THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



83 



port spraks to, been taught to read, write, and, per- 

 haps, to cast up an account. If a tolerable profi- 

 cient, a\v^3' lie goes to " seek his fort ine ;" and 

 the proverb says, "it is a bare moor but lie will 

 find acowe'' upon it." Go where he may, his heart 

 is with liis father's liouse ; and if he succeeds in 

 life, which he irenerally does t'l a certain extent, 

 the " inmates" there are the better for it. The first 

 feeling of a Scotch peasant is affi-ctinn for his kin- 

 dred ; the second is his sense of tlieir mutual but 

 sole dependence, under Providence, on industry 

 and thrift, to save them from the shame of beffga- 

 ry. 'I'lie parent wrestles hard to push forward 

 some part of his family by dint of education : the 

 child, unknown to any, 



'deposits his sair won penny fee, 

 To help his parents dear, should they in Fiard- 

 ship be.' 



"By reciprocal good offices, by joint industry, 

 sobriely, and prudence, they get on wonderfully. 

 In sickness they apply at the nearest liouse where 

 any medicine or comfort is likely to be obtained for 

 their friend in distress: they seem to e.tpect it as 

 a debt, or rather aloan, due from one Christian to 

 another : but for the least drop of hone^', jelly, 

 wine, or even vinegar obtained there is a visit from 

 the patient, ns soon as he can crawl abroad, with a 

 thousand thanks, and a fowl, some eggs, or the 

 like ; which how to refuse or to pay for without 

 offence it r^-quires some tact to discover. 



"On entering the habitation of the cotter, his 

 fare is found to be very simple. In summer, oat- 

 meal porridge with milk for breakfast, potatoes for 

 dinner, and bread and milk or something similar for 

 sujiper. In winter, porridge, with perhaps a little 

 bit of butter or some treacle, to breakfast ; potatoes 

 mashed, cut into slices, and done on the gridiron, 

 and eaten with a very little fish, pork, or a bit of 

 cheese to dinner, and gruel with a few potatoes or 

 a bit of oaten or barlej' bread to supper. . Mis ab- 

 stinence is nearly complete from tea, coffee, sugar, 

 candles, soap, ale, prirlianient whiskey, and every 

 ta.\ed commodity, except tobacco ; and the nature 

 of the climate has rendered it one of the necessa- 

 ries of his life. 



" To a greater share of the comforts of life, the 

 agricukural working man and his family may, 

 doubtless, be admitted, and are so daily ; but pru- 

 dence and care and moral conduct continue, and it 

 is hoped will long continue, to characterize this 

 simple, industrious, and virtuous class of men." 



Farming in Mcirimirck County. 



Every time we travel over a new road or in a 

 new region of country, we discover something new 

 and interesting in relation to the good ftlother 

 which yields us sustenance : but we fear that cur 

 discoveries, as the}' are not new to them, may not 

 be equally interesting to many of our readers. The 

 main travelled roads in New England — especially 

 the roads which have been recently made to avoid 

 hills and shorten distances — present to the stramrer 

 but a faint view of our best agricultural improve- 

 ments. Those improvements are frequently found 

 in those parts of towns through which the main 

 roads do not pass : indeed some of tlie very best 

 farming towns are in positions where no consider- 

 able travelled road has ever passed. 



We have not yet seen the best farms in the 

 towns immediately contiguous to us — nay, there 

 are fine farms within the limits of the town where 

 we have lived thirty-one years, that we know only 

 from description. It is little more than two 3'eurs 

 (iince we passed any great e.\tent of the town of 

 Boscawen. The farms of the Gerrishes lying up- 

 on the river road and of the Gerrishes upon High 

 Street we had seen. We hardly knew what should 

 make of our neighbor a more wealthy township in 

 proportion to its pojiulation than this town wiiicli 

 seemed to embrace much greater advantages. We 

 are willing to concede that the Boscawen fanners 

 deserve tlie greater wealth, iiecause they have been 

 niuch more provident and more industrious than 

 some of their friends within our own village We 

 regret that some of tliem should have entertained 

 so high an opinion of some of us as to encounter 

 greater losses from that confidence than they ever 

 met from any other source. But luaiiy of them, 

 we know, are so well oft" as hardly to feel any loss 

 they may have had to encounter. 



We passed the two Gerrish farms on High street 

 onelect'.>n day, reiueiubering that one of them had 

 erected a fine dwelling on the ruins of a liouse ac- 

 icidentally burned a few years since. His exten- 

 sive barns had now been all raxed to the ground, 

 and their foundations down to the yellow dirt lay 

 in piles ready to be spread over his mowing ground. 

 *rhe day before a more extended body of a barn 



" Cowe, a bit of heather. 



had been erected in their place ; the roof was not 



yet on ; but the size of the barn judging by the 

 eye could be not much short of one hundred and 

 twenty to fifty f'et in length by forty-five to fifty 

 feet in width and twenty feet posts. 'Tlie skeleton 

 of this barn was more heavy timber than we had 

 everbefiirc seen in any building of the kind. Witli 

 the exception of the Shahers' barn at Canterbury, 

 we believe that this barn upon the premises of 

 Isaac Gerrish, Esq. will be the largest and perhaps 

 the most expensive barn in the' county. He has 

 money enough — made from the premises where he 

 lives — to build more barns like these. 



Further on two or three miles was another beau- 

 tiful barn erecting in Salisbury, by Nathaniel Bean 

 Esq. For the two last years this gentlcniau was 

 engaged at the capitol on each election day as a 

 member from his town in the Legislature. This 

 year his place is filled by another farmer of the 

 same town ; and instead of acting as a law maker 

 he was at work assisting to make his new barn. — 

 Feeling as every independent farmer should feel, 

 he will hardly enjoy the latter employment less 

 than the former. 



In the nearest road towards Hanover from this 

 town which follows up the Contoocook and Black- 

 water rivers. Little's Hill, situated some eight 

 miles from Merriinick river in the westerly part of 

 Boscawen, is considered to be an obstacle so great 

 as to induce travellers to avoid it. Returning from 

 Kearsarge we came over this road ; and we must 

 say that nowhere in the county of Merrimack do 

 we know of seveu or eight farms in any one neigh- 

 borhood so beautiful at least to the eye as upon 

 this hill. Little's Hill is one of those elegant 

 swells of land some two miles over which front 

 Kearsarge, and at the distance of about five miles 

 from the mountain. For proof of tlie excellence of 

 t'-e land, we needed only to cast our eye upon the 

 cattle gra/.ing in the fields covered with rich ver- 

 dure, and the farm buildings: these last were gen- 

 erally an upright two story double house v-itli 

 sheds, and one or more barns, the largest of which 

 would measure one hundred feel in length. The 

 cattle proved from their appearance that a better 

 breed will always follow better keeping. W(- have 

 nowhere seen twelve such cows as we counted in 

 a single enrdosure near the road on premises lately 

 owned by Col. Moses Gerrish. We do not know 

 whether these cows were of a native or of an im- 

 ported breeti : they were from one fourth to one 

 third larger in size than the common cows, and 

 were as superior in flesh as they were in size. With 

 dairies such as these cows will furnish, the tons 

 of excellent cheese which Col. Gerrish has annu- 

 ally sent to market through this village are easily 

 accounted for. Col. Gerrish has lately jdaced his 

 farm in the custody of his sons, and for greater 

 ease removed into the populous and pleasant vil- 

 lage of Lebanon, N. H. We cannot however con- 

 ceive how he should elsewhere find any position 

 giving him greater contentment than the fine farm 

 which has been improved under the culture of his 

 own hands on Little's Hill for thirty or forty years- 

 Mountain Pastures ; and the influence of 

 the higher regions upon our weather. 



The readers of. the Monthly \'isitor wil! consid- 

 er us enthusiastic in attachment to the mountains of 

 the Granite State : it is possible v.;e may have 

 wrought ourselves into a zeal in their favor that is 

 "not according to kiiowledn-e." 



Having lived several years among the rough and 

 steep hills where the roads were so rockv and pre- 

 cipitous as to require great force in carrying loads 

 over them, and where the travel in light carriages 

 could hardly exceed the snail's pace, we were de- 

 cidedly in favor of the plain country as the laud 

 of most easy residence. Our acquaintance with 

 steep hills and craggy mountains commenced with 

 no very friendly feelings. Whenever we saw in 

 the distance a smoothly cultivated swell of ground 

 with fa'ni houses and buildings upon it, we might 

 think it tolerable — not indeed so good as the easy 

 tilled farm in the light soil of the plains. But the 

 craggy ro<-ks of the steep hills and mountains in 

 most of the hard faced land of the interior seemed 

 to ns, time after tune as we passed it, like those 

 wild and dreary v.'astes which we read of in des- 

 criptions of countries near the polar hemispheres. 



It is hardly three years since we began to place 

 what we now believe to be a correct estimate upon 

 the fertility and value of the moBiitain land of New 

 Hampshire. The mountainous region which per- 

 vades the back bone of Vermont, were at first of 

 more value than our mountains to the east of Con. 

 necticut river, because while ours were generally 

 white with rocky ledges, theirs presented in the 

 season of vegetalde growth that beautiful smooth 

 green peculiar toarich and deep soil. It \i con- 



ceded fully to our western neighbor that her soil 

 's better than ours in its original slate—that she 

 can produce more beef and pork, and mutton and 

 wool, and butter nnd cheese, than we can. The 

 Vermont fanner will not have his patience tried as 

 will the New Hampshire farmer by running his 

 plough, his cultivator and harrow and his spade 

 and hoe so often ag.ainst the rocks. Yet we cannot 

 prevent our growing enthusiasm for the New 

 Hampshire mountains. 



liOst year we sent off early in May two yokes of 

 oxen and seven yearlings to a pasture on the side 

 of Kearsarge. Wo had visited the mountain for 

 the first time after the frosts of the preceding Oc- 

 tober had stricken the pastures below, and we 

 found that the green feed remained in the more el- 

 evalcd regions when it was either dried up or dead 

 from frost in the lower land. Our oxen were pas- 

 tured for the season at tlie price of five dollars the 

 yoke, and the yearlings at one dollar per head. A 

 numerous flock of sheep, which would have unfit- 

 ted a common pasture for fattening bullocks, run 

 in this pasture through the season. The cattle 

 came home about the first of November in the very 

 brst condition; tl;e oxen were all fit for the but- 

 cher, and the yearlings had from May to Novon,- 

 ber nearly doubled their growth. The cost of the 

 flesh imt upon them in the time did not probably 

 much exceed if it was equal to a cent a pound. It 

 is not to be wondered, at the prices of cattle for the 

 last three years, from seven to ten dollars the hun- 

 dred, that grazing f'armers who own cattle and ex- 

 tensive pastures on this mountain land should 

 make money easy and become even wealthy by 

 raising cattle ■ ■ 



Before the first of May the present year our 

 young cattle, two years old and yearlings, were 

 again on their way to the mountain .pasture; and 

 having during the winter and spring worked our 

 faithful oxen beyond their strength and keeping in 

 carting and sledding limber and wood in the win- 

 ter and manure in the spring — for the first time in 

 the thirty-one years of our residence in the town, 

 wt left tile public aftairs of election d.ay and the 

 meeting of the Legislature to take care of them- 

 selves, and before four o'clock in the morning of 

 the 4th of June with a man and horse and six oxen 

 was wending our way to the mountain pasture on 

 Kearsarge. 



I^he bed of the road most of the way to Salisbu- 

 ry had become like an osh-heap f'rom the drought 

 of nearly three weeks prcvitms — in some spots the 

 ground was so parched as that the sun had de- 

 stroyed vegetation : but early in the morning the 

 dark clouds hung around the horizon, and every ap- 

 pearance indicatetl rain. It sprinkled a little ; but 

 the water in the air dropped fine and sparingly as 

 if reluctant to fall in generous quantities sufficient 

 to saturate the earth. We pursued our course to 

 the mountain ; and as we neared it, the welcome 

 cap that is always a sure indication of falling wea- 

 ther settled down upon it. By ten o'clock our 

 drive had been more than twenty miles to the foot 

 of the mountain ; and before twelve our whol^ 

 charge was deposited in the spot where they may 

 enjoy repose for a season after laboring hard for 

 nearly every working daj- since the commence- 

 ment of the last vrinter. : 



We climbed halfway up the magnificent hill on 

 foot purely f'rom a desire to see the condition of 

 the pasture in the growing season. The cloud had 

 couie so far down the mnuntain that after wander- 

 ing over the extenifcd pasture for an hour in quest 

 of the young cattle, the search was given over. 

 The feed of the pasture into which the oxen were 

 turned, being adjacent to that in which the young 

 cattle and sheep rambled, was up to the eyes of the 

 creatures eager to fill themselves from clipping it. 

 The drought as yet h.ad no other effect than to 

 sweeten the rank \\'.:d of the pasture, and to raise 

 up in the wettest part an abundance of excellent 

 grass. 



The pastures upon the mountain exceeded ail 

 our previous anticipation.- : the vegetation was up- 

 on a scale larger than that of common pastures. 

 The leaf of the native clover wtas broader, and the 

 stock of the dew grass was stouter'. Persons may 

 judge of the fertility of the soil high up the moun- 

 tain when tliey are told that the natural growth is 

 rock maple and white ash. Forty and fif"ty years 

 ago, before this land was taken up and cleared by 

 the owners, it was common in the sugar season for 

 the farmers in the towns of Salisbury and Boseavv- 

 eu to go upon the mountains and select their loca- 

 tions for tanjiing trees, gathering and boiling sap, 

 and making sugar from the numerous original ma- 

 ple trees of the forest. On land not yet cleared 

 around this mountain there yet remains rock ma- 

 ple trees measuring more than three feet in diame- 

 *i. The rock maple is a most substantial wood for 



