HLY VISITOR. 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR, 



A MONTHLY NKWSI'.VFLR. IS PUBLISHED BY 



JOHN M. HILL, 



Hill's Brick Block, Concord, A*. H. 



GEJiERAL AGENTS, 



B. COOKE, Keene, N. H. 

 TH. R. HAMPTON, Washington City. D. C. 

 JOHN MARSH, Washington St. Boston. 

 CHARLES WARREN, Brinle,/ Row, Worcester, Mms. 



The Visitor will be issued on the last day of each month. 



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 Three copies for T'it'o Dollars : — Ten copies for ^'ix Dol- 

 lars : — Twenty-tivc copies lor Fifteen Dollars. 



The twelve numbers embracing the year 1839, or the 

 first volume of the Visitor, arc offered as a premium for 

 every ten new subscribers obtained and paid for by one 

 person. 



Subscribers may commence at their election, either with 

 the January or July number, in each year. An Index and 

 Title Page will accompany each half year. 



03' Communications by mail will be directed to the 

 Publisher, Concord, N. H. 



THE .STATE OF MAINE. 



In the latter i)ait of tlio niouth of October, the 

 editor of the Visitor took a rapid jounicj- of eijrht 

 days more tliaii tuo hundred miles from tiie hue 

 of New Hampshire to the north-east into tlie State 

 of Maine. If popidation lias rapidly spread to- 

 wards the " tar West," carrying oft' more of tlie 

 eiiterjn-ising sons and daugliters of New Enghuid 

 tlian we ought to have spared — there is no ])art of 

 tlie United States that, during the last forty years, 

 lias had a more steady healthy increase of botli 

 population and wealth than that most recent state 

 at the extreme north. We had never been farther 

 cast than Bath, some forty miles below Portland, 

 and that was twenty-four years ago ; aiul we were 

 not aware that in passing over the road nearest 

 the seaboard we saw the jioorest original soil of 

 the state. 



Last summer we visited a part of the county of 

 York, and presented some speculations on the 

 change in tlie agricultural aspect of that county 

 in the lust twenty years: a hardy, enterprising, 

 temperate and highly intelligent race of men has 

 grown up in that county, whose works prove 

 that comlbrt and thrift are the sure accomptini- 

 ments of industry and enterprise upon our very 

 hardest soil. The change that has come over 

 much of the rock-bound soilfof Kittery and York, 

 the sandy plains, as well as the heavy cold clay 

 lands of Wells, the Kennebunks, Biddeford and 

 Saco, furnishes the grateful demonstration that 

 the poorest lands in New England may be made 

 to support in comfort tenfold the popul.ttion 

 which up to the time of persevering renovation 

 has subsisted rather than lived so as to make ex- 

 istence bare!}' tolerable. Lumbering and fishing, 

 in an age of personal exposure leading to intem- 

 perance, drove much of the population into po- 

 verty; and poverty, in its tin'n, has forced atten- 

 tion to the true source of prosperity for every peo- 

 ple under the sun, the cultivation of the earth. 

 The interior towns of York county, later settled 

 than the seaboard, are already among the most 

 flourishing fanning towns of iVew England. All 

 along the seaboard of this county there has been 

 great individual accumulation of wealth in the 

 ownership and management of coasting and for- 

 eign navigation and trade. The shipping of lum- 

 ber and agricultural produce, and the transship- 

 ping of produce from the southern and western 

 states, from the West Indies, and from Europe, 

 have been a sure roiid to wealth to hundreds of 

 enterprising men. Tlie advantages which the fa- 

 cilitiee fbr navigation to all ports of the ^vorld fur- 



nish the farmers of Maine within twenty and thir- 

 ty miles of the seaboard, or of some navigable 

 point upon the rivers, are by no means slight. If 

 a cro]) of Indian corn or other grain has been un- 

 certain, many a farmer has obtained in the sure 

 crop of Irish potatoes, bushel for bushel lu ex- 

 change with the South, the corn being esteemed 

 as three for one in value to the same measure of 

 potatoes. 



THE FAMILY OF ROYAL NAME. 



Cumberland county, both to the westward and 

 eastward of Portland, is said to have been origi- 

 nally a better soil than the towns westward in 

 York. It was matter of rejjjret that we passed 

 through this county on both hands in the gray of 

 the night, when we had not even the advantage of 

 moonlight to judge of the quality and improve- 

 ments upon the soiL In Scarborough, a few miles 

 westward of Portland, is the tract of land origi- 

 nally taken up by the fiimily of King, the branches 

 of which have been and continue to be distin- 

 guished for talent and for thi^ir standing in the 

 liublic councils of the country. The father of the 

 family [litched upon this ground, which has been 

 divided into two extensive fiirins, owned still by 

 descendants of the family. RufusKing, William 

 King, and Cyrus King, all distinguished men and 

 brothers, were born at this spot: some of the de- 

 scendants on the female side of the family arc 

 known in their respective neighborhoods as wo- 

 men of more than common intellect. 



VIEW OF MOU.VT WASHINGTON' FROM THE SEA. — 

 THREE HUNDRED A.ND SIXTY ISLANDS. 



From Portland to Bangor our course was by 

 water through Cusco bay by the mouth of the 

 Kennebeck to the wider niouth of the Penobscot. 

 The number of islands all the way exceeds that 

 upon any part of the coast : there is said to be in 

 Ca.sco bay three hundred ;ind sixty-five, corres- 

 jionding with the number of days in the year. As 

 tin' eastward as the month of the Kennebeck, at 

 tlie distance of one hundred and sixty miles. 

 Mount Washington in New Hampshire may be 

 descried on the water. Below this point near the 

 indentation made by the iuslde mouth of the 

 Kennebeck a fog-bell has been erected upon an 

 island as an exjieriment This bell is rung by the 

 action of the tide, wliether rising or falling, and is 

 intended to warn the mariner in a thick fog of the 

 dangers which beset him from the rocks. At 

 some points along the coast the islands are so 

 numerous as nearly to shut out the view of the 

 main land. The towns of Brunswick, Harpswell, 

 Phippsburg, and may be some others, are nearly 

 islands of themselves, being almost surrounded by 

 water. On some of the islands there are culti- 

 vated farms ; others are used as pastures — some 

 of them are merely rocks upon which suvins 

 clinging close to the little soil that remains give 

 the color of green to the surface ; and others of 

 greater or less extent are covered with trees. 

 The indentations of rivers and bays from the sea 

 throw many of the settled important townships of 

 Maine without any travelled main road leading 

 from south-west to north-east along the extent of 

 the state. 



Coming into the Penobscot bay there are seve- 

 ral passages between the islands; and in the bay 

 there are islands which compose of themselves 

 townships: of these Viimlhaven is a considerable 

 town. Mount Desert is also an island township 

 still eastward of the Penobscot bay. 



THE LIME REGION OF MAINE. 



Thomaston hag a considerable extent of eea- 

 coast along the north-west side of Penobscot bay. 

 Owl's Head, being two prominences, resembling 

 the head and eyes of the bird whose name it bears, 

 is situated in Thomaston. Behind and within 

 these prominences is the bay and harbor of East 

 Thomaston, from which the lime bearing the 

 name of the Thomaston lime is taken in almost 

 I inc^x'^iiblc i:)uantitica. Unlike most of the land 



upon the coast, the soil of Thomaston partakes of 

 the nature of the limestone region in the interior: 

 it is easy of cultivation, and very productive when 

 once brought into cultivation. The town of 

 Thomaston is said to be one of the best for agri- 

 cultural purposes in the State of Maine : there is 

 much fine land in the westerly part of this town 

 on George's river. It is probable the agriculture 

 of the place has been neglected in the greater at- 

 tention paid to the production of lime. Thomaa- 

 ton is the lower town of Lincoln county; adjoin- 

 ing it still further eastwartl is Camden, also a largo 

 township, having within its limits a considerable 

 mountain of some two to three thousand feet ele- 

 vation overlooking the bay. 



On boartl the Bangor steamboat, after we had 

 undergone the salutary process of half a day's sea 

 retchings and cascading which most of the fresh 

 water travellers endure, we bad the good fortune 

 to change the subject of jiarty politics in which 

 almost all on board seemed to be engaged to a 

 rational conversation on agricultural improve- 

 ments. 



AN AMATEUR FARMER. 



It is hardly possible to travel in any direction of 

 New England without finding agricultural ama- 

 teurs who have become our actpiaintance through 

 the columns of the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. Of 



these we met Doctor J H , who has been 



fifty-four years a resident practitioner in Camden. 

 The doctor, although a warm whig politician, is 

 of that practical plain reiinblican cast of charac- 

 ter which best enjoys itself in witnessing the in- 

 creased and increasing means of human susten- 

 ance and comfort, and derives a higher gratifica- 

 tion in viewing the healthy growth of field crops 

 than in taking the money of bis unhealthy patients. 

 Among bis agi-icultural experiments he has taken 

 in hand about six acres of sunken meadow cov- 

 ered with alders. He commenced his operations, 

 first by draining, and afterwards taking out the 

 alder.s by the roots. A portion of tiiis land turn- 

 ed up the last year he sowed with oats, which 

 yielded him a handsome crop. His swamp land 

 lies in the near vicinity of the lime rock quarries: 

 with the black mud taken from the ditches and 

 the covering of the limerock and the pulverized 

 rock itself, he has commenced the making of 

 compost. In making manure he has also made 

 use of sea rock weed, and menhaden fish which 

 are caught with seines in great quantities. This 

 manure operates on his ground like yeast. In 

 the cultivation of his ground he has so well suc- 

 ceeded as to raise the value of his land cultivated 

 more than three to one. Some of his neighbors, 

 who do not duly and truly estimate the value of 

 generous cultivation and high manuring, think 

 there is a mystery in the better crops which he 

 raises. The Doctor cultivates only a small farm, 

 and has found it much for his benefit to purchase 

 a single yoke of oxen each year with the view to 

 their employment, only three months, disposing 

 of them when the farm work no longer requires 

 their labor. 



LIME AN ARTICLE OF COMMERCE. 



There are immense quarries of limerock in the 

 towns of Thomaston and Camden ; and so great is 

 the quantity of lime here made, that about three 

 hundred vessels are constantly employed in ship- 

 ping it to the seaboard towns all along the coast. 

 William Carlton, Esq. of Camden, this year, ma- 

 nufactured twenty thousand casks oflime. Being 

 an extensve farmer, he furnishes his own teams : 

 engaged also in the business of a store, he advan- 

 tageously furnishes and pays his workmen. 



There" are three villages in Thomaston — one 

 upon or near the St. George's river, to wliich there 

 is ship navigation ; one central in the town : the 

 other is East Thomaston, on the Penobscot bay, 

 where we were detained a few hours by the 

 grounding of the boat accidentally. The inhabit- 

 ants of liiis large and flourishing village are al- 

 most exclusively eiife-agcd in gatheiing the rocks 



