<S^I)c jrarmcr'0 ittontljlg lltsitor. 



139 



tcrial for alter production. The effect of diaiuiige, 

 when tliu busiiicas is tlioiouglily done, is to leuve the 

 ground dry eiiougii and wet onougli at all times. They 

 give life and energy to a dead soil ns far as the ground 

 is stirred. 



'i'he lirsf settled old farms in C'hostor had their apple 

 orchards. These were planted without regard to fruit, 

 only with the view to tarn out from twenty to fifty and 

 sometimes a hundred barrels of cider annually for the 

 family use. He was hardly esteemed a farmer who 

 did not have cider-making a principal business in the 

 late fall. But temperance tim?3, the practice more 

 than the preaching of temperance, has nearly super- 

 seded the use of cider at the table of every man. The 

 ancient i'.pple orchards arc only remembered by the 

 scattered old trees now and then left in neglected fields 

 and pastures. But we were pleased to see on the old 

 road between .Auburn and Chester the evidence of care- 

 ful culture of grafted apple trees, which all the way 

 between that and the sea from the line of JIaine on the 

 north to Boston, including the larger part of Rocking- 

 ham in New Hampshire and Esse.v iu Massachusetts, 

 are becoming an object to the cultivators of the soil 

 among the first and best to yield a handsome income 

 and profit. The crop of apples upon the thrifty trees 

 there was much less all'ectcd by the late frost of last 

 summer than it was f irther north. In Chester we saw 

 Ihe loaded Ualdwin apple trees hanging over the road 

 with their limbs propped up without being disturbed by 

 the passers-by. In all that region of country, so great 

 is the respect paid to the rights of ownership to proper- 

 ty, that we seldom see a tree stripped though it hang 

 within reach directly over the road. 



From one end to the other of the Chester lower vil- 

 lage proofs exist of the good taste of those who culti- 

 vate the land. The cullivation is here improved from 

 year to^'ear; and the consequence is that in the vicin- 

 ity of that village the cultivated farms bear twice and 

 three times as much price per acre as lands of etjual soil 

 in its natural state bear in some other towns of no bet- 

 ter local advant.ages. 



Among other iniprovenients which we noticed hi the 

 Visitor in lc40 was the beautiful orchard of .Mr. Paine, 

 ii little out of the Chester village. From the appear- 

 ance of the same orchard now we would hazard the 

 *• guess that its owner has realized a profit equal to the 

 ♦• annual interest of five hundred dollars to the acre. 



Near this point on our journey we left the old road 

 to Boston, which we had often travelled, to take our 

 course throKgh Sundown and liawke or Danville, which 

 we had only once passed over thirty-three years ago. 

 The area of these two townships is together less than 

 that of many single townships of thj State. The hills 

 fall oft' to a less size than those in the towns either 

 above or below. The face of the ground is of that hard 

 strata which seems to have been most thoroughly wash- 

 ed and cleajised before the subsidence of the waters, 

 leaving rock': and gravel instead of soft alluvion. The 

 hills are chequered with larger and smaller granite boul- 

 ders out of place. The soil is thin upon a surface of 

 numerous small rocks. Thirty and more years ago 

 this seemed to be but a poor discouraging country for 

 farmers. The wood had been cut off, and generally 

 ihe first ferlillly of the soil had been extracted. The 

 small growth loming up seemed to be of little value 

 but for hoop-poles; and there appeared to be no busi- 

 ness there but cutting hoop-poles, and making barrels 

 whenever the working-men could get hold of the ma- 

 terial for the staves. The change th.at has come over 

 the two towns, as far as we could observe them, was 

 pleasing indeed. All along the road the buildings had 

 been improved. There were many excellent well-cul- 

 tivated fields. Less ground was under cultivation; but 

 probably four times the produce was raised. Most of 

 the thin soil of these towns is natural to a second growth 

 of white phie. Nearly one half of the surface of what 

 was formerly pasture had sprung up and is now cover- 

 ed with these white pines. ^Vhcie they have had a 

 thirty years' growth, the timber and wood is probably 

 worth over a hundred dollars the acre. This second 



growth pine converted into timber and boards was en- 

 abling the owners to erect handsome new houses and 

 barns; much of it was being used to make boxes, win- 

 dow frames and doors, casings and other finishing ma- 

 terials to be disposed of elsewhere : even the loplindjs 

 converted into firewood of this heartless and soft white 

 pine were worth two dollars and a half a cord to be 

 carted fifteen and twenty niiles to Amesbury and New- 

 buryport. We may safely aver that the growing wood 

 and timber in these two small towns is of greater value 

 at the present moment in cash than the whole soil with 

 whatever was upon it thirty years ago. 



The law of necessity has made the best practical 

 farmers of the people of Sandovvn and Danville : they 

 have sought out for inventions for fertilizing their 

 grounds. The method in which they economize and 

 save manures, is worthy of attention and imitation. — 

 The sniooth old road, with its hills levelled and their 

 bases filled up, pursues its winding way. At nearly 

 every point where a stream runs from the melting ice 

 and snow or rains, the water is turned to be conveyed 

 over some mowing field, f his is a method common to 

 most economical farmers in all the longer settled towns; 

 but here we observed the peculiarity of making reser- 

 voirs for collecting and making manure by the roadside 

 in which the wash is arrested and detamed before the 

 water overflows into the field. In the methods of econ- 

 omizing their manures we should be of the opinion that 

 double the quantity and value is saved and njade to 

 that which some of us farther in the country make from 

 a like amount of means. The doubling the quantity 

 of manure for a series of years will have the effect of 

 quadrupling production. 



Another method of renovating lands in these towns 

 is worthy to be named. The farmers own or purchase 

 the hay upon salt-marshes at the mouth of the Jlerri- 

 mack upon Plum island or Newbury or on the Salis- 

 bury side, boat the hay in its green state to Haverhill 

 and thence bring it overland some ten or fi'teen miles, 

 to be spread out and dried over fields of English grass 

 already mowed. This furnishes a healthy addition of 

 food to stocks of young cattle, and greatly increases the 

 amount and value of the manure made upon the little 

 as well as the larger farm. The salt hay, not less than 

 the saline air every where felt within thirty miles of 

 the Qcean, is of great value to the farmers within its 

 reach: the hay dried upon a common field is equal to 

 a common coating of manure. 



In this manner, by contriving to raise and save 

 much for sale and to purchase within the annual in- 

 come, have many farmers become not only indepen- 

 dent, but wealthy in money, living in what were once 

 considered' two of the poorest towns of the Granite 

 State. ,1 



The ancient town of Kingston, the residence of the 

 Bartletts and other families of eminence m the early 

 settlement of New Hampshire, must have been once 

 of an inviting soil, producing wealth. We remember- 

 ed its extended plain thirty-three years ago ps the 

 place of a largo political gathering, hi which the two 

 elder sons of the first Governor, one then a irienjber of 

 Congress and the other a Judge, were among the 

 principal actors. Too old then to be now alive, a 

 third and a fourth generation (doctors when they be- 

 come of age) tread in " the pitths of their illustrious 

 predecessors." The old meeting-house and the ven- 

 erable Doctor in Divinity, i\!r. Thayer, who was for 

 many years the town minister, are gone. The Kuigs- 

 ton plains, of an arid and dry summer, must be set 

 down now as poor land, and its farmers not as good aa 

 those in the poor towns above them. But we may 

 well conceive that the virgin ground here nt its first 

 settlement was good, and that it wants to be reached 

 only twice the depth to which it has been heretofore 

 stirred by the plough, with the usual economizing in- 

 dustry in making manure so common in that part of 

 the State, to become again restored to a better than its 

 first estate. 



The tow'na in the south-east part of Rocldngham 

 county are ao contra'ted that we are hardly sen- 



sible of passing uito a town before we are beyond lis 

 limits. That country was settled nearly Two hundred 

 years ago. Through the town of Last Kingston wo 

 had only passed over the railroad. This runs just 

 along the westerly line of a series of oblong hills lying 

 within some ten miles on ehher side of the Merrimack 

 river from Lowell downward to the distance of about 

 twenty miles. From the topsof some of these hillsuiay 

 be plainly seen at the north the higher mountain region 

 of New Hampshire from the IMonadnock north about 

 to Jecorway peak, the Strafford hills and the Agamen- 

 ticus in York, Maine, with old Mount Washington 

 and the A\'hite IMountain range peeruig midway above 

 the rest. Upon the oblong hills there are some fine 

 farms, and the poorest of them make excellent pasture 

 grounds. The soil of all of them is said to be of the 

 same character: it is gravelly and loose overlaying a 

 subsoil of clay: the water springs to within a few feet 

 of their toi)s — the frost and the severe drought reach 

 them not until afterthey are felt in the plains below. 



One of the oblong hills, which are generally at their 

 base about two miles one way by one mile the other in 

 diameter, lies mainly in the little town of Kensington, 

 one of the few which we have not yet visited, und 

 looks down upon the town of South Hampton, through ^fe 

 which we were now for the first time to pass. Heie 

 we had always known lived a few of the most wealthy 

 and independent fiiriners of our State. By no means 

 were we disappointed iu the appearance of this town, 

 only we would willingly have travelled a longer dis- 

 tance for the gratification of believmg that there was 

 much more of it. Too soon we came to its centre and 

 place of business upon an elevated spot of ground; 

 recollecting as our friends of a quarter century ago 

 several of its most intelligent and respectable citizens 

 no longer numbered with the living, some of whose 

 names we could re;id upon the head-stones of graves 

 in the ancient church yard from the road side. Of the 

 neatly painted buildings, surrounding the public 

 square, we selected one of larger dimensions than the 

 best school houses of our larger towns, on which was 

 painted " The Barnard School;" and this told us the 

 story that our old friend of that name who had often 

 been in the Legislature had left the rising generation 

 not without evidence that he cared for them as he did 

 for the welfare of his town and of the nation and 

 state when in active life. 



Passing on it surprised us much to find that this fine 

 little village in New Hampshire was oidy two miles 

 distant from the larger and very flourishing village of 

 Salisbury Blills lying on both sides of Povvow river in 

 the towns of Amesbury and Salisbury in Massachu- 

 setts. So identical is it with Massachusetts that after 

 passing both the Powow and Merrimack we look over 

 from the Newbury side and view the New Hampshire 

 village, a little above, but intermingled as part and 

 p.arcel of the Massachusetts village. The five towns 

 of Salisbury, Amesbury,- Haverhill, Methuen and 

 Dracutt, with a part of Tyngsborough on the north 

 side of Merrimack, of right should belong to New 

 Hampshire. The line between the Stales is laid down 

 as being three miles north of the river. Often in a di- 

 rect line it is said to measure more, never less than 

 that. The Powow river, whose waters sepply the 

 power of the large factories at Salisbury mills, has its 

 sources at no very great distance; the falls coming 

 witliin a Uiile or so of the Merrimack at only a few 

 miles above Newburyport and its mouth. This river 

 winds round behind Powow hill and another of the ob- 

 long prominences. The feeders of this stream arc 

 three ponds of several hundred acres each — the farther 

 pond within the limits of New Hampshire in iHfaovvn 

 of Kingston, another perhaps in Newtown, iMl the 

 third in Amesbury itself. The nearest of these jfcnds 

 has been purchased for flowage as a reservoir for w:i- 

 ter, which is generally abundant. 'Ihe drought of the 

 past suuniior is understood to have interrupted the op- 

 eration of the mills for several weeks; and the pur- 

 chaae and use of one or l>oth the other sources for 

 flowage would nuke the power ample at all times. 



