182 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



aiP designed for lienvy tennis and tnicke, tlien 

 make biillt a desideratum in join- breeders both 

 male and female ; bnt still look well to nerve and 

 muscle, which cannot bs well attained without 

 good proportions. 



Quick walking is valuable in all horses— a 

 team walkinfj naturally two and a lialf miles an 

 hour, is altojjrther prelerable to one walking but 

 two 'miles; and in a year the extra labor per- 

 formed or the extra rest enjoyed would not be a 

 despicable item ; — anil horses for ordinary pur- 

 poses iu our billy country are obliged to walk so 

 laree a proportion of the ground, that it should 

 be "made an pbject to rear fast walkers. 



The horse is a most noble animal, and should 

 be treated more as n friend than a slave, and his 

 docility and moral feelings, (if a horse may be 

 said to have a moral character) depend in a great 

 dea:ree on his early treatment, which should nev- 

 er be severe till all gentle means are imsuccess- 

 ful. A horse can appreciate kindness, and I be- 

 lieve will not if i)roperly used often betray your 

 coniidence, but will leel a degree of resjionsibil- 

 ity, in easing your cairiage down a derlivity, or 

 over a dangerous place which other animals do 

 not feel. But if your horse feels that be is a 

 slave, that you do not appreciate his services, that 

 your feelings are all mercenary, he will then 

 "leave his care of you, and use all means in bis 

 power to take care of himself 



Inreariui; colts, care should be taken that the 

 size of the stucl be not disproportionate to the 

 mai-e. 1 have seen a colt from a moderate sized 

 mare, and overgrown stud, which partook in a 

 great degree of the spirit and energy of the mare, 

 but seemed mostly limb, and lacked the muscu- 

 lar strength of the" dam, and on the whole was a 

 miserable apolo^'y for a large horse. There is 

 more danger of a stud too large than too small, 

 and whoever would raise large colts sliould be 

 careful if his niiu-e is small to let his increase of 

 size be gradual. The same remark may be true 

 to some extent retpecling neat cattle, but the er- 

 ror is not so dangerous, as ungainly cattle may 

 be made valuable'for beef; but it sbnidd be re- 

 garded if cattle are intended for the yoke ; and 

 in crossing sheep great care shoidd be used — a 

 half breed from a Merino ewe and Native buck is 

 not half as valuable ns one produced vice versa ; 

 but this is a digression. 



Improvement in the breed of horses in this 

 section of country has been but litlie sought, and 

 therefore we may not wonder that it is no more 

 visible. Many have been willing to be penny 

 wise and pound foolish in the matter of employ- 

 ing stud horses. Generally the cheapest is 

 thought the most economical, and any thing that 

 would answer the purpose has been resorted to ; 

 but this is the direct way to depreriate our si- 

 ready depreciated stock of horses. Some studs 

 have been fatted up and palmed upon us as val- 

 uable ; and the deception could not be detected 

 till detected in the stock, which has been a- 

 nother cause of our statiouary stand in this stock. 

 Another reason may be that colts are often abus- 

 ed by work, or in sport before they attain their 

 full strength. I believe colts may be worked af- 

 ter three years old to some extent without inju- 

 ry to their speed or physical strength ; to exact 

 the labor of a mature horse from one of three or 

 even fo\ir years old, is apt to destroy his energy, 

 if not impair his strength. I have known a colt 

 kept at v.ork from three to four .veins old. nnd 

 brought to the api)otiraiice of an old worn down 

 horse, who in after life, let his flesh be ever so 

 high, and let him be ever so full of glee when 

 loose and no horse had more— the moment he 

 was in the harness he was the same dull, drudg- 

 ing animal, with all the natural marks of a 

 sprightly hor.se. 



Thej-e is no reasonable excuse for a community 

 keeping from generation to generation miserable 

 horses. It is die ready way to make a jioor com- 

 munity poorer, and make a rich one poorer. The 

 exjieiise of keeping and .shoeing is as great, 

 and the profit and the pleasure much less than if 

 our horses were of the right quality. The man 

 of business who rides much will find a horse of 

 eight miles an hour will give him a much greater 

 amount of time for business than one pf four 

 miles — probably if his time is of much value, 

 enough to pay the expense of bis horse's keep- 

 ing. "The farmer and teamster who have well 

 made herses will perform more with two, than be 

 ,?,oidd with three long, lean, lank-sided apologies 



for horses, while the expense of keeping one 

 of Pharaoh's lean kind is saved ; beside it is a 

 luxury to use good horses wliieh none who have 

 enjoyed it would wish to Ibrego. 



There seems at present a disposition in the 

 members of this society to awake fiom their 

 lethargy on the subject of improving horses, nnd 

 the true state of the case is becoujing known ; 

 and your committee are highly gratified at the 

 exhibition of so many breeding mares and colts 

 on this occasion, none ol' which but were respec- 

 table, and we regret that the liind.i of the society 

 are such that more premiums are not at our dis- 

 posal ; and the committee feel that in awarding 

 tliose oftered it is diflicult to satisfy, even our- 

 selves that we make the most proper selection. 

 Yet in confidence of our own integrity of pur- 

 pose, we feel that if others judge differently from 

 us, they will allow the difterence of opinion to be 

 the result of human frailty, and not criminal ; and 

 we feel that the thanks of the society are due to 

 all those who have exhibited mares and colts on 

 this occasion, for their et)bit to improve this most 

 important and useful kind of stock ; and that it 

 will be not only a source of profit to themselves, 

 but a benefit to the counrjuuity. That the ex- 

 ample will stinuilate many others to go and do 

 likewise, or even to surpass them — and that the 

 next generation shall see a stock of horses in this 

 county as hardy as our granite bills, as beauti- 

 ful as our streams and meadows, as fleet as the 

 wintry winds which swetp with fury over hill 

 and plain, and as docile as the lamb, when lamb 

 and lion shall play together in peace. These five 

 mares and colts were entered for premium, and 

 three colts under five years old ; and though our 

 cognizance of colts without mares was rather by 

 implication than otherwise ; yet as premiums 

 were offered lor such, and no committee special- 

 ly directed to them, we took them into consider- 

 ation, and do recommend that the first premium 

 of 2 dollars be given for the best mare and colt 

 to No. 3 ; — The second of 1 dollar to No. 2 for 2d 

 best; — That the first premium of 2 dollars on 

 colts be given to colt No. 7 ; — That the second 

 premium of 1 dollar be tiven to colt No. 8. 

 Submitted by S. B. LITTLE. 



for the Committee. 



The Haverhill Farmer. 



In passing through Haverhill, Massachusetts, 

 a few days ago we made it a point to inquire for 

 the veteran merchant and farmer of that to«n, 

 David Howe. Almost every busijiess man of 

 thirty years ago, fiom this side the Haverhill on 

 Connecticut river and the Coos above it, who has 

 driven a lumber box in winter loaded with pork, 

 butter, cheese, grass seed or other produce to- 

 wards the seaboard, has traded with David Howe, 

 who could always do quite as well with coimtry 

 customers as they could do either by pursuing 

 their journey to Ncivbury|iorl, Salem or Boston. 

 Mr. Howe was a man who jileased the people— 

 ah U|)right, worthy man, who deserved their friend- 

 ship, because he never took any undue advantage 

 of them in the way of trade. His stores were 

 always well filled with the articles they would 

 purchase, and he was ever ready to pay them a 

 part cash ibr their produce and to exchange such 

 goods as they might wniit tor the remainder. 



But it is in the cliaracter of amateur farmer that 

 our particular inquiries were at this time directed 

 to till!* tlisiiuiiuished individual. Unfortunate as 

 he had been in business by incurring responsibil- 

 ities for others, he never has given over his pas- 

 sion nnd taste for agricultural improvements ; 

 and now in the "sere and yellow leaf" of more 

 than eighty years, he still directs in the operations 

 of the field. Several farms, which have been 

 improved under his hand to twice and three times 

 their cost iu a worn-out state, have lieen disposed 

 of, nnd are now in the hands of others. Sir. 

 Howe for years employed many hands and carri- 

 ed on farms not only in his own town, but in ad- 

 jacent towns. He not only made manure in great 

 quantities, btit he purchased if wherever he could 

 find it ; and many people thought he made im- 

 prpvements more for the pleasure of gratifying 

 his peculiar taste and his pride than for any im- 

 mediate profit they would bring to his coffers. 

 His agriculture was considered to be a constant 

 drain upon his purse ; nnd it was generally thought 

 that there were few who could afford to farm it in 

 the manner he did. 



He once reared an ox that was an object of won- 



der nnd curiosity far and near ; this ox was 

 brought up by him from a calf without ever being 

 mated or put to labor. He was ii'd and kept 

 fiom year to year with that food and in that par- 

 ticular manner supposed to be most conducive to 

 his growth and fatnes?. We have no present 

 means of discribing this ox, or of comparing him 

 either with the famous Greenland ox raised by 

 Mr. Pierce, or the Clareujoiit ox of Mr. Hubbard: 

 we bad always understood tliat be was not so 

 large as either of these, the latter of which was 

 exhibited iu this town some four or five years 

 ago. Mr. Howe's ox, whose day and generation 

 was prior to either of the others, was kejit by him 

 so long as he would continue to thrive, and was 

 not slaughtered until he had begun to fall away 

 in size and fatness. 



Expensive as were the agricultural improve- 

 ments of Mr. Howe — I'ar more expensive as they 

 necessarily were than could be any single farm 

 whose operations were constantly imder the eye 

 of the proprietor — we are nevertheless of opinion 

 that he did not, so far as improvement of the land 

 was the object, suffer pecuniary loss. The raised 

 cash value of the land, we believe, has turned out 

 to be equal to the extra expense laid out upon it. 



The day before the ground was covered with 

 snow, as we passed iu the stage towards the line 

 of New Hampshire, our attention was turned to 

 four or five fields in Haverhill, of about twenty 

 acres each, a mile distant from the village of Ha- 

 verhill, which some twenty years ago had been re- 

 claimed by Mr. Howe. Someofthe unreclaimed 

 land still remains along side of it ; and from this 

 we have an opiiortunity of judging how great has 

 been the change which cultivation has made up- 

 on this ground. The ground was too near a lev- 

 el to have the water readily drain fiom it ; and 

 the soil was too clayey and retentive for the stand- 

 ing water to soak away : the water oozing out of 

 the springs near the surfiice remained through 

 the spring and early summer, until the sun run- 

 ning high became sufficiently powerful to take it 

 off in the air, leaving a cracked, dry surface that 

 refused nourishment to every kind of useful veg- 

 etation. This ground seemed to he a little worse 

 than any other similar ground we had ever before 

 seen, because in addition to its clayey cold quali- 

 ties and its proneness to hold the water upon the 

 sin'ace, it was full of rocks of all sizes, but gen- 

 erally of those from twenty to a hundred pounds 

 each. The adjacent field of the same kind of 

 soil which probably never was ploughed, now 

 shows these rocks covered with moss usurping 

 iu thousands of p'rotuherances nearly half of the 

 surface, and that |)art of the ground free from 

 then;, so wet nnd cold that even hardback bushes 

 would not grow upon it to their common size. 



The improved ground has never been fit for 

 any other crop than grass ; and this it will proba- 

 bly continue to produce many years without 

 ploughing, with the spreading of manure over 

 the surface once in a few years. The improve- 

 ment commenced with digging out the rocks so 

 that the land miirlit be broken, which was at first 

 done by a plough with a heavy team, and dug up 

 with the crow bar nr negro hoe where the plough 

 could not do its work. Afterwards it was work- 

 ed up into ridges of one or two rods in width, 

 leaving a space for a drain to let the water off 

 at the lowest jioint of the lot. To make the 

 drain effectual it became necessary to sink the 

 valley to the depth of two or three feet iu some 

 places. The ground was at first subdued by rais- 

 ing potatoes ;' and all the small stones near the 

 surface were carried off and deposited in piles ; 

 after it was well manured it was sowed with oats 

 and laid dov.-n to grass. It is decidedly the great- 

 est improvement of worn out land that we have 

 ever seen in so large a body. Probably there is 

 not another instance in the United States where 

 as large a lot of land of this kind with so many 

 discouragements upon its face, has been brought 

 into high production and value. 



There were many thousand tons of stones up- 

 on this land, which were gathered into piles upon 

 the ground. These have been since taken away 

 and appropriated to useful purposes ; of which 

 hundreds of tons have been disposed of under 

 the track of the main road fronting the land, be- 

 low the frost, so as to bear off upon the surface 

 tlie many henvy teams passing over it. 



We believe a different method of improving 

 this land, with jjcrhnps no additional expense, 

 would have made it much I)etter, and the im- 



