THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



99 



crop will be at least equal to the last, the rye was 

 already in the head and in full bloom : it stood 

 thicker and heavier on the ground than any field 

 of sprinsj grain we had yet seen. The wheat, 

 which was sown about the 20th of May, had not 

 come to the head on the 3d July ; but it covered 

 the ground in rich evenness at the height of about 

 twelve inc'-es, and left no room for the appearance 

 of weeds or any other growth. 



The situation of Judge Hayes' house on the side 

 of an extensive hill overlooking the lower part of the 

 town of Somcrswortli to the village of Dover in 

 New Hampshire, is one of the most delightful that 

 could be imagined. The yards about liia mansion 

 and the farm buildings are all ample to their inten- 

 ded purposes ; every tiling is clean and neat, and 

 there is room to give every article its proper place. 

 The ascent to tlie house from the road is by suc- 

 cessive flights of steps, leaving room for the dis. 

 position and display of elegant flowers and shrub- 

 bery. Fronting the house on the opposite side of the 

 way is a hay field of twenty-two acres. Thisground 

 is naturally of the lightest soil— the knolls upon it 

 have sufl^ercd much from the drought of the pres- 

 ent summer ; liut much of the land will this sea- 

 son produce two and some of it three tons of hay 

 to the acre. The road fronting the buildings and 

 leading in the direction of York pursues its course 

 on the side hill in a circular or half moon shape. 

 At suitable intervals the gutters of the street are 

 turned upon the mowing ground below, by means 

 of bridges and ditches; the value of the irrigation 

 from this source is seen in the addition of at least 

 half a ton of hay growing upon the ground of each 

 overflow. 



Directly in the rear of the dwelling house, and 

 approaching the top of the hill is a clean and neat 

 k'tchcn garden furnishing all t'ae esculent varieties 

 usual in the most extended gardens, with the due 

 portion of currants, gooseberries, etc. In rear of 

 the garden is an elegant little orchard of grafted 

 apples, from which were sold one hundred dollars 

 worth the last season, after laying in an ample 

 family supply : this orchard is cultivated and was 

 this year growing a crop of oats which although 

 with a portion of them thrown into the shade from 

 the superior previous cultivation of the ground 

 were even and of vigorous growtli. 



Two acres of ruta baga on Judge Hayes' farm 

 looked far better than any crop of the kind we had 

 seen during the present year. These were put in- 

 to the ground with Willis' new seed sower, and 

 fail not. to show the advantage to be derived from 

 tliat valuable agricultural implement over hand 

 sowing or any other machine within our knowl- 

 ed"-e. The advantage of this sower is that it ope- 

 rates well on uneven ground and among grass tufts 

 and even rocks, and that it puts seed into the 

 ground in just such quantity as may be desired. 

 The distance of rows may be regulated at pleasure. 

 Judge Hayes, in strong well manured ground, has 

 placed his rows of ruta baga twenty inches apart. 

 In light ground we have placed them two and a 

 half and three feet apart; and then find, if there 

 were no vacant sjiaces at the distance of twelve 

 inches in ihe row, the tops will cover the ground 

 both ways. . 



J udi'e Hayes has a corn and potaloe field of some 

 twelve acres which had been laid down several 

 years to grass and pasture. His method is to al- 

 ternate from Indian corn and potatoes to grain and 

 grass and afterwards to pasture. On this ground 

 of the abundance of manure which he makes he 

 spread at the rate of thirty to forty loads to the a- 

 cre. The potatoes look remarkably well ; but some 

 of the Indian corn failed to come up — some of it 

 was eaten down by the grub after it had come up ; 

 and as a whole it looks inferior to many other fields 

 we had seen. 



Reclaimed MeadoHS. 

 VVe had a more e.\tensive ramble over and view 

 of Judrre Hayes' reclaimed meadow than we took 

 at our Tormer visit. This meadow lot consists of 

 about fifty acres, leaving two clumps of eight or 

 ton acres "of the higher part grown into wood. The 

 ground was sour meadow, a portion of which had 

 been movped for a succession of nearly two hund- 

 red vears: his farm is one of the oldest settlements 

 of the State of Maine. His method of reclaiming 

 this meadow has been the digging one or more 

 main ditches in the most convenient part which 

 should receive and conduct off the water. Where 

 the work of reclamation has been completed, trans- 

 verse ditches about two feet in depth are placed at 

 the distance of two rods from each other : the mud 

 or earth thrown from the ditches is scattered over 

 the surface between. Before the frost heaves the 

 ground in the spring, sand or gravel is carted on to 

 the amount of a hundred loads to the acre. The 

 eft'ect of this sand is to drive away the sour pro- 



pensity existing in the surface soil which Is black 

 mud from eighteen inches to three and four feet 

 deep. To this sand is added eight or ten loads to 

 the acre of warming compost or barn yard manure. 

 The whole is harrowed down and clover and herds- 

 grass sown upon the surface. For the first three 

 or four years the deepest of this muck soil produ- 

 ces constantly two and three tons of hay to the 

 acre ; and with cleaning out and digging down the 

 ditches and spreading the manure once in every 

 five years. Judge H. does not doubt the crop of hay 

 may be kept up on this ground as long .ns " wood 

 grows or water runs." The subsoil of this mead- 

 ow Doct. Jackson gives as his opinion to contain 

 from five to seven parts in a hundred of lime ; if 

 this be true, the pan falls little sliort of the com- 

 position of marl, and without going oiT the ground 

 an jine.\:liaustible fertilizer will be found that shall 

 never fail to stimulate to the richest production. 



The Manure Makers. 



agricultural enterprise and wealth. The swells of 

 land rising above the streams, like the many swells 

 of New- Hampshire, very rarely feel the drought 

 or the touch of early frost: these swells deteriorate 

 only by the hardest treatment. The fiirrning inter- 

 est upon these hills has been during the last ieW 

 years a very thriving interest. 



Plains in Yot]>. 



Between North Berwick and Alfred is an exten- 

 ded plain of a number of miles, some of it appa- 

 rently of so thin a soil as to grow nothing better than 

 stunt oaks. The plain here as well as the plain in 

 another direction between Alfred and the town of 

 Kennebunk is a very level and extended fiat. Tha 

 upper surface or soil seems not generally to partake 

 so much of sand as of clay loam. ISluch of the 

 cultivation is abandoned; flocks of sheep and cat- 

 tle range over these plains where they arc not fen- 

 ced. In some instances there are enclosed fields 

 of grass and corn. The want of manure here 



The ingenuity and industry of Judge Hayes in i proves how inadequate mere labor is to fill its place. 



increasing his quantity of manure is not less wor- 

 thy of our notice than it is to be imitated by all 

 good farmers. He keeps up constantly a large fam- 

 ily of swine who as constantly do their day's work 

 in the manure bed as they eat their portion of dai- 

 ly food. There is an ample bed of black mud or 

 muck in a field upon the h 

 the barn or other buildings 



An upland farm depending on itself tor the means 

 of fertilizing the soil, which has no resource in 

 ground natural to liay, must suft'er depreciation 

 without uncommon eft'orts shall be made to better 

 its condition. The extensive pine plains of York 

 county which are not within half a dozen miles of 

 not far in the rear of i the sea are in this condition. We believe those 

 From this bed ateve- j plain farms will be renovated. A single example 



ry convenient opportunity the mud is taken and i of opening new 



of procuring dressing or 



laid about the yards of the barn, where it is trod 

 den upon by the sheep and cattle : afterwards, with 

 other quantities of mud in its crude state, this is 

 deposited in the hog yards where great and little 

 pigs are kept constantly at work. In this way the 

 quantity of good manure is annually increased sev- 

 eral hundred loads; and Judge H. is able to sell 

 several hundred dollars worth of hay without im- 

 poverishing his lands. In summer and early fall 

 he partially sustains his hogs by means of boiled 

 ruta baga thinned out of the growing field when 

 of suitable size. 



The soil of Judge Hayes' farm is light and re- 

 quires rotation and frequent change of crop to keep 

 it at a high point of production : it is generally ea- 

 sy of cultivation, requiring to break the sward a 

 team littLe stronger than a pair of horses. At ev- 

 ery course of manuring ho is evidently improving 

 the capacity of the land and the amount of produc- 

 tion ; and if he does some things with more fancy 

 and at greater expense than the man would do it 

 who does not possess his means, we think his ex- 

 ample and perseverance in the cause of agriculture 

 to be worthy of our high praise. 



Value of the Roller. 



He makes an extensive use of the roller upon 

 ploughed grounds ; and he had one double in di- 

 ameter to any other we had ever seen in use, made 

 from a discarded factory wheel. He stated as a 

 fact which we think to be important to pvery far- 

 mer, that his grass seed had never failed where the 

 ground was laid down with the roller. This in- 

 strument, but little used, we consider to be of great 

 value either to wet and heavy cr to light and san- 

 dy ploughed grounds. 



The three Berwicks— Elliot. 



What was anciently Berwick has been recently 

 divided into three towns, to wit: — Berwick on tlie 

 northwest extending along the Salmon Fails river 

 which hero divides the State of New Hampshire 

 from Maine; South Berwick on the southerly part 

 of this same dividing stream, to which has been 

 added a portion of the town of York to the north- 

 west of the mountain Agamcnticus ; and North 

 Berwick on the easterly line of the town adjoining 

 Sanford. There are many excellent farms in all 

 three of the Berwicks. Nearly all the way down 

 the river on the east side through the town of Elli- 

 ot which was formerly a part of Kittery extending 

 nearly fifteen miles back from the sea, the lands 

 are highly and profitably cultivated. The near vi- 

 cinity to the sea enables the farmers to apply grand 

 additional stimulants to their lands in the rock and 

 sea weed and muscle shells. The most profitable 

 growth for the market is potatoes and hay. These 

 are shipped from all along the coast of Maine and 

 New Hampshire to the southern States and the 

 West Indies. 



The Hill Towns of York. 



Our information of the particular improvements 

 in the most valuable agricultural region of York 

 county to the northwest and north, is not as full 

 as we could wish. In this region the Ossipee river 

 flows from the line of New Hampshire until it con- 

 nects itself with the Saco. The five towns of York 

 county called the Ossipee towns embrace much 



food for this land would atford abundant proof of 

 its capacity ; such an example would be speedily 

 followed by others till every abandoned acre would 

 be taken up. The means of making manure exist 

 near every swamp fiole and on the margin of ponds 

 and streams of water. It seems to us that nearer 

 or deeper from the surface a great portion of these 

 plain lands may be underlaid with the marl which 

 has recently been discovered in similar lands in the 

 States of Now Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and 

 all along the seaboard farther south. 'This marl, 

 like all undersoil valuable in renewingand invigo- 

 ratino- production, does not operate beneficially 

 when first taken out of its Led : it wants exposure 

 to the atmosphere and frost for one or more years. 

 It is even poisonous to plants when applied 

 in its crude slate ; and from 'bis circumstance 

 results a common prejudice against it. '1 he shell 

 mar! that has been applied in Virginia is not, per 

 sr, a renovater of the ground — it requires the ad- 

 dition of common stimulating vegetable manures. 

 When united, even if the latter be in small quan- 

 tities, the efft-ct is doubly powerful. It is said the 

 shejl marl will act of itself where the ground can 

 rest; and tliat with its aid alone the poorest worn 

 out lands, by the system of summer tilling, sowing 

 and ploughing in buckwheat and clover, can be re- 

 stored to their first fertility. 



The shire towu of York. 



,\ll'red, the sliirctown of York county, is a very 

 pretty clean village of painted white houses with 

 yards anil gardens laid out in good taste : the soil 

 about the village is very, light and the effcctsof the 

 almost unparalleled drought of this summer were 

 visible all around. The contrast upon this light 

 ground of the crops of grass in dift'erent positions 

 upon tlie same kind of land was remarkable. Well 

 prepared, highly manured ground is certainly less 

 aft'ected by the drying, scorching sun than ground 

 of the ordinary preparation. Land that is ploughed 

 deep will stand the drought far better than land 

 where the surface is merely skimmed. .'\ vegeta- 

 ble n-rowth, eitlier decaying sward or a summer 

 crop turned under, retains the moisture, furnish- 

 inr.- a field for the plants or grass to take deep root 

 and flourish in defiance of hot sun, which burns 

 up plant, root and all, where ihe plough has barely 

 penetrated the surface. 



Deep Ploaghing. 



We have observed tlie present year that where 

 rich heaps of manure liave been laid and taken off" 

 and the ground has not been deeply penetrated 

 with the plough, either the planted seed has not 

 sprung at all, or if it has come out of the ground 

 the drying sun and long absence of rain have ut- 

 terly destroyed or prevented the growth of the 

 plant. Here is the case of too great a stimulant : 

 if it had been a common wet season, the crop on 

 this ground would exhibit a greater luxuriance 

 than the other ground about it. But if this ground 

 had been dug or ploughed deep, say to the depth 

 of twenty inches or two feet had it been possible 

 to go so deep— if the surface stimulated with ma- 

 nure had been turned deeply under and a portion 

 of the subsoil had been brought to the top, the 

 crop under the severe drought of this summer in 

 all probability would have been excellent. So we 



