c 



74 



QL\)c jTarmcr's iHcintl)lij Visitor. 



ju^i ' ^jim i j.mmj.nJ m MuJu i u ■ ■ w.Jh i A*.t*^f i 



its lle|)o^iill^ ;i [ier|>etiiiilly rich hc'iiiiii; fitld. In 

 some li;inl;.-< the ijiciilpi- poiiion of smikI wnslicd 

 down Ijelbre ii reafliiMl tlie livev, wlieie lliere 

 >viis a cliuiicc for it U> sjiriiii; up, wc Imvc nicn- 

 siircd lliK liniotliy mid it'd-to|) stiuuliii;.' live and 

 six feet lii-jli. 



Coining into the village liy riiiiroiul, the sti an- 

 ger in the vt-rnal season has the view on the east 

 of the widened intervale, with now and then its 

 tall and stately elms and its variegated fields of 

 grass and grain on the one hand, and the dozen 

 spires and cnpolas of its churches and puhlic 

 buildings on the other. The railroad keeps the 

 lower valley of the river; and this ronle, all of 

 lis have learned not without some surprise, has 

 heen chosen as the hest and chea|.'est of ron- 

 etrncliun, as it certainly is most level and direct 

 in its course. The cost of excavation of the 

 Concord railroad all the way on the river bank 

 was the merest trifle compared with that of the 

 railroads thron{;li iidj;es and ledges in other 

 pans of New England. In its first six miles 

 nhove the depot, the Northern railroad, we lie- 

 lieve, will tiot encounter a single ledge. The 

 hetter hanks for excavation, in the eating out of 

 which the cle|)hant engine makes no hones, are 

 the hardy strata of clay marl. The rapidity with 

 which the horse cars, travelling on rails laiil over 

 the track already raised, fill up the ravines and 

 raise the whole to its proper level, astonishes the 

 hundreds of spectators who cojiie to see this 

 great work. 



Passing along the whole extent of the village, 

 the excavation and filling seems to have heen 

 barely the work of a week. At the North end, 

 beyond the Walker harn, the purchase of some 

 half a dozen acres at one hundn^d dollars the 

 acre, witli the excavation of six or eight feet, 

 leaves the land for future cuhivalion ahout as 

 good as ever, and furnishes the ground necessa- 

 ry to pass " Horse-shoe poml," contracted since it 

 was formerly a part of the liver itself into nar- 

 rower dimensions. From this point on almost 

 an air line, we trai-e the road iK.'arly filird in over 

 Walker's island hy the foot and inio the h;.nk of 

 Paradise hill, which has furnished food for the 

 excavator, all the way eaten through in ihe last 

 six weeks. Here the road meets its most |iow- 

 erful obstacle in the eddy which divides the 

 island from the Farniiin intervale, the river turn- 

 ing .short, and making its way into Italllesnake 

 granite U'dge as far as the rocks will suflier it lo 

 intrude. The whirl of the eihly comes here di- 

 rectly in contact wiih the rights and privileg'.'s 

 of the railroad, boring into the ground to the 

 water's depth of tliiriy to (ijrty feet, and threat- 

 ening with the ice lieslie's to undermine the 

 strongest granite structure. Natiiie si^enis to 

 have designed the very thing which the 

 railroad shall eflectually use to (irotect itself at 

 this jioint: it is the granite ledge of old Katlle- 

 enake, wilhiii the distance of onc-Courth of a 

 mile, down which a railway may he constiiuMed 

 to transport to the main road, the most pure and 

 heautiful granite which has yet heen fi>uiid for 

 ornamental liiiilding in the I'niied i^ta"s. 'I'he 

 eddy presents a ditlicnit |ioijit lor llie woiks to 

 stand in the deeply excavated sami ut the hottorn 

 of the river. It is believed that a lari-'e embed- 

 ded frame work at the hotlom sunk hy the wc-i^'ht 

 of rocks fastenc'' with clamps — to he succeeded 

 with one or more layers of wood and rock alter 

 iiately, may make the work perfect and enduring 

 for many years. 



Tiie eddy is of short distance, perhaps not 

 greater ihnii the width of the river, lerving 



which, the road soon enters on the north a 

 hank similar to that on the south tiom whose 

 excavation for about n mile noith over the inter- 

 vales of the Farlium, Abbot and Town farms, 

 the filling in is made of (rom five to fifteen feet, 

 passing the large brook which is mainly formi'd 

 by the stream issuing from the Long I'niid at ihe 

 west of the Rattlesnake hills. Around this |iond 

 are some of the best farmers and finest larms in 

 the town — men who havi; dug their five, ten and 

 twentv thousand dollars <int of the hard earth, 

 some half a dozen of w hose heiuitifnl barns re- 

 cently erected, with the hay, gr.iin and stock to 

 fill them, might be presenled as a model to th(! 

 farmers of any part of the comitry. 'I'he posi- 

 tion of the Etrcam furnishing a valuable water 

 power at the west village belo\\', to the river 

 bank, is such as we had not expected, although, 

 on reflection, it is not unlike the Bow brook and 

 other streams that used lo rim near the first bank 

 above before entering the i iver. The Long pond 

 brook, as we saw it last Monday, was a curiosi- 

 ty : it was not broad, but deep, a large (piantity 

 of water rnmiing with great swiftness — hugging 

 itself towards the inner bank, and running al- 

 most down to Farniini's edily, half way lo this 

 village, before it takes its turn into the river. — 

 Judging from the turns at the place where we 

 scanned it, this swift river might run the distance 

 of four or five miles to arrive at the point of a 

 mile and a hallj at the nppcu- eiid of which it 

 might get lo tlie river by a direct course of a few- 

 rods. 



From this intervale, higher at the bank of the 

 river than in Ihe rear track of the rnniiing brook, 

 the railway passes over to Sewall's island, along 

 which by means of dams, the whole current is to 

 be changed to the castrrn side, with a filled up 

 way or bridge, p-issiug on and off over w hat i3 

 now the main current of the river. 



Between the island and Sewall's falls, for two 

 miles above we have not visited. Wo under- 

 stanil the road passes this distance wilhout any 

 great obstruction, slighlly rising so as lo he even 

 with the levc I above the liills. The falls are 

 partly one side of a tongue of intervale, making 

 nearly a mile on cither side, called tioodnin's 

 point. 'J'he land here, at ils westerly end, is 

 producing one of those excavations into the 

 higher plain above, which we have beltiro men- 

 tioned. The ri\er has dashed in and torn do.vn 

 several rods iliniiig the past winter, carrying 

 thoiisan<ls and thousands of cart-lo.ids of sand, 

 liut liuinun hands, for the purpo.-ie ol' the rail- 

 road, are about lo si.iy the further excavation by 

 damming up and liirning the course of the river. 

 An e.\cHva'iou near the roots of this tongue, 

 made last lidl, it was exjiected, wmdd do the 

 work in the first (ieshet ; but the freshest bidpcd 

 not to widen the chaimel. The river kept on in 

 its course. Now a dam is comni'-nced, and the 

 channel is digging deeper, so that filling up and 

 a slight bridged water coui'se, will eiuiblo the 

 road to pass in a direct line on and off of the 

 present easterly side, with the current of the 

 river removing the tongue of some hundred 

 acres lo the west side. 



From this last crossing Ihe railway has ils 

 course ihrough llie extensive intervale compo- 

 sing the great farm ol' the late Nalhaiiiel liolli', 

 renii'inbered by us as one of her highly paliiotic 

 and valued sons during and since the war ol 

 181'-^, which farm i.s in the ownership and occu- 

 pancy of his surviving son, daughter and grand- 

 children. It includes a part of the most valuable 

 water privileges upon the Contoocook for a mile 



from its mouth, and the celebrated Dustin island 

 al Ihe mouth of the same river. 'i"he tempt- 

 ing lumbering btisiiip.sp, pursued at the present 

 time by this enterprising lliiiiily, keep/S back 

 those improvemenis to which the easy and e.x- 

 cellent soil and posiiion of their gre.it fiiriii 

 invtis them. Their water privileges, their great 

 inlcrvale turn, their lots of wouil ami timber in 

 the rear, and their almost unoccupied grounds 

 being the poi t where a numerous population as 

 maniifacturipg operatives must find houses of 

 resilience — make this the germ of a fuiure 

 property worth many ihoiisauds. 



From their i;ronnd at the coiifinence of the Cmi- 

 toocook with the IMcrrimack the railroad leaves 

 the town of Concord, from whence through the 

 whole extent of the easterly Hue of Boscaweii 

 it pursues ils course to the village of Franklin, 

 wl'.eru Ihe river Peiuigewasselt from the north 

 meets the bcautifiil Wiimepisseogee fioin the 

 northeast. At Franklin bemling fuiiher to ihc 

 north west the railroad pursues through Anilover, 

 D.nibury and Grafton a succession ol" valleys iin- 

 lil it gains the summit level in Orange where 

 there is the nalural ciuiosiiy of a dry well bored 

 into the rock some ten or twelve leet, showing 

 clearly before the present recedingof the waters, 

 that, bofore flowing to the ocean ihrough thn 

 Connecticut river, they were once discharged 

 ihrough ihe Slerrinmck valley at this point |)er- 

 liap.s lower than any other point yet discoveriil 

 southerly in the great backbone ridge between 

 the two rivers. 



Aoaicui/ruRAL Societies in Massaciiosetts. 

 — There are now ten agricultural societies in this 

 Commonweallh, viz: the iMasSachuselts, (;:^iale) 

 iiicor|H)raled in ]7'J2; the Aliddlesex Husband- 

 men and Alaunfacuncis, in li?0;!; the Berkshire 

 in 181 1; ihe Ibimiisliin-, Franklin and Hampden 

 in 1818; llie Woicesler iii 1818; the Essex in 

 J818; Ihe I'lymoiilh in 181!) ; the Bristol m I8*t; 

 the Hampden in 1844, and the l<urnslable in 

 18-14. These Socieiies ha\o received iVoin the 

 Slate, since their fiiundalion, .•?! I.^Slii 61, as 

 bounty or encouragemenl, and to bi;expendeil in 

 premiums or otherwise applied for the improvc- 

 lueiit of agricullnrc. 



Washing Sheep. 



'Ibis is a branch of sheep economy wliicli is 

 w holly indispensable. 



The careless and sloven manner wilh which it 

 is performed by l!ie ^'ii.'at majority of .American 

 wool-growers, calls hir severe rejirehensioii : the 

 evil consecpiences resuliiiig liom it, however, are 

 ilillicled mostly upon iheuisidves. 



'Ihe most suilable lime depends upon the lati- 

 tude and siason ; the laller causing siunelime.-, 

 in the same localiij, a considerable variation, .\t 

 all evenis, ihe flock-master must be sure of ono 

 thing, namely, that the water and weather are 

 cnuipar.itively warm. The violation of this is 

 very cmnnioii, which is exceedingly cruel and in- 

 huuiaue, anil often exposes shiM'p lo disease. 



The day selected should be one ofsimshiue 

 if pos-'ilile; and as this work in the Norllicrn 

 and Middle 8iaIe-< is cumtnonly altendtil tofiiuii 

 the lOlli to ihc- V.'5lh of May, it will rarely be the 

 case, al ihai s.'ascni, ihat the waiter will he of ihe 

 rinlil leiiiperaluie before nine or ten o'clock in 

 the uiorniug; aiirl when ouly a few sheep are lo 

 be washed, II wdl In- heller generally to delay it 

 nnlil Ihe allernoiui. 



If the 'washing can be conducted immedi.ately 

 after a warm rain it will bi^ ea>ier, the elfccl of it 

 being lo solien and loosen the <liit; in this event, 

 the yeai lings should be selecled first, as they are 

 generally the filthiest. 



'I'lii' lloik-masier sliouhl always be present; 

 ami if h<^ does not possi-sstbe physical ability or 

 inrliiKiIKiu to " bear a hand," he should at least 

 see that every thing goes olf properly, and iscuu- 

 diicted on "temperance principles," lur rum has 

 done its full share of mischief on such occasions. 

 lie should be proviiled with a pair of shears, 

 and if any dung loi'ks are seen, ihey should be 



