1858. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



189 



Away up on the left of this way, as you go 

 from the Baths to Leak, is a small village, on a 

 mountain, where amid a fine tract of pasturage, 

 and some good tillage, there is a population of 

 several hundred. These villagers have no means 

 of reaching the Baths, which are much resorted 

 to by invalids, and tourists in summer, and of 

 course, furnish a good market, — by any highway, 

 without descending a steep path, and going up 

 many miles by the carriage-way. 



About two miles, however, from the Baths, is 

 a precipice, several hundred feet in height, up 

 the side of the mountain where the village is 

 perched, and to save distance, ladders have been 

 placed up and down this precipice, which is nearly 

 perpendicular, and the villagers use them as their 

 common way to and from the market at the 

 Baths. We went to the foot of the ladders. 

 The first one goes up, perhaps, thirty feet, and 

 then there is a resting-place on a cliff. Another 

 goes twenty or more feet to another landing on 

 the natural rock, and so on, it is said, several 

 hmadred feet. And up and down these ladders, 

 by day and by night, all the people of the village, 

 young and old, male and female, carry their fruit 

 and fowls and other products of their farms, and 

 their purchases at the shops at the Baths. 



We saw an old man and boy with large bas 

 kets of sticks, that had been gathered in the 

 wood at the foot of the ladders, and which they 

 were carrying up the ladders to their houses on 

 the top, to use for fuel. They strap these bas 

 kets on to their backs and shoulders, so as to use 

 their hands on the ladders, going up and down 

 with their faces towards the wall. Nothing on 

 my whole journey has given me such an impres- 

 sion of utter poverty, as this poor old man and 

 boy, climbing those hills in this way, with a few 

 sticks not worth the picking up at the door in 

 our country, spending all their day, probably, for 

 a single armful of fuel. 



Winding along down to Leuk, through a 

 strangely picturesque route of mountains and 

 gorges, now on the brink of a gulf a thousand 

 feet deep, and now in a tunnel through a rock, 

 doubling backwards on our course to follow the 

 mountain stream which we crossed several times, 

 on beautiful bridges, we came to one of the great 

 roads constructed by Napoleon, over the Alps, 

 called the Simplon Road. It leads from Valais 

 to Piedmont, connecting Switzerland with Italy, 

 is thirty-six miles in length and twenty-five feet 

 in width, and is a good carriage way, over a 

 mountain pass more than ten thousand feet high. 

 It leads over steep precipices, through galleries 

 hewn in the solid rock, across mountain torrents, 

 by bridges, and is altogether one of the greatest 

 wonders of human labor and energy. 



We struck this road near the river Rhone, 



which we followed along for many miles. The 

 general aspect of the valley of the Rhone is bar- 

 ren, but the hills are covered with grapes grown 

 on terraces, wherever the exposure to the sun 

 permits their culture. I counted on some of 

 these hills, which may perhaps be called moun- 

 tains, forty terraces, rising one above another. 

 There are also good fields of Indian corn, the 

 best I have seen in Europe. At Sion, some 

 twenty miles from the Baths, we stopped to dine. 

 As we entered the hotel, we noticed a peculiar 

 and disagreeable odor, and while waiting for din- 

 ner, we several times closed the door to exclude 

 this strange perfume. At dinner, among other 

 delicacies offered us was chamois, a dish which 

 we all wanted to try, because chamois are pecu- 

 liar to the Alpine regions, and considered a great 

 delicacy. The chamois came on the table, and it 

 required no organ but that of smell, to satisfy 

 us that we had been on scent of that game since 

 we first entered the hotel. The chamois was or- 

 dered off untasted. 



However, in justice to this beast, it should be 

 said that a day or two after, at Chamouni, we not 

 only tasted chamois, but found it an excellent 

 dish, and our conclusion is, that the chamois at 

 Sion died about a month sooner than he ought 

 to have died in order to be in good condition for 

 our table^ We saw wine for laborers advertised 

 here at Sion, at six cents a bottle, a price, by the 

 way, that need not surprise us when we remem- 

 ber that good cider is often sold in New England 

 at two dollars a barrel, Avhich is about six cents 

 a gallon. 



After riding forty-five miles to Montigny we 

 walked nearly five miles and back to see the 

 Pissbach Falls, said to be very beautiful, and 

 found them not half so well worth seeing as Mr. 

 Lowe's factory dam at Exeter, in a freshet. The 

 great difficulty with all the cascades and cataracts 

 hereabouts is, that they have not any water, ex- 

 cept in the spring. And this brings us to another 

 mountain pass, over which we will journey in my 

 next letter. Yours, H. F. Fkexcii. 



Wintering Lambs. — The food and treatment 

 applied to calves will succeed equally with lambs. 

 If they get ticks upon them, Scotch snuff distrib- 

 uted along the back, by opening the wool, and 

 rubbing it well in, will destroy the ticks. Do not 

 crowd too many lambs together, and be careful 

 to separate the strong from the weak. All ani- 

 mals are selfish, and have no sympathy for their 

 inferiors. The larger, of whatever kind, will over- 

 run the smaller, drive them from their food, and 

 starve them out altogether. Old or weakly sheep 

 may be wintered in the same stables or sheds 

 with lambs ; for, if the old sheep be larger and 

 stronger, the lambs are spryer, and can better 

 dodge about them for their food. They all re- 

 quire fresh air, and plenty of it. Dry cold never 



