1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



395 



with the wisdom of the age, and his profession will 

 honor him; and those who confine themselves to 

 the old ruts of a past dark age, will soon sink in- 

 to mere drudges, and let themselves out for half 

 pay. May the swarthy cheeks of the New England 

 farmer be always united with the honest civility 

 of a country gentleman, and while his hard fist 

 embiemizes his robust manhood, may his intelli- 

 gent speech prove him a worthy citizen of a free 

 republic, and his wise conduct set an honest ex- 

 ample to the generation that will follow him. 



For the New England Farmer. 



NOTES FROM MAINE. 



Mr. Editor : — I came from Northampton to 

 Augusta on the Kennebec, on the 7th and 8th of 

 July, and after remaining there twenty days, and 

 making some excursions into adjoining towns, I 

 came in a carriage to this place on the coast, through 

 Wiscasset, July 28th. 



The wet season has been very injurious to hay in 

 this State, and much has been damaged, and some 

 entirely spoiled. Hay i? the great crop of the 

 towns on the Kennebec, and of other parts of Maine. 

 About Augusta, when I arrived there, extensive 

 fields of herds-grass were seen in every direction, 

 and mowing had just commenced. Mingled with 

 the tall herds-grass, were in many fields clover, po- 

 apratensis or English spear-grass, and red-top. In 

 some places was to be seen the triticum repens, 

 called quack-grass and witch-grass by some, and a 

 little festuca. In some lean and exhausted spots, 

 might be seen the Danthonia, that wretched pover- 

 ty-grass, so common in the county of Hampshire. 

 In low, wet lands grew poa-aquatica, poa-canaden- 



discover themselves by their whitish tops. Some 

 mowers told me that they mowed it, but they said 

 it was hardly worth mowing. A large part of those 

 who occupy the lands in Boothbay spend a portion 

 of the year in fisliing, or some other employment 

 at sea. 



Many of the farmers of Maine are gradually ex- 

 hausting their lands; they are doing what so many 

 in Massachusetts have already done. The soil in 

 the vicinity of the Kennebec and in some other 

 parts of Maine, will last longer than most of that 

 in Massachusetts, but annual mowing and selling 

 the hay, and other modes of farming here, must 

 end in impoverishment, sooner or later. With all 

 our boasting in this country, we understand exhaust- 

 ing land much better than improving it, and in 

 most of the States, the exhausters are much more 

 numerous than the improvers. S. JuDD. 



Boothbay, Maine, Aug. 5, 1857. 



Crops in Western Massachusetts. — We have 

 had but one favorable report of the fruit crop this 

 season. In all sections the accounts are that there 

 will be but very little fruit of any kind. A friend 

 writes us on the 27th inst., from Whately, in the 

 Connecticut Valley, that the crops in that town are 

 "coming on finely. Corn is backward, but holds a 

 good color, and I think we shall have an average 

 crop. Tobacco is the great crop here — it is esti- 

 mated that there is from 150 to 200 acres in this 

 town the present year, which, if it does well, will 

 average 1600 pounds to the acre, and will bring at 

 least, \2^ cents a pound, some sales having already 

 been made at that price. At this rate the aggre- 

 gate amount will be $30,000. The last year's crop 



sis, several species of carex or sedge, and rushes 'is held at from 25 to 40 cents, according to qual- 



and bullrushes. Every species of grass that I have j j|., » 



observed in Maine, grows in Northampton ; and \^i 



several species grow in Northampton that I do not 



see in Maine, as the sweet-scented vernal grass, 



some species of Andropogon (S:c 



The soil in the towns on the Kennebec is a strong, 

 clayey soil, superior to much of that in Massachu- 

 setts, but it makes shocking roads in wet weather. 

 The farmers raise corn, potatoes and oats, and some 

 pieces of wheat and barley are seen. Indian corn 

 is rank and luxuriant, but if frosts happen early, or 

 even at the usual time, the corn will hardly get 

 ripe. Potatoes look well, but it is too early to de- 

 termine what the crop will be. 

 • White weed, or ox-eye daisy, I found abundant 

 in most places, from the towns around Boston to 



The season continues wet and sultry ; haying is 

 a precarious business, and weeds are dominant. We 

 think that more than one-half the hay already se- 

 cured has been wet. Salt is in demand, and pur- 

 chasers will be quite likely to get some pickled fod- 

 der before the year is out. 



A Gobbler Story. — The mother of one of our 

 most prominent merchants, writing from her farm 

 in Preston, Ct., tells the following amusing anecdote 

 of her poultry yard : The old lady keeps turkeys, 

 and all the hens are now setting. From day to 

 after another, his wives left him to at- 



day, as, one 

 those on the Kennebec, and it grows more or less tend to the duties of incubation, the lord of the flock 



was observed to grow more and more gloomy and 



in all the towns from Auijusta to this rock-bound 



coast. 



Edgecomb and Boothbay, the towns between 

 Wiscasset and the sea, are rough, hilly and rocky. 



dispirited, and when at length (he last one had gone, 

 he lost his appetite and seemed sinking into decline. 

 At length one day a new idea seized him. He had 



and a large portion of the land is incapable of cu! been inspecting the nests, and suddenly — when this 

 tivation. There are, however, many fertile spots new idea struck him — he "pitched into" the nearest 

 where good crops are seen, and the poor lands onjhen turkey, drove her ofl", and seated himself in her 

 the rocks furnish pasturage. The soil has more! place. It was vain to dislodge him from one nest, 

 sand and gravel, and less clay, than that on the! for immediately he ran to another. He was bound 

 Kennebec. Herds-grass is in many of the mowing to hatch something, or perish in the attempt, and 



lots in these towns, but the finer, shorter grasses 

 are more common. Where the rocks are near the 

 surface, and where the soil is lean and impoverish- 

 ed, the Danthonia grows, and extensive tracts of it 



at this moment that venerable gobbler is sitting on 

 two dozen turkey eggs, with a fair chance for bring- 

 ing off" a large brood of young ones ! — Springfield 

 Republican. 



