msanoausKtmamMtk 



Ulffiarmcv 5 itlouiljlD Itiiiitor. 



•mer who makes the attempt with the due 

 lowledge of the proper meatip, need fearafail- 

 e of succeedhig. It is only by making such 

 iprovments as will increase and keep up cro|)S 

 an) year to year, that the fanners of New Enjj- 

 l)d can do justice to llie cause ol' Apriculturc. 

 here are many of tiie longer-settled farms on 

 hich to produce fifty tons of hay one hundred 

 res must be mowed: how much more valuable 

 an these the fifteen acres at the Hospital pro- 

 icing a like amnimt and certainly a better ar- 

 •le! Of the difference in the labor between 

 e two, every practical farmer is able to judge. 



AgTicaltural Warehoase iii Concord. 



We wet-e exceedingly gratified in calling at 

 e new establishment of iVIessrs. Corkier fc 

 Nox, to witness the number and extent of their 

 iproved agricultural imi)lements, and that the 

 Hirers of New Hampshire who, since the con- 

 ruction of the railroad, concentrate here more 

 un ever lor the purposes of trade, afford the 

 !st encouragement that such an establishment 

 in be fupporled. The higher price which the 

 ;tter insiruments have home lias been a cause 

 'discouragement to those who in the uncertain 

 imnnd and low price of produce have become 

 ibitually wary to incur all but inevitable ex- 

 jnse. It was an agreeable surprise to be in- 

 pned that Messrs. Cmrier & Knox had retail- 

 I upwards of fifty of the improved Ploughs 

 nnnfaclured at the great agricultural factory of 

 iggles, Noiirse and Mason in Worcester, Mns- 

 chusetts. Fifty of the well made improved 

 oiighs introduced and scattered through the 

 ale this year would probably make sale of four 

 nes the luiuiber another year, after a proper 

 lal shall be given them. It is not saying loo 

 uch of Vrouly's, Ruggles' or Howard's 

 oughs, all of which eiiibrace the great leading 

 inciples of improvement, to aver that either of 

 fin used for a single season will earn the high- 

 t |irice paid for it in the saving of teatn and in 

 5 better work. 



In aid of the plough and the hoe, the Cultiva- 

 r has become a labor-saving article in our culti- 

 led fields: the iinprovetneiit made in the new 

 plen)ent in the last few years has been equal 

 that of the plough. Hoes, shovels, hay and 

 ng forks, scythes and scythe sneathe.s, hay 

 tes, grain cradles, &c. &c., have all been 

 >aly improved, making it a continued pleasure 

 the enierpri.^iug farmer to see and Itiel their 

 uration under his hands. 



Currier & Knox have on hand those we have 

 med and almost every kind of tool or imple- 

 int of the belter Eort used by the (iuiner either 

 the kitchen, in and about his buildings or gar- 

 n, in the forest or field. It is a great object that 

 ;h an establish inent as this should be encour- 

 ?d and kept up. 



The Season. 



If we are less tbrtunate in the North than the 

 nth in the pleasant, bidmy air of Spring — if 

 •y encounter none of our piercing air and 

 vering winter cold, lingering down almost to 

 : lap of Summer — more fortunate sometimes 

 we that the delay of vegetation saves us from 

 destruction of early frost. Abniil the lOtli of 

 ril, while the rye and other grains were head- 

 out, and the apple and peach trees had gone 

 of bloom, a severe frost in Virginia, the Car- 

 US and the country South cut flown almost 

 rytUlng. Travelling in the night of that frost, 

 conductor of the railroad near VVeldon, N. 

 broughl. into tin.' car ami exhibited an Icicle 

 t had formed on ifie outside to the leiiglh of 

 eral inches and the size of a m.in's tliiuub. 

 ig was more thou we had seen in all the two 

 viouB months of February and March, in a 

 rney from Cincimmii in Ohio down the Mis- 

 lippi, and North to this point from New Or- 

 is. Lingering on the way about live weeks 

 he middle of May, we fixmd at lioston aiul 

 th in New llampsliire a more chilly seasim 

 II we had felt from Washington city South 

 I West during the whole winter. 

 Ve came home, not to find the green peas 

 jell vve had at New Orleans on the first of 

 reli, or the Kirawlierries which we gathered 

 h the fields of Alabama in the first week of 

 il — (these we may expect to come along here 

 he lutttr part of June and first of July)--to 

 Ihe apple, iioacli anil plum trees near Bos- 



ton just coming to the blow, with the leaf of the 

 iua|)le not fully expanded, and that o( the oak 

 not yet enlarged beyond the size of the ears of 

 the grey squirrel. A pretty severe frost as late 

 as the 2t>th of May, forming ice in this town of 

 the thickness of gla.s.s, did otu' vegetation but lit- 

 tle damage, because none of it, with the excef)- 

 tion of bean-s tomatoes aiul a few small matters 

 in the open air, was sufiiciently advanced to sill- 

 ier iiijiny. The cold weather has kept Indian 

 corn and potatoes early planteil almost as late in 

 their progress as those put in the ground not over 

 a week. The backward cold weather is consid- 

 ered fiivorable for the winter rye and the earlier 

 sown spring wheat: the latter on the high warm 

 lands is said to he promising. The prospect of 

 a crop of hay thus far seems not very promising 

 upon land not recently turned up : the grass is 

 said to be thin and spindling. The feed of the 

 hard pastures and the green browse of the woods 

 upon which some rely for the subsistence of 

 sheep and cattle, remains almost up t;> the first of 

 June very stinted. 



"The Best Plough ever made!" 



Just at the time when the editor of the Visitor 

 was preparing a piece of ground, the oidy rocky 

 land he has improved near the village, for a later 

 crop of potatoes, Mr. Hall, an agent who is trav- 

 elling through New Hampshire and Vermont for 

 the purpose of introducing to our fiirmers a 

 knowledge of the last improvement by Proiity 

 of his celebrated Centre Draught Plou^li, called 

 upon us with these iinpletnents at hand. We 

 had made the best piece of work we ever saw 

 <lone with a plough presented us by Mr. Prouty 

 lour years ago : it was in an oblong square of 

 intervale where there was no rock or root to ob- 

 struct : the lin-rows were all in direct lines of 

 even width, ami there was not a single running 

 out of the plough in the whole piece. The piece 

 »vas turned in back furrow, shutting over com- 

 pletely the edges which cut dia};onally prevented 

 the grass from coming up in the crevices: the 

 manure spread tipoii the fresh green grass was 

 all turned under so that not a particle appeared. 

 Potatoes were planted in the crevices between 

 every third row. The roots of these in the 

 course of the season souirht ami obtained just so 

 much anil no more aliment from liie manure as 

 was needed, leaving the rest in the ground for a 

 future crop, covered too deep for the ammonia to 

 escape in the air before it had done its woi k. — 

 Our fine plough that year, roughly used to fi^ht 

 fire in the pine woods, was broken in the main 

 beam. We engaged a plough-maker to replace 

 Ihe beam from a pattern of the two broken parts; 

 but it never could be made to do such woik as il 

 had done in the first field ; and from that 

 lime to this on intervale equally eligible, we have 

 not been able to reproduce such work. 



IMr. Prouty's agent, Mr. Hall, himself an excel- 

 lent plough-holder, tried two hours work on our 

 rougli grouiul. Much of it was completely paved 

 with rocks such as were calculated to interrupt 

 and throw out the plough. IJotli the Plough No. 

 24, ami another Plough of larger dimensions 

 turned the sward better than we had ever .seen it 

 in ground of this character. The numl)er24 has 

 been left with us for trial and use: This Plough, 

 from its o|ieiation thus liir, we think to be equal 

 to that one which was so highly valued four 

 years ago. As Rlessrs. Currier & Knox have in- 

 vited us to make trial of the sward Plough of 

 Ruggles, Nourse and Mason, the first time we 

 break up ground from the sward we intend to 

 give both Messrs. Prouty and Kuggles their fair 

 chance. 



Mr. J. L. Robinson, near the Washington 

 Hotel at the North End of Main Street, Concord, 

 is the agent for the sale of David Prouty and 

 Company's Ploughs : the demand for these of 

 him the present year has nearly equalled Ihe sale 

 of Ihe Ruggles Plough by Currier & Knox. 



Miipic Su^iir. 



As Ihe planters of Louisiana have had in the 

 last year an miprecedented crop of sugar and 

 molasses from the cane cultivation, so the fiirm- 

 ers of Vermont and the noithiMU part of New 

 llanipsliirn and Maine, have produced more of 

 the same ariicle from the juice or siip of the no- 

 lilu rock maple than they ever made in any one 

 year. We ihiiik, however, the story going the 

 rounds of the papers that the value of the sugar 



made (lie last spring in Vermont was worth a 

 million of dollars, is not correct: if that little 

 Slate has produced a million of pounds, it would 

 give about linir pounds to every man, woman and 

 child in the Stale. A million of dnllars at eight 

 cents a pound would give about one liuudr d 

 pounds ;is the share of each person. We llioiight 

 our neighboring town of Loudon did well to give 

 30,000 pounds of sugar in a former season : tliis 

 was perhaps seventeen pounds to each person in 

 the town. In half of the towns of New Hamp- 

 shire, and in many towns of Vermont, very lillie 

 or no m.iple sugar is made. 



The original maples of the forest which used to 

 he spared in the first clearing of lands in New 

 Knglalid, are the most of them fallen and gone. 

 'I'he greater portion of sugar made at the present 

 lime is from trees of tjie second growth. Maple 

 orchards properly cherished may at no very dis- 

 tant day furnish sufficiejit sugar for the consump- 

 limi of New England.. This sugar to our taste is 

 more welcome because it is generally clearer and 

 comes from fiee labor. 



Improvements of Agriculture in the Middle 

 Atlantic States. 



Il will be remembered by travellers in years 

 gone by, that the land over which the luinpike 

 road between Caltimore and Washington city 

 passed, was some of the poorest and most sterile 

 that can be imagined. Returning from the 

 Sotilh in the month of May, we look Ihe new 

 line of stages over iliat road in preference to the 

 r.iilroad, and we found Ihe agricultural improve- 

 ment visible all along the line. If the worn-out 

 lands in Maryland and Virginia can be every 

 where treatoil as they have been treated there 

 during the last ten years, we would consider that 

 country as promising better than even that where 

 fertile new lands are brought into culiivalioii. 

 Numerous and extensive were the fields of beau- 

 tiful clover and grain and Indian corn cultivation 

 where the ground had been formerly abandoned 

 as worthless. This improvement seems to have 

 taken place without the application of the oidin- 

 ary manures. Lime is found highly advaiita^'eous 

 to the lands of that region, which are generally 

 of reddish clay, soon feeling the etFecis of 

 drought. Deep ploughing has a fine effect. But 

 the introduction of a clover growth, and the 

 green crop ploughed under, is found to be the 

 great desideratum. Hundreds and thousands of 

 acres of land are being reclaimed in iliat part of 

 the country by means Ihe most simple, and re- 

 quiring very little expense. Lime at IVoiii six to 

 ten cents per bushel, is found to be an excellent 

 renovator of the soil — il is laid out in piles and 

 spread over the ground. Plaster of Pari.*, at the 

 rale of from fifty to one hundred |)0unds to the 

 acre, is also found highly useful in bringing up a 

 growth of clover where little else than sorrel 

 grew before. Light pine plains laud where 

 clover can be made to grow will produce excel- 

 lent crops of corn without Ihe application of any 

 other manure than plaster. If the clover is con- 

 tinued, and a quick rotation from Indian corn to 

 small grain and a relurn to clover with plaster, 

 ihe land will never deteriorate or wear out. 



The calcareous manures, such as lime and 

 plaster, and the various marls recently brought 

 to light as underlaying much of Ihe .\llanlic 

 country, are producing a wonderfiil eflecl in the 

 agriculture of the middle States. There is nil 

 almost new face put upon the Stale of New Jer- 

 sey from the application of lime and marl. The 

 farmers of Pennsylvania all along the western 

 shore of the Delaware have broughl their land 

 to a high and excellenl production mainly by the 

 use of lime, which is there so )ilentifully and 

 e.isily procured as to bo laid off in piles and 

 spread over the surface of the cultivated fields. 

 Delaware and Maryland have also greatly in- 

 creased their crops of wheal ami other grains by 

 the .same species of mannres. Oyster shell lime, 

 as well as lime from the stone, is extensively 

 used in the agricullnre of the middle Stales up- 

 on the Atlantic seaboard. 



The Quincy Quarries. 



Five hundred men are engaged in the business 

 connected with the working of the stone quar- 

 ries at (iuincy. Tlie quarries are twelve in niiin- 

 ber ; the largest amount of slone got out from any 

 ono quarry is from that owned by Thomas II. 

 Perkins, 14 to 30,000 tons a year; the next largest 



