^{)t iavincr's iHontl)li) Visitor. 



157 



and other small fish, together with some large 

 sturgeons, were added to keep the shad compa- 

 ny. When we were there, milUons of young 

 tifh had been hatched out from tlie s|iawn, and 

 nil were doing well. We recommend these things 

 to the earnest attention of the pidilic. People 

 would add great variety to their I'ood by making 

 fish ponds on their farms, wherever they conid 

 be formed at a moderate expense. Those resid- 

 ing near towns might realize a considerable in- 

 come from these, in the sale offish, if they would 

 pay proper attention to them. 



3. Birds. — Here the birds are jjrotected, and 

 not a gun is allowed to be fired upon the preiui- 

 ses, nor anything else permitted to disturb them. 

 In consequence ol" this, they build their nests in 

 the shrubbery near the mansion, and are so lanje 

 as to allow one sometimes to catch them with the 

 hand. The beneficial result is, that they destroy 

 millions of insects, which tends greatly to pro- 

 tect the crops.. Uesides they cheer the residents 

 with their presence, and delight them with their 

 songs. It is true that they now and then lielp 

 themselves pretty bouiitilidly to fruit ; but what 

 of that.' — Should they not be paid for their la- 

 bors, and allowed a dessert after their insect re- 

 ])ast .' — lAIr. Pell calculates to have enough fruit 

 for hiuiself and birds too. We pity that person 

 who has no syui|iatliy for birds, ami who is too 

 churlish to protect thetn. When residing upon 

 our own tarin, the crows became so tame, in pro- 

 1 cess of time, as to come in troo|is into our gar- 

 den, and we never allowed them to be disturbed. 

 They did no iMJiiry to the corn or any thiiiir el.se 

 in it; but devniu'ed thousands of the cut worm, 

 and other insects injurious to the crops. We do 

 hope, if no other motive has weight with tlie 

 farmers, that their own interests will ultimately 

 prevail in causing them to protect the birds. 



Remarks of the Month! s' Visitor. 



1. Wfi recommend the soiling of milch cows to 

 those farmers who have not access to the best 

 pasttu'es, and especially to those living near our 

 villages, who keep one or more cows. The 

 means of soiling in abunrlarjce may be created 

 on a very small piece of ground — the manure 

 saved from yarded cattle will be sufficient to raise 

 the green crop on almost any kirjd of land. A 

 single acre of clover would be sufficient to keep 

 several cows, say from the middle of June to the 

 first of September ; but perhaps the better course 

 lor the requisite supply of green (eed is the sow- 

 ing or planting of Indian corn: it is said the 

 southern corn for this purpose is better than the 

 northern, the stalk growing larger and being 

 more juicy. 



Hon. B. V. French, one of the best amateur 

 farmers of Ulassachusetts, resides at Braintree, 

 ten miles out of Boston: he keeps fom'leen cows 

 for their milk which is daily carried to Postoji. 

 hi his case the whole rnilk of the )iiX'cedingday, 

 kept in fresh s[)riug water coolers, goes to market 

 at three o'clock in the morning as the early 

 breaktast supply for his customers. To feed his 

 whole stock of cows, Mr. French has only about 

 twenty acres of such summer pasture as is found 

 on the rocky bound .south shore of Massachu- 

 setts — land which has been pastured without 

 ploughing from one to two bundled years. He 

 keeps his cows upi[i the stable and yard during 

 the night and a considerable portion of the day, 

 throwing before them such green feeil as is read- 

 ily on baud. His cow stable is quite acmiosity — 

 it is so constructed as to leave the cow I'ree to 

 lie down or stand without dirtying the bag or 

 hips in the wet anddimg; these either fall or 

 run ofi'entirely out of the way, being pas.serl un- 

 der cover below. Another convenience in Mr. 

 French's stable is the introdinuion of (i'esh rim- 

 ning water by converting the beam in which the 

 uprights or standards are fixed over which the 

 cow reaches as she feeds into a trough from 

 which she may at all times be fnrifished with 

 drink — the w.ater being coudncteil through the 

 entire length of the st;dl,and the aperture through 

 which the animal drinks being just large enough 

 for the introduction of the nose. Mr. French al- 

 so finds a chea|> lijed lor the production of milk 

 in the wheat bran brought from the llour mil's 

 of western New York : this is procured at the 

 cost of from twelve to fourteen cents the bushel. 

 For the pmposes of such feeding each stall has a 

 convenient tronnh for one cow not to be inter- 

 fered with by its neighbor. 



In some few districts and villages it has be- 

 come the fashion to dc))end on the highway for 

 the ft!ediug of cows dm'ing the summer; the 

 thievish jiropensity ol' cows kept year after year 

 in this way enables some at length to get the great- 

 er part of their living winter and snnuner from 

 depredations in all the house and barnyards into 

 which they can steal. The laws of all the States 

 of New Knglaud make owners of such animals 

 accountable for damage done in any enclosure. 

 These cows a portion of the year find ft^ed by 

 the roadside ; but when they are numerous as in 

 some villages all the roads soon become nearly 

 as bare as a floor of boards. The cows must 

 steal or starve. The laws in Massachusetts in re- 

 lation to cattle are similar to those in New Hamp- 

 shire — no farmer there or here is obliged to fence 

 against the road. In the beautiful farming region 

 up and down Connecticut river it is (juite com- 

 mon on the travelled roads, without fence on 

 either side, to see fine fields of corn and other 

 vegetables growing, not a blade of vegetation 

 having been bitten or mutilated. In other neigh- 

 borhoods of that State where the market farmers 

 have really too little land to alibrd the pasture, 

 they keep one,two, or more cows constantly yard- 

 ed or stabled so that no Interloper from the high- 

 way is leared to destroy in an hour the best 

 growing crops. Indeed if cattle were suffered to 

 range so as to obtain access to the fine fruit orcdi- 

 ards which form no inconsiderable share of the 

 cultivated lands, the injury would be iitr greater 

 than payment for the whole cost of keeping. In 

 the town of Cambridge, Mass., there ;ire pretty 

 extensive tracts of open common lands in addi- 

 tion to the common roadside. Passing that town 

 in a sharp rain storm a short time since, we saw 

 near the (colleges a drove of some dozen or fif- 

 teen cows with a man sitting beside the road un- 

 der an open umbrella watching them ; and on 

 enquiry we found the owners of cows who kef)t 

 them oil the street were obliged by a law of the 

 village to pay for keeping them under a constant 

 watch. The laws of every , good neighborhood 

 require that no man should be allowed to turn 

 his cattle upon the public highway or other open 

 grounds who does not keep a constant watch 

 over them. The temptalion of growing crops to 

 cattle starving upon the highway is so strong that 

 the best wooden fences are no safe obstacle to 

 their de)iredations. Every industrious man who 

 occupies a single acre<d'land (and no man should 

 keep. a cow who has no land) may furnish the 

 means of green feed to his cow through the 

 summer, we believe at as little or even less e.\- 

 lieir.se than tlie hire of a pasture: a single cow 

 Well fed and kept up will give nearly double the 

 quantity of milk of those kept through the sea- 

 son on the feed of the ordinary pasture alone. 

 A constantly well fed animal is never nfischiev- 

 ous. To those villagers who kecj) cows we 

 would recommend soiling or feedirig willi green 

 feed which most ])laces though thickly setlied 

 have abuiidaiit means of furnishing. Jt has been 

 found good economy to give this additional Iticd 

 to cows kept princijially in pasture; and it will 

 be tcimid eipially good economy to feed the cows 

 ill the same manner which novv being turned on 

 the higliway rely mainly lor the (iied ujton dep- 

 redations on othei>' fields. 



Each country village will do well to have its 

 police regulation that any man having a litmily 

 may turn his cow upon the highway so many 

 hours every day to lie strictly watched — to be 

 yarded or stabled at all other times. The wel- 

 fare of the creature itself and the interest of iis 

 owner would be better consulted by sm.-h a 

 course. One man within our knowledge who 

 annually makes and sells butler from cows kept 

 upon the highway which liad often been detect- 

 ed in depredating upon fields of grain and corn, 

 has for one season entirely prevented those dep- 

 redations under the knowledge of the fact that 

 tlie peiialiies of the law would be enforced if the 

 depiedatioiis were continued. 



2. Artificial fish ponds constructed at any con- 

 sidiM-.-ible expense are among those expenditures 

 which thw common farmers can afford. A ma- 

 jority of our towns have beantifid natural lakes 

 and streams of water running into or out of them 

 abonuding in fish : our larger cold water lakes, 

 which from tlieir positions aflord pure living w;i- 

 ter to the larger rivers, abound iu one kind of 

 salmon trout weighing from one to six or eight 

 pounds: the numerous water brooks coming 



down from high elevations present a smaller sal- 

 mon trout, the most delicate and palatable of all 

 our fish. As a distinguishing point belween the 

 ponds running into the Connecticut and the Mer- 

 rimack and other streams on the easterly side of 

 New Hampshire, it has often been remarked that 

 while most of the latter had at first abundance of 

 pickerel, the former had none until they were 

 carried from one to the other. To the smaller 

 fish, the young fry es|jecially, the |)ickerel sup- 

 plies the place of the shark of the ocean : his 

 long and wide mouth and his sharpened teeth 

 prove his voracity. He jumps at his prey ; and 

 there is a tact of the angler of pickerel in hold- 

 ing and management of the rod which some can- 

 not understand. The last time of our fishing 

 some fifteen years ago, the man who accompa- 

 nied lis had not only frequent bites, but nearly 

 every bite brought in a fish, while we with dou- 

 ble the labor and nains could scarcely realize one 

 " glorious nibble' iu an hour, until we gave up in 

 despair all an^diug for pickerel. 



In the coustrn<-tion of artificial ponds, it might 

 be usefiil to know iu what kind of water the sev- 

 eral kinds of fish would be most at home. The 

 natural place for trout is in cold water — the gush- 

 ing of the cool spring, the cold, clear water from 

 the mountain top, is his natural element: the re- 

 sort of the pickerel, the perch, tlie roach, the 

 horned pout, the eel, and other common pond 

 fish, is in water heated in the sun, too warm and 

 insipid to be palatable for drink. AVill all the 

 kinds of fish live and flourish either in cuniiiion 

 warmed brook and pond water as well or better 

 than in the pond formed from cold spring water? 

 At the foot of the extended pine plain on the east 

 side of the Merrimack op|josite this village, are 

 several gullies lijrmed by the water i tinning for 

 ages to the lower intervale: some of these gul- 

 lies have been formed through sand — others 

 through clay approximating more or less to sand. 

 In some of them where there is a clay substra- 

 tum Cold springs ooze out at an elevation of 

 twenty or thirty feet above the valley, and only 

 some ten or a dozen feet below the upper level. 

 In one of these gullies iiidiedded deeply iu rich 

 black mud which we have receiilly partially clear- 

 ed, into which no stream of vvaler runs from 

 above ground, the usual quantity of water oozing 

 out" of fissures in the hill and irom beneath the 

 surface at the higher part never ceases to run. — 

 When the wells and springs on the west side of 

 the river have almost exclusively given out — 

 when nearly all the small brooks- were dry — we 

 have observed of this gulley that the water con- 

 tinued to run iu quantity even griialer than the 

 discharge of streams on which permanent saw 

 and grist mills had been erected. VVe had thought 

 that this our valley, which in the course of half 

 a dozen years |iast we have often cositemjilated 

 as the miniature picture of the larger river, 

 crooking its way through the mountains, would 

 be a most delighllur place lo construct several 

 artificial fish ponds. Tlie side springs Ibrming 

 each for itself its valley, leave near the point of 

 confluence ample room for the pond before the 

 water reaches the main stream, so that successive 

 ponds might be constructed each below the other. 

 We are not able to expend money on uncertain 

 experiments, nor should we do justice to our 

 own purse to construct fish puiiiis: other men 

 with better fiirtune could afford it. But if we 

 had the ability, we would not only make fish 

 ponds in this valley, but we would show as good 

 and profitable cultivation in the same valley and 

 on the pine lands which surround it as can be 

 found in the vicinity. For the last three year.s 

 the lc>u<'r valley lias furnished the rich material 

 for ne.-uly one half of the manure we have used. 

 We might here in a few years present triiit trees 

 and garden proilnctions such as we hope to see 

 common iu this vicinity. If we had health and 

 leisure and money enough to dispense with cares, 

 to spending a life of idleness we would preltM' the 

 occupation of raising large crops whc'ie none 

 have beliire grown — of making l;uge improve- 

 meuls at a small expense — of taking a lot of land 

 like that of onr gulley at the appraisal of fiiir 

 men — five dollars the acre — collecting and gath- 

 ering from it first wood and timber worth as it 

 stood more th;m twenty dollars the acre, and ma- 

 king crops afterwards upon the same land fiilly 

 as large as arc commonly ))rodnced from land 

 uliicli costs one hundred ihdlars. In five years 

 from this time upon that lot if the editor could 



