77 



Patronize Practical Agricultural Papers! 



The Prairie F^arimer and the Ladies. Ii 



must be that we me in liivor, to some exirni 

 aiiioiif; tlie Indies. A ten mails since liroiiglit iiJ 

 t«o siil.srn|,ti.>t)s lioin tlie Kentlei sex : one of 

 them Slating that she preli^iie.l the lea.linsr oCsnch 

 papers to what are called ihe litera.v jonnials- 

 nrid hoie we liaveasnhsciiption lioii'i two men 

 who state that their wives luinish the money, in' 

 the hope o( makin;; tliem more .nlerprisiii" 'We 

 never flatter an.y body, especially woo.en-bnt 

 they eeitamly do know " what is what." 



Doing it right.— A slannch stock grower in 

 the cemie of the 8lale, haviofj snfl'ered his suh- 

 scripiion to jret in arrears for a couple of years, 

 now sends $,5 ,o pay for t»o years past and three 

 o come. 1 hat man has a heart and a conscience 

 hoth; and ihey are somevvhcie in the vicinilv of 

 each other, liesides. 



The Farmer's Monthly Visitor.— This is 



I'-'i,"*' ^."""" '"'I'"''' "'■ ""^ »^ell known Isaac 

 iJiM and bons, pid)lished at Concord, N. H We 

 had supposed it to have ^one the way of all Ihe 

 earth, tdl its reappearance on our tal.le a few days 

 SM,ce shoued that it had not only h.-ld on lo life 



MU that It had rejuvenated ^-really to its improve- 

 ment hoihmspi, it and i.|.pearaiice. It is puh- 

 lishe.l at /5 [50] cents per ann.im.-P,v,iV,e Farm- 

 er. 



Our Visitor is, or ought to he, quite as much a 

 favorite wiih the fair sex as the Prairie Farmer: 

 we intiy be an older, innn, and certainly we may 

 be, if we are not, as gallant a man as'ihe editor 

 ol the Prairie Farmer. The I.est of the fair love 

 not what is most showy, 1,nt what is most useful : 

 on this ground we claim that our Visitor should 

 l>e higher prized than any other New Hampshire 

 puhlicatioii. Indeed, our occupation and calling, 

 ill which every farmer's wilii and daughter is most 

 interested, is of that kimi that may make us a 

 welcome Visitor in any and every family where 

 all the other papers are taken and read. Of Ihe 

 whole lot, except there I.e some stirring news of 

 the hour, we dare he houiul the Visitor is the first 

 to he taken up and the longest to lie read. We 

 say this in confidence I.ecause there is now no 

 reading more interesting to us than the volumes 

 of the Visitor pul.lished Ibnr, five or seven years 

 ngo. 'Jhe paper saved afier it is read is worth 

 twice the price of the snhscription, not for what 

 we have written, hut for what good judgment has 

 extracted from the writings of others. We make 

 tlie ap[ieal to every friendly farmer lady who may 

 read this, not onlylhat she shall induce her hus- 

 band or son to continue the Visitor, hut that she 

 sliail ask all the neighhor ladies she best loves 

 and respects to induce their husbands and sons 

 likewi.se to subscribe for and take it. The n=ime 

 of any substantial farmer sent us hy a present 

 subscriber will assure the paper, nn.l the pay for 

 it may come along when it can be conveniently 

 forwarded— say a dollar for two years, or a larg- 

 er siim for any larger number of subscribers with 

 the <led<iction ivv the greater number always 

 niiwle, if paj<i witlijn tlie year. 



What our friend of the PraJri- Fanner at Chi- 

 cago says of us is said by every body that lias 

 read the Visitor. Better than that, we have heard 

 of su!)scribers worth their himdreds of thousands 

 and millions who from the reading of a single 

 number of our j.aper have sent oft' directly alid 

 purcliased all the hack volumes! 



^^anncr;0jHontljlp Visitor. 



Ibere late in May had not yet been ploughed. 

 VVitliin the last ten days a surprising " change has 

 come over our dreams": the growth of vegeta- 

 tion lias been rapi.l almost beyoiiil example. Nev- 

 er have we seen on the first day of June .so much 

 grass upon the ground as on our Merrimack river 

 intervales. The warm summer days, the genial 

 showers, the cooled atmosphere sometimes al- 

 most unpleasant, has each contributed its share 

 to hurst and expan.l the hu.hljng cerements and 

 promote a healthy grovMl, uf grass and grain. 

 Allhough we planted early potatoes last year full 

 a month .sooner than it was possible lo plant them 

 tins year, yet now our potatoes are more (i)rward 

 than they were then. A large fiart of the corn 

 lias been planted the last week in Alay.and is not 

 yet out of the ground ; hut it iscoii,ii.:r, the ear- 

 liest plaining promising no more llian the latest. 

 The rapid growth of vegeiaiion after our expand- 

 ed winter in a single week after the rains have 

 melted the ice and snow of the (brest mountains 

 >a the north, is a specimen of the usual quick 

 vegetation of northernmost Europe and Ameri- 

 ca : there is more heahh to plants in the rapid 

 vegetation of the norlhem :jone than in the slow- 

 er proee.ss of nature of the longer summer under 

 the equatorial climate. Every part of creation 

 by Its great Author is timed (or man's use who 

 iiihahiisall climates. 



round to one point the birds dropped into th 

 Hues: s..on they tumbled along in numbers re- 

 sembling the filling of potatoes from a cart « hilo 

 hllmg " '-"^ket. Thousands, .seemiiiglv sutiicient 

 to fi I the flues from top to boitom, entered the 

 norl h-ea.st chimney, when the ho.t tmned to the 

 north-west end and pouie.l down there. Wliere 

 >liey Slick themselves, or how H,ey contrive to 

 live and lodge together in stillness and peace af- 

 ter passing their points of entrance, we are in- 

 capable even to conjecture. They must, to live 

 together in peace, i.e better disposed than we 

 (ear may be the conflicting parlies which sum- 

 mer brings to the cai.ilal in each revolving sea- 

 son to act as representatives of the people: if 

 tliese htile animals do not jostle each other in 

 ilicir places, surely there seems to be no great 

 necessity for rational beings to contend for that 

 mastery which all could better enjoy while each 

 fills the place lo which the people assign him. 



Good Prospects of the Farmer. 



Three weeks later than usual up to about the 

 20ih May, to the farmers of this region every thin.' 

 looked unpropiiious: the frost threatened an in""- 

 vasiou of the sanciiiary of summer. There seem- 

 ed lo he no time left to plant, and of consequence 

 little prospect to reap in alier summer. We 

 found the season even more backward in the vi- 

 cinity of Boston than it was here: planting land 



It takes more than one Swallow to make a 

 Summer." 



Of the harmless and useful bini kind, we re- 

 gur<l the swallow, whose annual appearance de- 

 notes in this region the absence of (lost and the 

 return of summer. Of these there are several 

 kinds-ihe barn swallow who constructs its nest 

 with a kind of glutinous mud in the interstices 

 tind cornais of tlie roof limbersof some barn or 

 shed generally out of reach : another kind of 

 barn swallow builds upon the outside wiih plas- 

 tered mud under the eaves. Then there is the 

 bank swallow who nests in a burrowed hole of 

 sand or soft soil upon the river hank or other ex- 

 cavation of light soil : these we liave seen uiion 

 li.e Merrimack destroyed by the skunk who digs 

 down and attacks them in the rear, leaving the 

 (eatliers beside the numerous holes as evidence 

 of the cainiveroiis nature of one animal to de- 

 i^lioy and eat up another: the swallow destroys 

 myriads of flics, and the skunk destroys the 

 swallow. The chimney swallow diff-ers from the 

 bank swallow: "longtime ago." when a child 

 we have pitied the fallen young of the chimney 

 swallow just hatched, not knowing how they 

 might be saved. These take the unoccupied 

 flues of chimneys, generally in old houses. The 

 old fi.shioned flues, large and capacious, used to 

 he their favorite place of resort. The State 

 House In this village was erected from 18J6 

 to 1820. Several years since we observed that 

 the chimney swallow had made its home down 

 from the tops of the two north chimneys of that 

 granite structure. On Sunday evening, the last 

 in May, we saw a "sight surprising" of the fiimi- 

 ly leiiirn ivhich conies round a few days before 

 the annual silting of the Legislature. Just after 

 sundown, hovering like a swarm of bees and fill- 

 ing the air for several acres around a little higher 

 than these chimney tops, were many thousands 

 of these swallows: as if belonging to the same 

 specie.-, among their iiiuliiplied twitter was Ihe 

 sound now aiul then of the more domesticated 

 house marten. The flying in a coiiiinucd circle 

 continued for some twenty minutes or half hour 

 directly over our heads. Afier this the process 

 I of entering the chimney commenced: coiiiin.' 



V ALUE OF THE V.S.TOR.-A yoiiug gentleman 



o( B called on us the other day desirous to 



be authorized lo act as a travelling agent for our 

 paper. He had been at Boston and Lowell and 

 obtained un agency for one or more of the fash- 

 ionable ephemerals of those cities ; but he m=t 

 with poor success. He said almost every one who 

 bail known it,expre.ssed a liivorable opinim, of ti'j 

 Visitoi-,towbicli his attention had been first altrac- 

 ted by his farmer-neighborwho had .leclared him- 

 self to be at least five hundred dollars richer for 

 suggestions which he had obtained from this pa- 

 per. 



"Honored and blessed be the Evergreen 

 Pine." 



Working in a field directly on the bank of the 

 Merrimack in the last week of .May, our atten- 

 tion was particularly called lo the great amount 

 of lumber, logs, limber, boar.ls, planks, clap- 

 boards and shingles, which are floated down this 

 bltle stream in rafts. These rafts are construct- 

 ed in pieces which may be disjointeil just wide 

 enough 10 pass the canals, and the several pieces 

 are bound together in the larger body where they 

 liaveroom for tloating : they arc navigated by 

 two or three liands, according to the stale of the 

 water. A much greater quantity seems to be 

 floated on the river than in former times ; and 

 this too when the railroad carries down more or 

 less nearly every day in the year. The price of 

 all kinds of lumber has risen above Lowell (iom 

 one-fourth to one-tliird in the last two years. Be- 

 sides the lumber in rafts the river fiir the last forl- 

 niglii has been alive with the logs of Mcs.srs. • 

 Norcioss &. Fisk, some forty thou.sand of which 

 Ibey are this season bringing down fiom (iir iiiio 

 the mountains. These logs came all the way by 

 water from one of Hie head branches of the 

 Merrimack, some twelve miles above any settled 

 town ; they are mainly spruce, some of them 

 liaviug been cut two years ago. Nobody in Ibe 

 State ever dreamed, when the land was purchas- 

 ed of the Slate for a mere trifle, that the trees 

 upon it could be brought into any po.ssible use. 

 Yel by dams and sluices construeied at no very 

 great expense, the logs encounler less ohstrnc- 

 lions far up in Ihe mountains than they do at sev- 

 eral of the falls below. 



Jt has now come to be realized that standing 

 trees all along Ibe valley of the Merrimack are 

 very valuable. The original pines and oaks are 

 becoming more scarce: hundreds of acres have 

 been denmled of llieir noble growth when the 

 lumber in market had often filled lo pay exjien- 

 s*es for carriage lo market. Single acres of these 



