THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



156 



fore it arrives at the place of deetination. In all 

 the northerly region ol New England we believe 

 coal may never be iound. 



The main shop over tlie stream of the estab- 

 lishment of Messrs. F. is a new brick building 

 110 leet by 37. In this building is a trii;hamnier 

 carried by water together with almost every oth- 

 er kind of machinery useful in making the vari- 

 ous parts of the articles which are constantly fur- 

 nished. There are a number of furnaces in this 

 building ; and a simple invention of blowing the 

 bellows to each of these by the action of water, is 

 a curiosity. 



In another part of the town of St. Johnsbury, at 

 no very great distance north of the plain are ex- 

 tensive works belonging to Mr. Paddock for iron 

 castings ; also glass works recently erected. 



\N OCTOGENARIAN MECHANIC. 



The Cattle Show for the County of Caledonia, 

 fiist day, was holden at Lyndon. On our way 

 there we called on Stephen Copp living in St. 

 Johnsbury, now eighty three years old, who ex- 

 hibited the musket which at Bennington, Aug. 1(3, 

 1717, he wrested with his own hand from a tory. 

 He had lived at his present residence forty years 

 being nearly contemporary with its first settle- 

 ment. He was a mechanic, a smith wlio worked 

 iron and steel. He exhibited a knife and tbrk, 

 and a pair of wee tongs for lighting his pipe, the 

 work of his own hands. 



A SELECT TOWN. 



Lyndon is a township situated on the Passum- 

 sic river, lying westerly from Dalton, N. H. on 

 the Connecticut river, and in the northerly sec- 

 tion of Caledonia county ; it is a town laid oft' six 

 miles square taken as a choice selection by the orig 

 inal proprietors and settlers of the best land of 

 this beautiful county. The soil ofthis township is 

 so rich that its pastures seem to be iidiabited with 

 a double jiortion of cattle, liorses and sheep, and 

 the fields fail not to produce a crop wherever 

 they are tilled. We tarried here only part of a 

 day, and in that time took a ride with a friend 

 six miles round the town. The farnis are truly 

 beautiful. The friend who took us ujion the top 

 of one of his higli eminences to show his crops, 

 this season raised 800 bush, of oats, tiO bush, wheat 

 1200 bush, potatoes, 110 tons of hay, besides a 

 fine field of corn not yet gathered, and the pas- 

 turing of a large herd of cattle on a simple one 

 hundred acres. His crops were, however, better 

 than those of some of his neighbors, because he 

 bad the use of the stable of a large public liouse 

 of the village for the manure. Mr. William 

 Locke, of Lyndon, who learned how to be every 

 inch a farmer in one of the towns near a city 

 market, this season on two and one fourth acres 

 and four rods raised 141 bushels of sound, and 

 7i bushels soft corn in the ear, 231il marrow 

 squashes averaging ten pounds each, 998 pump- 

 kins, 198 busliels ruta baga and 10 bushels carrots. 

 This ground |)roduced wheat in the season of 

 1839, and before it was planted, the present year 

 he put upon it, spread and ploughed in, 173 loads 

 of manure. On one and a half acre and thirty 

 three rods the same gentleman raised 631 bush- 

 els of potatoes — a larger crop than we have be- 

 fore heard of, as the crop of this year. 



At the Caledonia Cattle Show and Fair no 

 premiums were offered. The Society here make 

 merely a spontaneous gathering of s\ic)i creatures 

 and things as they choose to bring together ; and 

 the present year it was concluded to hold the 

 meeting on two distinct days at different parts ol 

 the county. The inmiense team of oxen shown 

 at Lyndon was the greatest exhibition on that 

 day : it consisted of about eighty yoke of working 

 oxen the fattest and the fairest, although not the 

 oldest and tlie largest we have seen. Indeed it 

 is hardly possible that cattle should be i>oor in 

 that region of fertility where the roads furnish so 

 good feed that the dairy-maid is doeiiied unfit to 

 be recommended for a husband who cannot 

 make her hvuidred pounds of butter in a season 

 from the two-year old hiefer feeding upon them. 

 Among the cattle exhibited we noticed three 

 pairs of oxen and steers of the pure Devonshire 

 breed, who were all of a dark red color with the 

 surface of the hair as smooth as silk, and the 

 liml sand horns beautifully uniform. The exhibi- 

 tion of cattle on the succeeding day at Peacliani 

 lithough the weather was rainy and inclement, 

 was greater than at Lvndon, 



The number of farmers collected at Lyndon 

 was greater than had been usual at other exhibi- 

 tions. The editor of the Visitor on the occasion 

 delivered an address at the meeting house near 

 Lyndon Corner, which was too hastily prepared 

 to suit our own taste but which, wnli its imper- 

 fections, will be found as njaking up a portion of 

 the present iiundier of the Visitor. 



BEST CHEESE MADE IN NEW ENGLAND. 



Am( ng the farmers collected at Lyndon was 

 the son of Mr. Timothy F'isher, of the township 

 of Burke, situated north of Lyndon, and adjacent 

 to the county of F.ssex. There is an isolated 

 mountain in the town of Burke, whose sides 

 fronting the sun furnish excellent pastures. Ca- 

 ledonia county, not content with repeatedly bear- 

 ing off the palm for the best butter at the New 

 England annual exhibitions, also claims prece- 

 dence for the best cheese. Mr. Fisher has obtain- 

 ed the prize at Boston lor several years. He has 

 120 cheeses made the present simimer weighing 

 from thirty-five to forty-five pounds each. He 

 keeps twenty cows, whose milk is set and made 

 into cheese twice a day. 



We left Lyndon as soon as the public exercises 

 had closed on the invitation of our old friend 

 Bartholomew Somers, an intelligent and enter- 

 ])rising Srotchman, who came to this country in 

 1793, with only a single gold guinea, and some 

 small change in his pocket. He paid his guinea 

 for a five pail iron kettle, and he swapped his 

 watcli for a cow, being furnished with a tract of 

 laud lo begin upon by the gift of an uncle. He 

 has now i, beautifid farm (so it is de^cribed to us) 

 on the Passaniic, which we regret not having 

 seen, inasmuch as it was dark and rainy on the 

 evening when we jjassed it. He has made upon 

 this farm six hundred rods of stone wall. He 

 keeps but one horse to do all his work, being of 

 opinion that there is a better profit in keeping 

 grow ing young cattle and cows than to own work- 

 ing oxen. He procin-ed a few years ago an ele- 

 gant short horn Din-ham bull, which was import- 

 ed into Canada. From tliis, upon a native cow, 

 he has obtained another, now we believe two 

 years old, which was to be driven to Peacham 

 for exhibition. The orii:inal bull has been sold 

 to a farmer on the New Hatnpshire side. 



Mr. Somers has a fanjily of sons and daughters 

 one of vvliom has married a young man, who has 

 made himself comparatively rich in a few years, 

 by a systeui of industry and rigid economy. In 

 five years, from 1895" to 1830, he worked on 

 wages for his father, and earned .$559. His per- 

 sonal ex|)enses in the whole time, including cloth- 

 ing, were only .$99 35, leaving as the amoiuit of 

 his earnings, $46865. He then married and went 

 into his father's family, continuing, himself and 

 wife, on wages for seven years, until 1837, in 

 which time their earnings were .$963, and tlje ex- 

 penses of clotliiiig for himself, wife and three 

 children, and all other expenses, were $199 04, 

 leaving S763 96, as the amomitof gains for these 

 seven years ; and the whole sum saved in twelve 

 years, $1993 61 His account of clotliing and 

 necessaries, during the last seven years, not of 

 liome manulacture, was only $98 87. Since 

 1837, the man has proceeded to wealtli with in- 

 creased celerity. lie purchased a farnj near tliat 

 of his father, and clears enough annually in the 

 increase of cattle, and in the sale of produce to 

 purchase additions or make improvements. 



Mr. Somers himself is now about seventy years 

 of age: he is a man of exalted sense and sound 

 discrimination. He placed several months since 

 in the hands of tlie editor, a manuscript work in 

 which the various stdijects of the Bible are 

 brought togethe- undei a single her.d — a work of 

 great labor, and, we believe, of great utility, as 

 illustrating the holy writings. We have hope of 

 sometime being able to jiresent this i teresling 

 work to the pidjlic in a bound volume. 



We have seen the result of the census, as to tlie 

 productions of Caledonia county, in seven towns, 

 and we are promised the result of the whole when 

 thev shidi be comjjleted by the uiarahals. The 

 majile sugar produced in this county is an article 

 of which many of the agricultural districts iu New- 

 England cannot bo;.st, the seven towns in Cale- 

 donia turned out, last spring, of that article, as 

 follows, viz: Hardwicke, 60,843 ])o\inds; Danville, 

 69,487 ; Wheelock, 39,l(i0 ; Groton,90.,530; Peach- 

 am, 21.186: Cabot, 54.715 : Walden, 40,370. 



HAVERMLL, N. H. 



In all the line of Connecticut river towns, there 

 is none more flourishing and beautiful than Hav- 

 erhill. , The principal village at which one half 

 the courts for the extended county ot Gralton are 

 held, lies near the southwest corner line of the 

 town, and within the limits of what was lormerly 

 Piermout. The township extends more than ten 

 miles upon the river : all the way the Connecti- 

 cut winds its way tiirough a tract of the most fer- 

 tile alluvial!, now approaching the easterly rise 

 and leaving nearly the whole width in Vermont, 

 and now receding to the western bank, making 

 the fertile portion a part of the territory of New- 

 Hampshire. The fiimous " Ox-bow" is upon the 

 Vermont side in the town of Newbury, which 

 nearly corresponds with Haverhill in length upon 

 the river. The jurisdictional line of the State of 

 New Hampshire extends to the western shore of 

 the Connecticut river, so that every grant for atoll 

 bridge or ferry is made by that State. 



The village of Haverhill Corner is situated upon 

 a square elevated some hundred and fifty feet 

 upon a second level or ])lateau from the river : the 

 street runs nearly north and south at the westerly 

 end of the square, and up and down this street at 

 each end of the square are continuous rows of 

 houses on either side. Central in the square the 

 turnpike road comes in from the east, and on this 

 a portion of the village is built up, including the_ 

 gaol and gaoler's house, and a fine fiie-proof 

 building in which the county records, for the re- 

 gisti-y of deeds and the files and books of the 

 courts of law are kept In this village also are 

 two meeting-houses for the worship of the Con- 

 gregationalisls and Methodists, and the County 

 Court-House, which is used for a high school, or 

 academy. Half a ndle north is the Oliverian 

 brook which has its source in the Coventry mea- , 

 dows ten miles east on the south end of the 

 Moosehillock mountaui. Up this valley proceeds 

 the main travelled road towards Concord and 

 Boston, recently constructed, and the meeting of 

 this road with the river road is the ]ioint for an- 

 other village. There are several villages and 

 three churches on the river road between the 

 Oliverian village and the line of Bath. Within 

 the last twenty years much of the land in Haver- 

 hill has been brought into cultivation. Above the 

 elegant low lipids immediately upon the river is 

 a second plateau of light land. This land has 

 been found to be more feasible and nearly as pro- 

 ductive as the best interval. Recently at the nor- 

 tlierly extreme of Haverhill on the river, a 

 new village has grown up nearly opposite the 

 Wells river village, in New bury. The amount of 

 large white pine tind)er taken from Haverhill has 

 been immense : the stumps, three to five feet over 

 at the point of severance from the trunk, and in 

 some cases with prongs eifjht to twelve leet in 

 diameter, are taken tiom the ground by means of 

 large wheels operating on the princijile of the 

 lever. These are disposed of edgewise on the 

 line of the road, and make the best of fence. 

 Some of this fence which has been erected twenty 

 and thirty years remains as perfect as when first 

 made. 



The town extends back seven or eight miles 

 eastward from the river, and touches some of the 

 sjiurs on the Moosehillock, a mountain w hicli of- 

 ten glistens with a coat of coat of snow in Octo- 

 ber, long before it appears in the valley nearer to 

 the river, and where it sometimes remains until 

 the nionth of June. The white pine growth ex- 

 tends not fin- uj) the mountains, but is found on 

 many considerable stony prominences. Gener; lly 

 where this beautiful tindier grows — and nowhere 

 is the white pine timber more clean and ol richer 

 grain than iu this valley, to the iqqicr ri gion of 

 Coos — the soil is light and of a sandy nature, but 

 not such sand as treads up in the travelled road, 

 or blows into naked banks. It is more adhesive 

 than the sand upon the hard jjine plains, fre- 

 quent in the Merrimack river valley, and its fer- 

 tility is found to increase the longer it is well cul- 

 tivated. It will even keep up its lertility without 

 manure, simply by the use ol plaster and summer 

 tilling with clover. There are fine farms on the 

 light land in Haverhill, at " Slab city," five miles 

 .-diove Haverhill Corner; also, at the "Horse 

 Madow" village, still (iuther north. In llie east- 

 erly part of the town where the forests have bet n 

 cut off, the land has been brought into cultiva- 

 tion by several persons who purchased it solely 

 for the pine lumber, when that was estimated at 



