<gl)e laxmn's MXonim Visitor. 



73 



some gardeners leave weeds about their favorite 

 pl.inls in order to feed this worm. 



Belbre the sun or tlie fjaidcner risPB, llie cut- 

 worm buries himselC close by the plant that be 

 has felled, to ihc depth of an inch, and more; 

 there he lies (pjietly till evenini;, when he crawls 

 to the next idaiit for liis next supper. If you 

 have a injrsery row of peach or cherry trees 

 ten inches apart, and no weeds bi'tween, he will 

 advance re^ndarly and fell a Iree each niybt till 

 the trees have ^mowu loo liard forhitn. You will 

 then find some of them half eaten oft" and left 

 so. 



One mode of deslroyinfr the cut « orm isto watch 

 your drills early in the morning', and wherever 

 you find lie bas felled a tree, dif; down and find 

 him near the root. You then put him on a hoe 

 or a stone and criisli him with your foot, — trcad- 

 iuf,' on him in the dirt will not "kill him. Cnnin{r 

 in two, or cultinfj oft" bis head will answer when 

 you have a proper implemewt handy. 



Some <;uard their tiivorite plants by |)lacin^' 

 cncniar birch barli around each one, two inches 

 high. Strips ol' board placed on each side of 

 the drills will iruard against such as are not fenced 

 ill with the plants. 



It would be a t'ood plan to have burnl earth to 

 sow plants in that are so agreeable to the cut 

 worm as the young cherry and the young ))eacli 

 tree. It is well known tliat cabbage plants suc- 

 ceed best on ground that bas bad brush burnt on 

 it. Burnt earth might be placed between strips 

 of hoard set edgewise, and not many cut worms 

 would trouble the gardener in this space. This 

 may possibly bo chea[ier than to place a wall of 

 birch bark, or of tin, around each plant.— .l/oss. 

 Ploughman. 



mBM:^ 



MJMSM^ 



CONCORD, N. H., IVUY 30, 1846. 



Railways and the Merrimack Valley. 



In the passage liom the great focus of northern 

 trade and commerce in New England, the city 

 of Boston, to the north and noiihwest toiichin" 

 the St. Lawrence and the Lakes from which it 

 issues, the immediate valley of tlie iVlerrimack 

 for more than fifty miles will have the advantage 

 of every other railway route. Ullimately the 

 railroads and their branches must pursue the 

 natural valley which present but a shade of high- 

 er elevation lower down than Lowell, and con- 

 nect with that road which strikes the new city at 

 Aiidover Bridge. This culling off might shorten 

 the distance eight or leu miles— an object which 

 must force the making of the road wiihin the 

 next five years. Already this road maybe said 

 to exist from Boston to the new city: the great 

 corporation there could afford of itself to pay the 

 cost of making it eight miles further towards us 

 by the lessened expense of transport to their 

 granite ledges in Pelhain. Instead of treating 

 this way as a rival, the Concord railroad cor[)ora- 

 tion should at once make it a branch of their 

 own road from IManchester or llooksett to the 

 Massachusetts line. The Concoid railroad stock. 



now higher than any other slock in the market, 



can aft'ord to do this ; and the application of ihe I 'he huge wildcat in the corn bin, is still standing. 



at Fisherville whero the foundation of a large 

 factory of some ("our hundred feet in length is 

 under way. This last village covers the lidls of 

 the Contoocook half a mile to a mile above its 

 mouth, where the Northern railroad passes out 

 of Concord into Uoscawen. 



When we witness how much bas been done 

 within Ihe limits of Concord in constructing the 

 Northern railroad vviihin a few days, we are sur- 

 prised at Ihe ease with which great obstacles are 

 encounleied, and the shortened time in which a 

 great work may be accom|)lished. The work of 

 years seems to be compressed into the space of 

 an eipial number of weeks— rivers are turned 

 and made more direct in their courses ; and high 

 banks and hills are turned into the more con- 

 venient and least expensive material for laying 

 Ihe level embankment which leaves the travel 

 high and dry above the rising of waters at the 

 lowest points. 



The fllerrimack river, commencing south at 

 the mouth of Suncook on the east side and ter- 

 niin-itiiig north at the mouth of the Contoocook 

 in a direct line eight miles within the limits of 

 the town, in its wanderings through the intervales 

 makes more than twice that distance. The rail- 

 way pursues its course all the way on the west 

 side where the width of the town is cut off to 

 the distance of nearly two miles less than upon 

 the easterly side to which a gore of land Ims 

 been added. The distance run over by the road 

 within the limits of the town will be about eight 

 inil.'s, from necessity being obliged to encounter 

 several bends and angles. Of this distance, two 

 miles on the south side terminates the Concord 

 railroad in the village — six miles north will com- 

 mence the Northern railroad on its way to Con- 

 necticut river. 



The opening of this line all the way through 

 from south to norih will present the noble town 

 of Concord in an aspect to which even its native 

 and more familiar inhabitants are strangers. The 

 riidi intervales of the town will come into view 

 in their whole extent : a great portion of these 

 is concealed from the view on the usually travelled 

 roads. 



Last year, for the first time in a residence of 

 thirty-six years, we visited the intervale farms 

 n|)on the five hundred acre grant called the Se- 

 wall farm. This land was taken up by the Mas- 

 sachusetts Governor Endicott about the year 

 I7G4, more than sixty years before ihe first settle- 

 ment of the town, anil was sought out in the then 

 unfrequented wilderness on account of ils |ie- 

 culiar fertility and beauty. Fronting this farm 

 and tlirectly east of the west village of the town 

 is Sewall's island, fordable in low water from the 

 east side of the Merrimack. Long after the 

 Sevvall farm had been settled, Sewall's island, 

 purchased for a Irifie, was cleared and cultivated, 

 owned as joint properly by the late John Bradley 

 and Jonathan Eastman, Esquires: the old barn 

 with lis split hardwood shingles, in which the 

 former gentleman |ier(ormed the feat of choking 



directors of this road wiih a bona fide [iledge to 

 carry the work into immediate effect would un 

 doubledly receive the favorable consideration of 

 the present Legislature. 



We have great eslablishments growing up on 

 the Merrimack valley that are .scarcely taken into 

 account. Preparaiions of watec power and build- 

 ings at the village of Suncook six miles below 

 us are going on which will make a town thereof 

 the size of Nashua and Nashville. Preparations 

 are making also near the north line of Concord 



Its extraordinary fertilily lieing supposed exhaust 

 ed and inaccessible to the ready conveyance of 

 manures, the island was recently purchased for 

 a trifle. Its present ow ner, Mr. Clough, had been 

 taking steps for bringing ils latent properties into 

 action, and is likely lo succeed in restoring its 

 great feriilily. Who of the few besides the own- 

 ers who have visited this sequestered spot, in- 

 cluding the river men who gather the logs scat- 

 tered while passing the falls above, at seasons 

 when the river is highest — who of these would 



have dreamed il.at Sewall's island in nearly its 

 whole lengih was to he ma.ie the great highway 

 over which millions on millions of merchandize 

 and countless myriads of human beings and ani- 

 mals of the bruie crBaiion— perhaps large armies 

 engaged for offence and delence— were to pass 

 to and fro with the celerity of the wind ! As late 

 as Ihe summer of last year, conjecturing wliat 

 this beautiful island had been and what it might 

 be made, the thought did not even then enter the 

 mind of the writer that so soon it was to be put 

 to the use for which the ground has been broken 

 The railroads on either hand coming into this 

 village pass where the Iruckway and the engines 

 and cars can he of the least annoyance. They in 

 terrupt none of the travelled roads passing out of 

 town from a line nearly due east round to a point 

 very near north. The avenues to the Federal 

 and Free bridges, (if the latter is rebuilt,) at the 

 north-east will alone be passed going out of town 

 by roads over the surface of the track ; and both 

 of these, if it shall be found necessary, can easily 

 be -bridged over the railroad passage. 



The Concord railroad, as we have said, covers 

 the distance within the limits of Concord, enter- 

 ing the town about one hundred rods north of 

 Turkey river, just above Garven's and against 

 Turkey falls, upon the farm of Col. John Carter. 

 With the limits of the town commence the beau- 

 tiful intervales all the way through its whole ex- 

 tent—land, when it was first opened, of the most 

 extraorctiitary fertility, much of which has ex- 

 pended its strength in hundreds of exhausting 

 crops— some of it made fertile in sjiite of bad 

 husbandly by the richness which comes down in 

 successive overflowings— all of it beautiful even- 

 in its present state, and destined together within 

 the succeeding ten years to yield at least ("ourfold 

 ils present annual production. 



In its meanderings through the town at several 

 points Memimack river is anuiially altering ils 

 bed. A single considerable change in the river 

 above changes the force of its attacks upon the 

 banks below. Against the village much of the 

 way since we first knew it, thirty-seven years ago, 

 the bed of the river has changed nearly equal to 

 its own width of about twenty-four rods, takin" 

 off from the westerly or village side and adding 

 to the Middle Intervale nearly the whole distance. 

 Our own , premises on the west side, for some 

 hundred rods, is in the progress of diminution ; 

 and more than the same distance iqion our Ferry 

 plain lot on the east side below, the bank of 

 richest soil, to Ihe depth often or fifteen feet, 

 fell oft" the present spring more than a rod. So 

 that the rule will not apply to us of gaining on 

 one side what we lose on the other- Ihe river is 

 invading our soil upon boih sides for the benefit 

 of " annexation" lo our ueigbbors upon the other 



The invasions of the river into the higher banks 

 along the line of the town in several places, all 

 of which will be seen from the railroad track, 

 are quite a curiosity. Here it brings down earlhy 

 matter in tire falling bank of seventy-five to a 

 hundred feet, invading Ihe surfice with the same 

 fiicility as it does that of the lower banks, and 

 leaving as a foundation as the higher bank re- 

 cedes a larger margin to the lower intervale. 

 The excavation is caused by springs of water 

 near the bottom loosening many successive strata 

 of different soils over it, the whole falling off"and 

 passing into and down the stream. Much of this 

 falling strata possesses fertilizing qnaliiies hardly 

 less than the best of manures. Laid upon the 

 intervales in rich sediment it makes the place of 



