SITOR. 



CONDUCTED BY ISAAC HILL. 



" Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, whose breasts he has made his peculiar depositefor substantial and genuine i!i><Me."-jEFFERSos. 



VOLUME 2. 



CONCORD, N. H., JULY 31, 1840. 



NUMBER 7. 



THE VISITOR. 



Seven days joUniey in New Hampshire, 

 Maine and ninssachnsetts. 



ApOI.OOETiC. 



Two gentlemen in a ncighborinir town, friends 

 and well-wishers to (lie editor of the Monthly Vis- 

 itor — (and what good farmer would not be enthii- 

 siasticall}' his friend when they consider how en- 

 thusiastic he is in every thing that shall promote 

 their interest?) conversing on the contents of the 

 two first numbers of the Visitor published in 1830, 

 one observed to the other that he liked the paper 

 much, but he feared that the subject would be ex- 

 hausted if so much was put into a single number, 

 by the time the third number was published ! We 

 have gone on in the work to the end of the eigh- 

 teenth number ; and if our agricultural matter is 

 overdone — if we say things over and over — we are 

 quite sun- our pen has lost little of its volubility 

 And since we have abundance of readers, better 

 judges than ourselves, who have indicated in 

 more than one way that they are pleased with our 

 manner of collecting and communicating agricul- 

 tural information, knowledge derived from the 

 practice of old farmers as well as those topograph- 

 ical illustrations that occur to a mind ariJent for im- 

 provement, we conclude to pass on in that free 

 and easy manner which we hope will oflend noone 

 named or described in our paper where no offence 

 was intended. 



During the seven days succeeding the first 

 of July the editor of the Visitor was on a flying 

 tour in a course due easterly to Alfred in the State 

 of Maine, and from thence to Kennebunk, westerly 

 along the seaboard to Boston, and from the latter 

 place home. 



Concord Middle Intervale. 

 Tuesday Mornint;, JiiUj 2.— Left home in the 

 stage at half past si.x o'clock, the day after a re- 

 freshing rain had surcerd<'d a drought of twenty- 

 two days. The route of the Portsmouth turnpike 

 passing through the Dark Plain is not the most in- 

 teresting to any one who admires general agricul- 

 tural iniprovement. Yet for the first ten miles out 

 of Concord in this direction there has been a great 

 change within the last twenty j-oars. The Con- 

 cord intervales have been gradually, but slowly 

 improving their agriculture. What is called the 

 "Middle Intervah'"" directly opposite the Capitol 

 on the cast side of the river, until the free bridge 

 Was erected about a year ago, was shut out from 

 direct intercourse with the village except by means 

 of a private ferry : the value of this beautiful turn 

 of alluvion will be much increased to its owners if 

 it shall turn out that the new bridge will stand 

 well, and if the town shall not succeed in preven- 

 tino- the laying out the new road which has been 

 staked out by tlie county commissioners. This 

 Middle IntervaH" has always produced fine crops 



it is more certain of a crop of Indian corn llian 



the west side, because it is lighter and more easy 

 of cultivation. It may be made toprodu'-e ilmible 

 and treble its past and present annual production; 

 and we hope yt' 'o see the time when this slitill be 

 accomplished, and tliat the abundance of animal 

 and veiretable manure whirh the village furnishes 

 mav be carried to this ground now that the expense 

 ami labor of transport are so much lessened. 

 Pine I'lalns in Concord. 



Rising an elevation from the river on the east 

 side in a very gradual but steady ascent of nearly 

 one hundred" feet, we came upon the Dark Plain, 

 ail extensive track embracing several thousand a- 

 cres. Near to the bank, which with the exception 

 of the valleys through which paths have been made 

 ib quite precipitous, the soil of the elevated plain 

 is little inferior to the alluvial soil below ; and 

 there are places on this apparently dry plain where 

 the cultivated crops have suffered quite as little 

 with the drought as elsewhere. The time seems 

 to be coming when this light plains land will be 

 considered scarcely less valuable than the stronger 

 soil of heavier mould, especially when the latter a- 

 boiinds with rocks. 



A few years since this land was esteemed to be 

 of so little value after the first growth of wood and 

 timber had been taken off that its price was mere- 

 ly nominal : some of it, one mile and a half from 

 the main street on the west side of the river, ten 

 to fifteen years ago, sold at auction at seventy-five 

 cents to two dollars the acre. The standing growth 

 on that land is now worth from twenty to thirty 

 dollars the acre. Every cord of wood taken from 

 the pines that have attained the size of a man's 

 body is worth standing upon the ground one dol- 

 lar. If the villages and cities upon the river con- 

 tinue to grow, the price of standing wood will in- 

 crease from si.\ to twelve per cent per annum : the 

 growth of the wood on an estimate of ten dollars 

 per acre upon the naked land will amount to full 

 twelve per cent, upon the cost. In addition, from 

 twenty to thirty years only will be requisite for the 

 self-planting and growth of the pines upon this 

 land to produce at least twenty cords of fuel to the 

 acre. 



Whether the pine plains up and down Merri- 

 mack river shall be adapted either to the growth 

 of wood or to cultivation, our present opinion is 

 that they are destined to become more and more 

 valuable— that they will hereafter be esteemed e- 

 qual in value to the better kinds of upland. When 

 the great water power upon the river shall build 

 up it's cities as it undoubtedly will in the natural 

 progression of things, the lighter lands of the coun- 

 try^will gradually come into good and profitable 

 cultivation. To see them converted into a garden 

 yielding its annual productions of fifty and a hun- 

 dred dollars to the acre would be realizing no more 

 than has been done on acres of similar land near 

 the cities of Philadelphia and Boston, and upon 

 whole tracts of land in Flanders, which has been 

 denominated the garden of Europe. 



The track of the Portsmouth turnpike, after leav- 

 inir the pine plains in Concord, is through the 

 northerly side of Pembroke, and directly through 

 the whole width of Chichester, taking its course 

 over the north side of the highest elevation or 

 round hill that lies within ten miles east or west 

 upon either side of the river below Kearsarge. 

 Witliiu the last thirty years there have been clear- 

 ed around tliis hill several valuable farms. The 

 most of the land is excellent for grass and pasture: 

 the elevated ground upon this hill on every side, 

 when duly and truly prepared, after a crop of In- 

 dian corn and potatoes, is much more sure of a 

 crop of wheat than the best intervale land upon 

 Merrimack liver. The potatoes raised upon the 

 hill are always better than those raised upon the 

 best prepared laud upon the river. 



Chichester. 



The turnpike passes through the least valuable 

 lands in Chichester: for a few miles it was almost 

 a wilderness upon this road within our recollection. 

 Yet ambition has spurred on several to clear these 

 lands to erect suitable and comfortable farm hou- 

 ses ; and while others on better lands have not 

 done as well, these men have gained a livelihood 

 for themselves and families and constantly increa- 

 sed their means. Cliichester as a town, since we 

 first became acquainteil with it, has doubled and 

 trebled her production, and has furnished the means 

 of making many goud farmers. Wealth accumulates 

 like the growing snow ball rolled by the w^inter 

 school-boys as their pastime : of the men who thus 

 increase tllieir substance our neighbor town of Chi- 

 chester now contains its share. 



Epsom. 



Easterly of Chichester we pass Epsoin, the resi- 

 dence and first settlement of the M'Clarvs, a 

 family which figured gloriously in that band of pat- 

 riots who gained for us Independence. The elder 

 and father of the name, John M'Clary— a native of 

 Ireland— was, we believe, of the Committee of 

 Safety and member of the Council under the first 

 Colonial government. His son, tlie gallant Maj. 

 Andrew M'Clary, was shot at the battle of Bunker 

 Hill; and his younger brether Michael, then hard- 

 ly twenty one years of age, and with whom and 

 his family, especially an esteemed son suddenly 

 taken from time to eternity by the falling of a beam 



of a building while its frame was raising, we have 

 spent many pleasant interviews, v, as in tliat battle 

 an ensign in Stark's regiment and Capt. Moore's 

 company which poured ujion tlie British regulars 

 such a destructive fire from the rail fence as prob- 

 ably killed a greater number of the enemy than 

 every man his man. The name of M'Clary at Ep- 

 som has become extinct in the male line; but the 

 spirit of the name dwells among its farmers. Here 

 too resides, upon a beautiful alluvial farm on the 

 Suncook river passing through the westerly end of 

 Kpsoni which an ambitious pair of twin sons is 

 improving year by year, the only surviving son of 

 that well-known veteran of the revolution. Gen. 

 Joseph Cilley. Col. Daniel Cilley has been all his 

 days a hard laboring farmer, who at the advanced 

 age of nearly eighty years, enjoys the fruits of a- 

 life of industry and the consciousness that he has 

 acted well his part in the great drama. So highly 

 does this famil} and neighborhood estimate our 

 monthly sheet, that on the approach of the stage by 

 the side of a beautiful clean field of flowing Indian 

 corn and potatoes where some half a dozen of the 

 Cilleys including father and sons were hoeing, the 

 boy came running to the road to receive and take 

 the expected bundle of Visitors. Further on, about 

 two miles, the stage changed horses at the tavern 

 kept by the Major General of the first division of 

 the New Hampshire Militia: here too several far- 

 mers of the neighborhood called at once for their 

 papers; and the fine crops of grass and grain of 

 the various kinds which successively appeared in 

 siffht plainlv discovered to our mental vision that 

 Epsom is ttspot where the farmers will continue to 

 profit from the eflxirts of the Visitor, and where we 

 shall continue to profit from their patronage so 

 long as our honest labor in the cause of agriculture 

 sliaTl continue to deserve it. Epsom has excellent 

 farms not only upon the alluvion of Suncook river, 

 but in the region of Catamount upon the north, and 

 upon M'Coy's mountain in the southwesterly sec- 

 tion of the township, extending nearly to the tops 

 of those eminences, which are seen to the distance 

 of nearly a hundred miles south and south-west in 

 the State of Massachusetts and even to the con- 

 fines of Connecticut. 



Northwood. 



Leaving Epsom, and passing still through the 

 poorest land in the valley of a branch of the Sun- 

 cook river, the turnpike traverses the whole length 

 of Northwood, the township which was the scene 

 of the first novel written by a lady of New Hamp- 

 shire (Mrs. Hale) who has since become distin- 

 guished as a literary writer, holding a ready pen 

 and couductinj a periodical monthly journal which 

 has had a steady success and circulation beyond 

 that of almost any other literary journal of the 

 country. This town of Northwood, if celebrated 

 in fiction, deserves notice for its facts. It is situa- 

 ted in sight of the ocean and upon the height of 

 land, wliich divides the waters of the Merrimack 

 and the Piscataqua rivers : it is surmounted on the 

 southerly side of the town by the eminence called 

 the Saddleback mountain, which is situated to the 

 north, and in the range of the Deorfield and Not- 

 tingham mountains. A single t'ariii, that of the late 

 Jonathan Clarke, Esq. is the source of the waters 

 of three rivers, ilie Suncook running westerly into 

 the Merrimack, the Lamprey river communicating 

 with the Exeter branch of the Piscataqua, and the 

 Isinglass which discharges itself through the Co- 

 chei°) branch of the Piscataqua. Northwood con- 

 tains an area of 17,075 acres of land and water. 

 There are six beautiful ponds in this town, the 

 smallest near the residence of Judge Harvey, 200 

 rods long and 70 to 80 rods wide, and Suncook 

 pond, the largest, 750 rods long and 100 rods wide: 

 Jenness' pond is 300 rods long and 150 rods wide. 

 The tiieat Bow pond, whose waters have been en- 

 larged by the erection of a dam of granite rock 

 which has cost many thousand dollars, and which 

 now covers many additional acres of what was for- 

 merly swamp meadows within the town of Straf- 

 ford situated on the northerly line of this town, is 

 partly within the limits of Northwood. Little Bow 

 pond, also situated in Northwood, has two outlets 

 -the waters passing northeast through Great Bow 

 pond to the Coclieco.and northwest into Long pond, 



