the articleu paying the higliest tax under the ta- 

 riff than by the free articles, by foreigners. And 

 cheap as every imported article supplying the place 

 of the domestic article is, the lover the price, the 

 greater the cheat, and the more sure the poverty 

 and inability to purchase. 



How deep is the disgrace of the present day, that 

 our forefathers of seventy and a hundred years ago 

 on this ground exported bread stufls, and tliat we 

 have to purchase them from abroad? that they 

 manufactured the clothing which we obtain from 

 beyond the seas .■■ that they saved dollars by their 

 own industry which we now expend ? that they 

 were gaining where we are losing .' At that time 

 there were few non-producers in the whole com- 

 munity. Almost every man and woman who w.as 

 blessed with physical strength earned wherewithal 

 to feed and clothe them and those who were their 

 helpless dependents. Now fashion leads to a life 

 without work : the most shrewd and most astute 

 would spend their efforts in procuring and teaching 

 the art of living best by living on the labors of oth- 

 ers ; and their "pride of life " is that "lust of the 

 eye" frorevelling in wealth gatheredby the sagacity 

 which places the poor under obligation for the very 

 oppression that brings about his starvation ! Nine- 

 ty-nine in a hundred of the cheaters cheat them- 

 selves and drink deep of the misery which they 

 would inflict on others : the one of a hundred lords 

 it over his fellow creatures, the greater villain if, 

 which is most likely, he cover his wickedness un- 

 der the hypocritical garb of affected individual 

 charity, but the more detested if with a bold front 

 he glories in the infamy which gives to him all his 

 consequence. The whole community bleeds, that 

 so large a portion of mankind is prone to the injus- 

 tice and the passion of seizing and living on the 

 productive labor of others, rather than honestly to 

 work for their own support. 



With great pleasure do we publish the following 

 communication from a farmer on the rough grounds 

 of Hillsborough county, the son of an old friend 

 whom we had not seen for many years, but who 

 yet lives as the firm friend of man and of his coun- 

 try, whose bounty he enjoys as a soldier of tlie rev- 

 olution under the act of Congress of In.Vi. In the 

 same town a compatriot pensioner died not many 

 months ago at the unusual age of one hundred '.nd 

 four years Uea. Weston must now be more than 

 ninety years of age. He settled down on the land 

 where he now lives at the close of the contest 

 which gave his country liberty. He cut down the 

 forest with his own liands— reared and supported a 

 family, and obtained wealth which was worth to 

 him as mucli as millions in liiglicr lile obtained in 

 other occupations. His son settles down beside 

 him ; and evinces by the following essay, probably 

 the first he ever wrote for the press, that if he was 

 not brought up to a book education, he has been a 

 successful student of the great book of nature. 

 Forlhe I''armer'-< Monlhly Visilnr. 

 To Ex-Gov. Hill,— Si>:— I have read the 

 Monthly Visitor for one year, and find many pieces 

 well worth the attention of every judicious farmer: 

 but there are some other matters, about which I 

 have seen nothing written, and which I intend to 

 notice. 



Brier Hedges. 

 The first matter to which I would draw the at- 

 tention of farmers is the brier hedfje that is fre- 

 quently found surrounding fields enclosed general- 

 ly with stone wall. Around many of these fields 

 will be found a thrifty ring of briers and brush 

 three or four feet wide. Suppose there are two and 

 a half acres in the field, at that rate the brush and 

 briers will take up about one-eighth of an acre of 

 the best part of the land for grass. Now I would 

 ask if we have twenty square rods to spare in such 

 a field, whether it would not be best to have the 

 plat of brii-rs in tlie centre .' If you plant this 

 small field with corn, surely your boys will not 

 have their feet and legs so much scratched while 

 riding horse to plough. But there is no need of 

 havifig them in either place. My method of late 

 years is, when I am about to break up a piece of 

 grass land thus enclosed, first to take my oxen and 

 cart and hitch my plough to the end of tlie axle- 

 tree : tliis will bring the furrow as near to ihe wall 

 as you wish to have it. I make two furrows near 

 as I can get them. The ground ploughed up by 

 these two t'urrows I cart off and lay it either on wft 

 land or in my hog or barn-yard in the fall, except- 

 ing where the land descends from the wall, in whicli 

 case I carry nothing aw.ay. The two furrows thus 

 disposed of, Ihe field is ready for the plough. I 

 then turn the first furrow on the outside into that 

 which 1 have taken out. This leaves the field lev- 

 el — no higher against the wall than any where else. 

 In this way it is easy to keep the briers out, the 

 land being mellow up to the wall. If there is one 

 started, when I am hoeing, I pull it up with my 

 hands generally myself: my boys are a little afraid of 

 their hands. When I come again to lay my field down 

 to grass, it is level to the wall : there is no ridge to 

 encounter the scythe, and I generally find the best 

 grass in the field on this reclaimed land, after the 

 upper soil has answered a most useful purpose in 

 another place. 



Treatment ot Pastures. 

 My next object of notice is pasture land. Much 

 is written on the subject of agriculture : of that 

 much little is said about this most important part of 

 every man's farm. Many farmers are short I'f pas- 

 turing on aco.iunt of their land being either bound 

 out or covered with brush, brakes and pod, so that 

 from five to ten acres are necessary to pasture a cow 



But perhaps some will say their land is too rough 

 to be ploughed. I recollect the editor of the Vis- 

 itor passed through Mason, near where I live, a- 

 bout thirty years ago, and stopped at the house of 

 my father, t)ca. Rogers Weston : his second wife 

 arid my mother-in-law, whose maiden name was 

 Frost, 'has often told mo she first instructed you to 

 learn the alphabet. If you then took notice of my 

 father's land you will acknowledge it to be very 

 rough. My farm is about one fourth of a mile dis- 

 tant from my father's and equally rough. Sir, I 

 would say the soil in the neighborhood where I live 

 is good when we can find it; but it is some work 

 to clear the stones off so we can dig into it. A 

 gentleman and lady passing my house last fall no- 

 ticed a piece of wall six feet wide and five feet 

 hitrh. The lady asked the gentleman the use of 

 such a great wall : his answer was, to get rid of 

 trouble from the stones. 



Thrijshlng Machine. 



Whe have seen a Thrashing Machine of an im- 

 proved construction, designed to be driven by two 

 men, which it is st:iteil will thrash and clean at the 

 same operation, from fiftj- to seventy-five bushels 

 of grain per day. Il is the invention of a Mr. Da- 

 venport, of Mont \'ernon, N. H. Its construction 

 is simple, and it is easily transported in a one horse 

 wagon. We have not seen it in operation ; but 

 from inspection tlRTe is every reason to believe that 

 if will fulfil its promise. The grain is separated 

 from the straw, the straw carried to a convenient 

 distance from the machine, and the grain passes 

 immediately upon the riddles and comes out clean 

 at the bottom. It is easily placed and worked on a 

 barn floor. Its price is sixty-five dollars, and we 

 believe it can be afforded at least fifteen dollars 

 cheaper than that. It is said to have been in oper- 

 ation a 3'ear, and is likely to prove of great value to 

 the farmer. C. H. 



.Vete England Farmer. 



Gaiden seeds and Gardening. 



Gardi-ning is my nest subject. Every good 

 gardener should raise his own seed, which he may 

 do at much less cost than to purchase it. The 

 rootf from which seed is raised should be set out as 

 soon as the frost leaves the ground'in the spring, 

 where there is nothing to keep the sun from ihem, 

 or to break off the west wind, if you want good 

 plump seed. If you set them behind a fence, you 

 will be pretty sure to have blighted seed. My meth- 

 od is to set them eighteen or twenty inches apart, 

 and keep the ground clear of weeas, hoeing a little 

 earth around the roots, which prevents the stems 

 from falling to the ground. 



The safest way is to raise seed every year. I pre- 

 fer new seed to old. Onion seed is as good the sec- 

 ond year as the first — the third year not so good, 

 and the fourth year good for nothing : I know this 

 from sowing seed raised the same year four succes- 

 sive seasons. As for beet, parsnip and carrot seed, 

 I do not know how long they will be good ; but I 

 should rather not sow either kind more than two 

 years. Many people find it difficult to clean onion 

 -! seed ; my method is to rub the seed from the hulls 

 — shake 't in a pan or other vessel and take off as 

 much chaff as can be separated conveniently upon 

 the top from the seed. The vessel is then filled with 

 water : the bliglifed seed and chaft'swim upon the 

 top and are easily separated from the pliunp seed 

 which sink to the bottom. The seed thus cleaned 

 is found to be all good. 



I have obtained from about nine square rods of 

 ground, which I commonly sow with onions, from 

 thirty to forty bushels in a year. Tliis ground is 

 neither dry nor wet — about the right kind to pro- 

 duce Indian corn. For about fifteen years I have 

 put two ox loads of green manure late in the fall 

 upon it and ploughed the manure under. In the 

 spring following, as soon as Ihe frost leaves the 

 ground I sometimes plough, and at other times 

 without ploughing, rake the ground over in one flat 

 bed. I mark the rows straight through the bed by 

 the edge of narrow boards, leaving them about 

 eight inches apart. 1 have usually prepared the 

 bed and sowed it in a half a d.iy with my own hands, 

 assisted by a boy from seven to ten years of age, 

 who covers the seed. I am satisfied that by sow- 

 ing early, the flies are not so apt to destroy the 

 plants. The onions ripen in my garden about the 

 middle of September. Unripe onions I find are 

 hardly worth carrying into the cellar. I sow my 

 garden with no other machinery than was invent- 

 ed by Adam when lie was first placed in the gar- 

 den. 



John Conant, Esq. of Jafney, in the address pub. 

 ed in your last Visitor, gives it as his opinion that 

 level ground for raising carrots i..i better than drills 

 or ridges. I have raised carrots for several years, 



when, with a little expense, one and a half to two i and the last year I raised between seventy and 



acres of the same land would much better do the 

 same service. My farm is small — it consists of on- 

 ly about sixty acres, woodland and all. Of course 

 I have little pasturing, having with an expensive 

 family as yet been able to purchase no adii'tion. — 

 About ten years since I began to plough my pas- 

 lure land, one, two and three acres in a year, .-iiid 

 planted with corn and potatoes one or two years — 

 always two years when there are brakes and brush 

 to be eradicated. I h;ive not found means to ob- 

 tain much manure for it without cheating my oth- 

 er land, so that 1 have commonly put about four ox 

 loads to the acre in the Iiill to give the crop on ear- 

 ly start. I have in almost every year procured 

 crop enough from the ground to pay for the labor. 

 When I seed it down, I sow eight quarts of herds- 

 gra;s and seven or eight pounds of clover seed to 

 the acre. The pasture thus prepared holds out 

 much better than laud that is mowed : one acre 

 will afford more feed than four acres before it was 

 ploughed. 



ghfy bushels on not far from fifteen square rods 

 of dry, loamy land, sowed in ridges, two rows on 

 each ridge from six to eight inches apart, and the 

 ridiTCB not far from twenty inches distant from each 

 other. Several years* experience has satisfied me 

 that carrots do much better in ridges than in tho 

 other way ; they are easier wed and kept clean — . 

 the sun has a butter chance to warm the ground, 

 and the tops do not so much cover the ground. — 

 Ridrres about eighteen indies apart with one row 

 to a ridge may be even better than the double ridge 

 from there being less work in weeding. 



Sow gardens early. 



I sow my beets, carrots and other garden sauc» 

 early: and find the benefit in having a plenty ol 

 these earlier than those who sow late. My rea- 

 sons for sowing early are, that the seed is more 

 sure to come up well when the ground is moist ear- 

 ly than when it is dry late, and the garden flea is 

 not as likely to lane tha early as tbs later plant. If 



