®l)e iamtcr'0 inontl)l|) bisttor. 



137 



siilxoiling for corn. An uci-e is ilevoted to llu' 

 experimeiil; tho soil a Kiavclly loam ; yet no 

 part liassiill'rn>.l nialcri.-.lly «iih <lioii!;lit, ho tliat 

 the advanla-cs of solisoiliiij; are not so ap|iarent 

 n-: tliey woiilil lio in a verv dry season. .VlaninP 

 ■ nas appliL'.l niiially to tlie wholo pi.'cc, and oiie- 

 lialf was ploiifTlied as nsiial, and tlie otiior hall 

 was plon"l..'<l and snl.soiled. A difterence la 

 evident in favor of tlie subsoiU:d part, as it is 

 more Inxiniant, heing of » darker proen, laller, 

 Hiid more nniforni in its appt-arance. 1 lit dit- 

 lerenoe in -rain will I.e determined liy we,;.l,i, 

 and it remains to he s.'cn whether the superior 

 croiis on the puhsoiled l.art in tins and several 

 (..d 'sennent vears, will pay the extra expe.i.-e. 



As Mr. ('."tills Inn liiile land, and sells hay, he 

 fiii.ls it pr..filal.le to improve his firass lands l.y 

 invertii If: the sod and re-seeding. He has severa 

 pieees lately prepared in this way in very i^ood 

 style, heins remarkably even and smooth. He 

 has practised this syslem for 15 or U. years, and 

 finds it n pood one. 



CO.NCOKD, N 



Five days away from home. 



Such has been Uie slate of the health of the editor 

 of the Visitor since his return from the South, last 

 May, that with the exception of a quick journey in 

 the cars to Boatou, ho had been obliged to confine 

 himself to short gig-wagon rides about the town, into 

 the edges of other towns. He can sleep at night only 

 hv creating in his room an artificial atmosphere or tak- 

 iag what is to him an unusual stimulant of some kind. 

 Those about him consider it dangerous to go away 

 from home ; but he contrives, whether at home or 

 abroad, while breath remains to do its work without 

 severe distress, to make himself company and to 

 .shorten the dalness of night by reflelion when awake, 

 a condition which is even more tolerable than disturb- 

 ed sleep. 



.■\ftcr spending a night out of town with our friends 

 of the First Family of Canterbury, nerved by new 

 strength and resolution, we determined on the 4th 

 September to venture forth and see what was further 

 to be seen, especially as we had a jiersonal invitation 

 from the man who lives only about a day's ride from 

 us, who had obtained a premium of two hundred dol- 

 lars for the best improved and cultivated farm in the 

 old Bay State. Our course was not in the level road 

 of railroad cars running m the lower" vallies, but on 

 the excellent smooth old roads running over the high- 

 . St cultivated hills on which the best farms of the 

 I Granite Stale are almost every where to be found — in 

 the old chaise which came to us second hand ten years 

 a"0, and has a pair of wheels worth more at this 

 time than those of many of the new dashy four-wheel- 

 cil vehicles, with our old black horse, purchased three 

 years ago at thirty-five dollars, carrying us either four, 

 five, 3LX or seven miles an hour at our dictation, forty, 

 fifty or sixty miles a day, and worth his weight in gold 

 to one who would journey without either trouble or 

 danger. 



Our practice has been during the last six years to 

 observe, every where in our travels, the peculiarities of 

 location and soil, and the products of every cultivated 

 field where we have passed. If all travellers had our 

 fevlings, and some farmers regarded the public opinion 

 at all, some men that we know of would be more in- 

 dustrious to put a different face upon their fields. We 

 feel even ourselves shame when we look upon our 

 own grounds as spectator, and acknowledge our often- 

 ces against true agricultural taste, and see our own 

 poor apologies for fences, and rank weeds growing in 

 our corn and potato fields. But a truce to what is 

 not exactly the subject of our late journey. 



Our course out of Concord was over the Concord or 

 lower bridge, now become all but obselete, saving to 



the use of that few (like ourselves) who are much ac- 

 commodated by the easy transit to our best cultivated 

 fields on the other side of the Merrimack. We were 

 going to Massachusetts to witness the operation of im- 

 proved ploughs, and we here left at work turning over 

 the hardest sward intervale meadow, one of I'roaty's 

 Ploughs No. 23, with a small yoke of live year old cat- 

 tle, led by the while Canadian horse " Old rote,"' 

 travelling at not a slow walk. Looking at the straight 

 and smooth and completely inverted furrows, we 

 thought to ourselves, the best firm in Massachusetts 

 would scarcely furnish better ploughing than this. 



On this south side of Concord its limits on the ea-st 

 side of the ri\er have been extended by the addition 

 of a gore running jicarly ten miles upon the north side 

 of Soucook river : this addition of itself, being from a 

 mile to a mile and a half over, would make a town- 

 ship as large as the whole area of the town of Rye. — 

 The Legislaturu forced it upon Concord against the 

 unanimous voice of the people forty years ago, be- 

 cause Pembroke and Bow (to which the gore had been 

 attached) complained of the intolerable hardship of 

 siipportiug the bridges upon the Soucook. The gore 

 is iuconveuieut to Bow, being upon the opposite side 

 of the river, extending its shape like that of a snake 

 nearly twenty miles ; but to Pembroke it wOuld be an 

 addition that would add several thousand acres of val- 

 uable wood and timber land to her present limits. Be- 

 sides, upon this gore nearest to Merrimack river, there 

 is destined to be built up upon the water power of 

 Garven's falls, within the limits of Concord, a manu- 

 facturing city like that of Jlanchester or Lowell be- 

 low. At a very small comparative expense for the 

 main dam and canals, this great manuficturing water 

 power will be made available and safe beyond all risk 

 from the inroads of the stream itself, either by the 

 undermining of quick sands or the How of back 

 water. 



The conformation of the extensive plains on either 

 bank of the Merrimack is worthy the attention of the 

 curious who look back to the way in which all our 

 lands were originally made. It was by the action of the 

 great water that the several plains or steppes wero first 

 made : into these plains the successive rivers and 

 streams, small and great, have since embedded them- 

 selves more or less deep as obstacles have been presen- 

 ted. For ages the waters had l.iid in large 

 bodies upon a level until they have found means to 

 break through the rocky ridge and discharge themselves 

 to a lower level. The extensive plains have been 

 formed by the washing down and filling up from the 

 higher lands above to the pouit where the breaking 

 away of the waters has left them. 



As between the division of the waters upon the 

 plains in Coi^ord, which arc divided by the gullies 

 running into the Soucook and Merrimack, there is a 

 very curious gravelly and sandy ridge extending sever- 

 al miles as regular as if it had been an artificial 

 mound created by human hands. This ridge runs up 

 until it terminates in one much more extended and 

 rocky at the north end of the gore, where at length it 

 becomes elevated into that prominent point of land. 

 Oak Hill, over which is the line between Concord and 

 London, some seven or eight miles from the main 

 street, and upon cleared spots of which the present 

 summer might be seen a green and luxuriant growth of 

 the early grains, crowning that beautiful eminence in 

 .\ugust and September, with the appearance of a gold- 

 en harvest. 



On first passing upon our late journey the Soucook 

 river, we looked at the valley at its mouth with a view 

 to the Portsmouth railroad coming in at the point of 

 junction between Concord and Pembroke. Directly 

 through the new city to be built up by that great water 

 power must pjss this railroad. A low point of the 

 Pembroke mam street may be gained by keeping high- 

 er than the falls (about 30 feet) by a grade not exceed- 

 ing 30 feet to the mile. This high point gained, the grade 

 upon the other side will be about as much more to fall in- 

 to the Suncook valley at Buck street mills on the easterly 



line of Pembroke. These grades would shorten the 

 distance one mile and a half: they may all probably 

 be saved by passing down tho Merrimack the wholo 

 westerly lino of Penihroke to the Suncook, where 

 there is another extensive and excellent water power, 

 and ivhere the first considerable cotton factory ever 

 erected in New Hampshire was first built by the late 

 (ien. Asa Kobinson and others, and occupied by the 

 late Maj. Caleb Stark. It will soon be decided which 

 of these points, if either of them, the road will pur- 

 sue. 



At a higher elevation on the south than upon the 

 north side is the land upon the Soucook where the 

 travelled roads pass to Pembroke. That elevation is 

 gained by passing up the hill at a very abrupt angle : 

 it is a pass as dangerous at some seasons as some of 

 the most dreaded mountain roads. We remember 

 once coming down the late winding road on the glare 

 of winter ice, the stage-horses becoming loosed 

 from their traces and were upon the full clip with the 

 whole weight of the sleigh upon their heels, when, if 

 they had not kept out of the way, the stage-sleigh and 

 passengers must have been dashed into the icy ravine 

 below, with broken limbs, or heads, or necks. This 

 was a position for the moment calculated to make one 

 hold his breath, where the chance was more perilloua 

 than that of being shot m a drawu-up-line of battle 

 field. We encountered no such peril with our steady 

 horse in the last journey : a new and improved road 

 has since been laid out and made up the steep bank — it 

 is a " straighter and a narrower path ": cUmbing it if 

 the passengers leave, and the single horse draws up 

 the carriage alone, he must put to the work greater 

 strength than the motive power on a common railroad 

 necessary to draw many tons. 



Pembroke is a compact, pretty town; but we think 

 she lost mightily by forcing upon Concord Bow-gore, 

 which she might have taken herself. Soon after rising 

 the Soucook hill, we enter upon the Pembroke street, 

 running north and south at from half a mile to a mile 

 distance from Merrimack river, which for beauty of 

 location is not exceeded by any spot or village in New 

 England. This street runs in nearly a direct line, and 

 upon it are located two well-managed classical Institu- 

 tions or Academies, which are in some respects rivals. 

 These institutions, without doubt, have been the 

 means of contributing much to the society, the civiliz- 

 ation and the beauty of the more central part of the 

 town. We have observed always when we pass that 

 some new improvement has taken place in the cultiva- 

 tion and buildings. There are several good farmers 

 upon and adjacent to the main street of Pembroke. — 

 The crops have been on the constant amendment for 

 the last thirty years. In the season of their growth, 

 the grain and grass are always luxuriant; and no bet- 

 ter corn-fields than here are to be found in any ten 

 miles tramp around Concord. The fruit trees (much 

 better than iu our own town) have been increasing 

 from year to year; and the gardens are becoming what 

 may be expected in any place where one or more seta 

 a good example. What we much approved was the 

 mile or two of high and dry side-walk constructed on 

 the most settled point upon the main street. Every 

 village gains much by improving its side-walks, as we 

 have shewn in Concord liy beginning brick p ivements 

 fronting our most frequented stores and public places. 

 The whole townsliip of Pembroke may be said to 

 be excellent land : it has many valuable farms upon 

 Buck street, on the south side, running down to and 

 hicluding the intervales upon Suncook; and its hill 

 land to the north and east embraces much of that val- 

 uable, although hard soil, upon which the best firmers, 

 who are the glory of the Granite Stale, have most 

 prospered, and are yet destined to prosper. 



Near the extreme northwest corner of the town, is 

 the Suncook village, where, hi old tones, more paper 

 used to be made than at all other mills in the State. — 

 From the material furnished at these mills in "years 

 of auld laiig sync," more than one political revolution 

 has been eft'ected in New Hampshire. Those mills. 



