^l)c Jatmcr'g jHontli lu bisitciv. 



149 



The poet musl not plead Wis delicacy ol' or- 

 "gaiiizalioii as an excuse for dwelling apart in 

 trim gardens of leisure, and looking,' at the world 

 ofily tlirough the loopholes of his retreat Let 

 hini flnii; liiinself with a gallant heart, upon the 

 stirring life, that heaves and fo.uiis around hijn. 

 He must calllioine his iinagination li-oui those 

 spots on which the light of other days has 

 thrown its pensive charm, and he content to 

 dwell among his own people. The future and 

 the present nnist inspire hiin, and not the past. 

 He must transfer to his pictures the glow of 

 morning, and not the hues of sunset. He nuisi 

 not go to any foreign I'harphar or Ahana, for 

 the sweet influences which he may find in thai 

 fiimiliar stream, on whose lianUs he has played 

 as a child, and mused as a man. Let liini sow 

 the seeds of beauty along that dusty road, where 

 humanity toils and sweats in the sun. Let him 

 spurn the baseness which ministers food to the 

 passions, that l>lot out in man's soul the image 

 of his God. Let not his hands add one seduc- 

 tive charm to the unzoned form ol' pleasure, nor 

 twine the roses of his geifius around the revel 

 ler's wine cup. Let him minale with his verse 

 those grave and high elements befitting him, 

 around whom the air of fieedom blows, and 

 upon whom the light of heaven shines. Lot 

 fiim teach those stern virtues of self-control 

 and self-renunciation, of faith ami pr.tience, of 

 abstinence and fortitude — which constitute the 

 foundation alike of individual happiness, and 

 of national prosperity. Let hiju help to rear np 

 this great people to the stature and symmetry of 

 a moral manhood. Let him look abroad upon 

 this yoimg world in iiope^ai;d not in desponden- 

 cy. Let liiin not be repelled by the coarse sur- 

 face of material life. Let him smvey it with the 

 ))iercing insight of genius, and in the reconcil- 

 ing spirit of love. Let him find inspiration 

 wherever man is found; in the sailor singing at 

 the windlass ; in the roaring flames of the fur- 

 nace ; in the dizzy spindles ol the factory; in 

 the regular beat of the thresher's flail; in the 

 smoke of the steam ship ; in the whistle of the 

 locomotive. Let the mountain wind blow cour- 

 age into him. Let him pluck from the stars of 

 his own wintry sky, thoughts, serene as their 

 own light, lofty as their own (dace. Let the 

 I)urity of the majestic heavens flow into his soul. 

 Let his genius soar upon the wings of faith, and 

 charm with the beauty of truth. 



For the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. 

 The cultivation of hills and high grounds. 



It must he a mistake in any farmer to buy 

 more land while he leaves his highlands without 

 cultivation. The idea that these lauds are so 

 poor that they will not produce, is erroneous, for 

 wherever there is drpth of earth, be it any thing, 

 save rocks, there judicious cidtme will succeed. 

 In a wet season, the elevated ground produces 

 the best crops; no sur|)lus water remains to sat- 

 urate the roots, and keep the soil unfit to work, 

 and whatever is grown upon high land is apt to 

 be of superior quality, even timber. The green 

 grass is sweeter, the grain crops are generally 

 better, and so also are the roo.t cro|)S. If the 

 rains have in course of time swefit the fertility 

 from the surlace of our hills, and left them com- 

 paratively barren, this does not prove that if the 

 soil were good upon them, they would not pro- 

 duce ; it oidy proves that barren lean land is 

 alike every where. It is ihouglit a mistake, he- 

 cause the water runs from the high gromids that 

 they are liable to be too dry for cidlivatioii : this, 

 1 thiidt, is not the ease wliere they arc fertile, 

 as in the southern part of Ohio, where they ap- 

 pear to withstand drought very siiccessfidly, anil 

 as we have on an average more wet than dry 

 seasons, good high land in a majority of cases 

 appetirs to have the advantage. Wliat we may 

 put upon these elevateil spots is liable to be 

 washed down to lower situations, it is true; but 

 if those deposits are our own, do we not gain by 

 the temporary effects, and in two places instead 

 of one only ? 



Travellers in the East have reinarkeil the as- 

 tonishing fertility of the hills, although steepand 

 high. In the hot climati; of Syria they do not 

 ajjpear to suflVr more from drought than the 

 vallies below. They are, it is said, most fre- 

 quently wrought into terraces for the conven- 

 ience ol' laboi', and to hold the scanty rains that 

 may fall ; and to their very summits they are 



crowned with abundance. In this country and 

 in this moist climate there is no necessity to re- 

 sort to such e.xpedieuls. There is for the most 

 part abundance of rain, and wo recpiire only the 

 application of laimr and manure; a propitious 

 climate will do all the rest. It may be worth 

 our efforts, thai however steep our hills are, to 

 get them well set in grass. iMamire and plough- 

 ing will enable ns to'do tliis ; and when accom- 

 plished, for many years no belter, if as good hay, 

 will grow upon our firms. 



The advantage! of applying niaum'e to high 

 laiids may be dwelt upon a little furlher. When 

 we appiv a fertilizing application to our vallies 

 or low grounds, what is washed from them by 

 our heavy annual rsiins goes to the streiuiis and 

 is hurried away forever into the great aiul never 

 filled reservoirs of the rivers. Here we may 

 and do derive an advantage ; we reap the heavier 

 crop and are iiaid for our labor; but a portion, 

 and sometimes not a small one of tla; fertilizing 

 properties of the maimre is carried off; it enters 

 the great streams, iloes good to no one. and is to 

 the whole community capital destroyed. Not 

 so the manure we spread or work into our high 

 lands. Here it also acts, iind the portion dissolv- 

 ed by the laius is filtered, its essence arrested 

 in its downward progress -^o tliat the lower lands 

 receive those benefits that otherwise would be 

 lost; and the ap|dication of mamire to the best 

 advantage has ever been deemed of great im- 

 portance to the farmer; and does not this come 

 within the scope of one of them ? In the one 

 case we in some instances nearly lose our ma- 

 nure ; in the other we derive a double advantage 

 — high tmd low around both. 



MOUNT AIRY. 



We perceive our correspondent " Mount Airy" 

 labors under the same ideas of our mountain 

 ands. erroneous in some respects, as we did our- 

 selves, and as most persons do who have not 

 ooked as well upon their surliice as into their 

 very bosom : the truth is, that the best fertility 

 of all the alluvion upon our rivers comes down 

 from the mountains. Little need is there to 

 carry manure uj) the steep sides of our highest 

 hills to make them sufficiently fertile for all the 

 practical uses of the farmer. The mountains 

 are usually rocky; and after they are cleared the 

 best use to which they can be put is for rearing 

 our flocks and herds. There are no tat cattle 

 like those annually fed upon our mountain pas- 

 tures: the flocks of sheep that furnish the finest 

 wool of New Hampshire, ramble from May till 

 Novendier among the steep cliffs over the very 

 tops of ohl Kearsarge. Our Friend Sibley of 

 Hopkinton, who obtains, when the common fine 

 Merino wool sells from thirty five to forty cents, 

 a price for his Saxony wool that he "is not at 

 libcrly to name" — say seventy five cents to a dol- 

 lar—keeps his sheep in a pasture of his own 

 clearing in sight of his own premises, fifteen 

 miles from home upon the moiinlMins. 



At first, when we began to reidizethe strength 

 of ferlilily upon and around old Kearsarge, we 

 thought it iiecidiar to that particular moimtam. 

 Since that we have learned that there is no 

 mountain of all the Granile Hills, that is not ah- 

 sohuelv clear rocky ledge, which does nor pre- 

 sent fertility upon its sides and in its valleys 

 w herever a lodgment of earth can be made. 

 Another advantage of mountain ]iastures is, that 

 they are only reached by the longest and sever- 

 est "drought." Still another advantage these lands, 

 and all high hill lands possess, is that the frosts 

 seldom reach theiri so soon by from two to four 

 weeks in the latter end of the season as they do 

 in tin' plains and valleys below. Indeed in the 

 low pine country and in swamps surromuled by 

 Ifiyh mountains, the frosts sometimes cut off 

 vegetation in neat ly every month of the year, 

 while upon the inoimtains above the country is 

 exempted from frosts six mouths in a year. 



The striking charnctcristic. of the high moun- 

 tains <lifteriug from the common notion of ele- 

 valicuis and depressions is their great retention 

 of nioisuue .-.ml their greater humidity in all dry 

 seasons. Generally among the rocks pure streams 

 of crystaliue water ooze forth from their sides 

 near the very tops: within ;i very few feet of the 

 highest elevation of Mount Washington there is 

 a spring of pure water, and near its apex at an 

 elevation of nearly six thousand feet above the 

 tide water in sight, beyond the region of vegeta- 



tion, is a pure transparent pond, or lake, tiom 

 which, fed by subterranean springs among the 

 rocks, issues a <'<)n8tant streiun of water, rolling 

 over the cliff's below, sufliciem in the dryest sea- 

 son to carry the mai-hinerv of an extensive fac- 

 tory. A space of open ground nearly on a lev 1 

 with the lake, stretches out between Mount 

 Washington and the other eminences, coveted 

 with moss that makes it resemble a vast pasture: 

 travelling across this the tread is damp and wet 

 like that of a common cranberry meadow into 

 which the foot sinks at each successive step. 

 The clouds resting upon our high mountains of- 

 ten when it is fair weather below, indicate that 

 much more rain and snow falls there than upon 

 the grounds below. 



The rains in the course of time we do not 

 concede as having "swept the fertility trom our 

 hills," except when they so sweep off tin; soil 

 as to leave nothing hut hare rocks. Very soon 

 wherever there is a lodgment, the rock itself, 

 exposed to the atmosphere, becomes fertile soil ; 

 and it is Ibis principle that will forever make the 

 mountains above as well as the valleys below, 

 fertile. This fertility will differ according to the 

 natme of the rock : a limesione rock, or rocks 

 of secondary formation, will always produce a 

 more ready fertility ami sireiiyth of soil, than 

 the primary or granite rock. But as the substra- 

 tum for improve<l cultivation, after land has long 

 been used, we are inclined to the belief that the 

 granite and other hard faceil soils, as well as 

 the sandy light kinds that have tiillen from the 

 older moimtains, may be marie equally valuable 

 with the best limestone lands. Of this kinil is 

 the larger poriiou of our own old county of 

 Hillsborough, and the upper part of Middlesex 

 and Worcester counties on the side of the Mer- 

 rimacrk river declivity. That soil, together with 

 the Wachusett, Wetatick, and corresponding 

 ridges of mountains running up north in New 

 Hampshire, as valuable farming land, is equal to 

 almost any other in the best [lart of the United 

 States.— £(/. Fanner's Monthly Visitor. 



National Silk Convention. 



The following are tlie Resolutions adopted by 

 the hite Silk Convention, holden in the city of 

 New York : 



1. Resolved, 'J'hat ibc full establishment of the 

 Silk Business, as an integral |)tirt of the ordinary 

 industry of this country is tin object claiming the 

 early and high regard of every jjatriot and phi- 

 lanthropist. 



2. Resolved, That in the history of past expen- 

 inenls in growing Silk in the early settlements of 

 Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia, in Penn- 

 sylvania, Connecticut, and .Massachusetts, imme- 

 diately preceding the Revolution, and subsequent- 

 Iv and especially in the larger, more general and 

 more successful efforts of the jmst few years, we 

 have ample grounds for augmented confidence 

 in all the great principles on which the business 

 is based. 



3. Resolved, That in regard to all Agricultural 

 products, tiiere is a broad and well defined dis- 

 tinclion to be observed between transient and 

 permanent causes of failure or success— that the 

 permanent causes are soil and climate; and that 

 wherever the.=e are known to be fiivorable to any 

 such product, we should never he discouraged 

 by transient causes operating against success- 

 knowing that these causes o|iernte in like manner 

 in regard to all such products. 



4. 'Resolved, That as American Silk, in the 

 state in which the worm leaves it, has long been 

 known to be of fir.-t rale quality, it is iidequate 

 proof, lliat the soil and climate of our conniiy 

 are eminently congenial to its culium, inasmuch 

 as these two things are the permanent c:misi s 

 that control the quality of every Agriculiiiral [ rn- 



5. Resolved, That the Silk Culture demands 

 for its successful iiro.secmion, cssenii.illy i In- 

 same climate, and llie same kind of .-rasiuis, aid 

 the same kinds of upland soil as are required lor 

 Indian (^orn ; and, as the crop is sucesslully cul- 

 tivated in all the States ami Terrilories ol li.e 

 Union, there is nothing lo forbid, bnl every thing 

 to encourage, the coextensiv.' ciillivaiion ot ihe 



Silk crop. • » 



(i. Resolved, That ini..-imich as in America 

 and China, the mulberry iree is found in llie Na- 

 tive Forest, it is a manifest indication of Divine 

 Providence, that this Country, as well ns China, 



