48 



®i)c jfarmcr's iUontljlti Visitor. 



might. Having purchased Ma share, I had a 

 clear field; and after pulling off my gloves and 

 fine coat, went 10 work. Being now surrounded 



l,y my old neighbors, whose worthy example de- 

 monstrates the important fact, that a man corn 

 make an honest living, and have something laid 

 up lor his comfort in old age, even upon the 

 hard and rugged hills of New Hampshire, I have 

 no fears for the result. 



I shall noi weary the patience of the reader by 

 giving a detailed account of my proceedings for 

 the ent'ie seven years,' hut will confine my re- 

 marks to the operations of the last. Shortly af- 

 ter our Agricultural Fair in October, I called up- 

 on my old friend and neighbor, Abram Brown, 

 Esq., who gave me an account of its progress, 

 and of his own success, in bearing off a goodly 

 share of the premiums: I said tn him by way of 

 an offset, that I rather thought, the man who bad 

 the best cornfield, the strongest yoke of oxen, 

 the, heaviest hogs, and the tallest wood-pile, was 

 not thtre. His answer, however, seemed to im- 

 ply—" perhaps so-r-peihaps not ;" and now to the 

 point: my principal corn-field was forty by fifty 

 ,-oils— an oblong square— secured on all sides by 

 stone-wall, enclosing about twelve acres. This 

 was a worn-out field, occupied for three past 

 years as sheep-pasture ; ten acres of this was 

 ploughed the autumn previous' the soil being of 

 light sandy loam. The ploughing was performed 

 by one of Prouty's best, No. 26,and guided by my 

 own hands, drawn by four oxen — my oldest son 

 ''Joe," eleven years of age, acting as teamster.— 

 It was laid over tlat, and two inches deeper than 

 it had ever before been ploughed. This was 

 planted three by three and a half feet apart, and 

 no manure, except plaster in the hill — and yield- 

 ed thirty bushels to the acre. 



My nexlfiejd was more moist, sour, and heavy, 

 covered with scrub bushes, and filled with roots. 

 It was plastered and treated sirfilar to the first — 

 yield about sixty-five hu>hels upon three acres. 



My third was mowing sod : manure direct from 

 the barn-cellar was applied and ploughed under; 

 compost from the hog-yard in the hill, and plas- 

 ter was added. The field was planted on the 

 third day of June -and yielded seventy bushels 

 per acre — two acres in the piece. 



I commenced planting May 17, the ground 

 then being in liee condition; but heavy rains 

 soon followed, and was obliged to plant in mud, 

 or not at all— did not finish till June 3d. The 

 corn grew finely, the first-time hoeing being well 

 done; hut tie- second hoeing was necessarily im- 

 perfect, on account of a heavy shower on the 6lh 

 of July, attended with such a violent wind as to 

 completely prostrate the corn, and the leaves or 

 lops being covered with mud, was consequently 

 held in that position tiil relieved by hand. This 

 was back-aching work. 



The manured piece was hoed three times, and 

 kept free from weeds. We commenced cutting 

 and shooking September 18, and completed the 

 whole \i\ October 1st — myself and boy, (12 years 

 old.) having done the entire work, with the ex- 

 ception of one das's work which we accepted as 

 a favor to a man in payment for a day's ox-work. 

 The husking occupied Dearly two months, some 

 of the shooks standing out till November lOlh — 

 the whole yield being upwards of four hundred 

 bushel-- sound corn. This is not equal to Mr. 

 Ellsworth, but we will venture to say that we 

 performed more hud days' labor with with our 

 on n hinds, than that gentleman did to raise his 

 forty thousand bushels upon the rich alluvial hol- 

 loms iii Indiana. 



My hogs (two in number,') when one month 

 old, I bought of my neighbor Brown, who is not 

 easily beat in anything in the way of farming. — 

 He reserved three of the best for himself — two 

 others having thought they had got the better of 

 me by getting the first grab. They were not 

 Berkshire's, but I consider them superior to any 

 of that breed I have seen, having tried the Berk- 

 shires, but 1 never could make them come up to 

 the chalk. They were of native breed— white, 

 with small bone, deep quarters and chest, broad 

 hack, small ears, fine hair and thin rind. Not 

 one of my competitors came within fifty pounds 

 of me: one of my hogs, at eighteen months of 

 age, weighed 593 pounds on December 24 — the 

 other was slaughtered early in the season, and 

 not weighed; but the butcher and others judged 

 the fust equal in every respect to the latter, who 

 was truly a monster of the trough. 



Mr. Ezra Austin, at the village, (Franklin) 

 slaughtered one of the same age and breed with 

 mine, equal in form, (not of the same litter) 

 weighing 5524 pounds. Now 1 hear of monstrous 

 pigs mentioned in the Visitor the past season, 

 and I hear of one "old one" being three years 

 old this spring, which is raised in Andover, N. 

 H., estimated to weigh 000 pounds, hut is a 

 coarse-grained, lop-eared, big-boned animal ; — 

 with such a monster J have nothing to do. 



My wood-pile, to be sure, is no great wonder, 

 hut as my text implies to treat of my " doings," 

 rather than what 1 have, I will proceed to tell 

 how it ivas done. In the early part of last winter 

 I sold my oxen : I had then four 2 year old steers, 

 of which I felt somewhat, proud. They had run 

 in a pasture adjoining Mr. Webster's the sum- 

 mer previous, and drew the attention of tie- 

 statesman farmer, wdio sent an express request- 

 ing my presence; being thus unusually honored, 

 I availed myself of the opportunity, not howev- 

 er, to dispose of my steers, but I had never had 

 hold of the gentleman's hand, although had I been 

 raised within sight of the spot where rests the 

 "ashes of the ancestors of our Haddocks ami 

 Wehsters." After telling him 1 had been to some 

 trouble to get them well matched and did not 

 wish to part with them, he changed the subject 

 by a joke upon Mr. Taylor — saying, " Well, sir, 

 you can look down from your place and witness 

 all our operations, and if you can see nothing 

 else to interest yon, you cannot fail to distinguish 

 my nun, John Taylor, here." 



In this, however, he was right, as Mr. Taylor is 

 by ne means a small mark to look at, even at the 

 distance of a mile. lint 1 was tempted, and sold 

 one yoke to Warren L. Hills, Esq., for sixty dol- 

 lars. With the other pair 1 hauled up my wood- 

 pile — upwards of forty cords — (having that quan- 

 tity on band at the time I named to Mr. Brown,) 

 and drew fifty small logs to a saw-mill two and 

 a half miles distant. My steers were six feet in 

 girth, but not well inured to the yoke; hut an- 

 other year has added considerably to their size. 

 So much for the wood-pile. 



My strong oxen 1 bought last spring, weighed 

 December 31st, nut much above 3G0O lbs, have 

 performed well their part in building the North- 

 ern and Montreal rail roads. They claim no 

 high blood, one being a "colored gentleman," 

 and raised upon the premises; having used up 

 his male, we got one at Loudon. I sold them 

 and bought them again. There is doubtless, 

 however, oxen, and perhaps stronger, in the 

 county. 



Now, in conclusion, if I have answered my 



friend Pollock of Pennsylvania as to "what 1 am 

 doing," if I have in any way contributed to the 

 honor of the agricultural cause my object is ac- 

 complished—I wish only to state plain, simple 

 facts ; if I have not, my fiends, who are readers 

 of the Visitor, will please stt me straight. I have 

 written this not in a spirit of " brag,"— as a man 

 of moderate means and pretentions would not 

 seem to have whereof to boast, but with the hope 

 that I might strengthen the hearts and hands of 

 my fellow-laborers upon the soil ; and that we 

 might honor our calling, and rejoice together, in 

 that "our lines had fallen to us in pleasant 

 places," and secure to ourselves a " goodly 



heritage." 



ALFRED H. G1LE. 

 March 10th, IMS. 



The Whale Fishery. — The Whalman's Ship- 

 pins List of to-day contains the annual statement 

 of the importations of oil and whale-fishery for 

 the past year. The importation of sperm oil in 

 212 ships and 27 brigs, &c., has amounted to 

 120,753 barrels sperm, 313,180 barrels whale oil, 

 and 3,341,680 pounds of whalebone. The price 

 of sperm oil has ranged from 93 to 107 cents per 

 gallon, whale oil from 34 to 40 cents, and w hale- 

 bone from 20 to 35 cents per pound. The whole 

 tonnagjg employed in the whale-fishery January 

 1, 1848, was 210,541 tons, showing a diminuation 

 of 19,077 tons the past year. The details, as fur- 

 nished in the Whaleman's List, will he of general 

 interest to all who are engaged in the fishery. — 

 New Bedford Mercury, 





Best time for killing animals. — It has late- 

 ly been discovered that the flesh of animals w Inch 

 are killed In the middle of the night will keep 

 much longer than it will when they are killed in 

 the day time ; and it is, for this reason, preferred 

 by those who prepare potted meats. This cir- 

 cumstance is verj singular, for it proves that the 

 flesh is fittest for keeping when taken from the 

 animals at the time when the respiration is slow- 

 est and the temperature of the animal lowest. It 

 is well known that ihe llesh of animals which 

 have have been bard driven will not keep at all. 

 Alter what lias been stated, we need not be sur- 

 prised, as this quickens the respiration and 

 heightens the temperature. 



All fruit trees are much benefited by the phos- 

 phate of lime, (i. e. bone-dust,) but the pear espe- 

 cially. Where bone-dust cannot be had, bones 

 themselves may be dug in about the roots, and 

 allowed in decompose gradually. Four-filths of 

 all the bones from the kitchen are thrown away 

 in the country. If these were saved and put at 

 the bottom of the holes, when planting pear trees, 

 ihey would furnish a most enduring supply of 

 phosphate lo the roots. — Horticulturist. 



Composts for Wheat and Carrots. — One 



of tin- best crops of wheat 1 ever grew (48 bush- 

 els to the acre) was manured with 10 bushels of 

 salt to 20 of lime to the acre, mixed three 

 months, and kept dry before its application. My 

 carrot crop Ibis year was manured with 20 bush- 

 els of- soot and or 8 of salt to the acre, mixed 

 also 3 or 4 months previously. 



In Bangor, Maine, dining the last season, the 

 amount of lumber surveyed was, 191,136,272 

 feet. This exceeds [he amount surveyed in any 

 previous year by 19,022,218 feel. 



Water proof Glue. — Render glue perfectly soft, 

 but not liquid, in cold water; then dissolve il by 

 gentle heat, in linseed oil. It dries almost im- 

 mediately, ami water will not affect it. 



The town of Sandisfield, Mass., produces an- 

 nually 1110,000 pounds of maple sugar. 



One gentleman in Licking county, Ohio, k is 

 staled, makes annually 8100,000 worth of cheese. 



The total population of Paris is 1,100,000. 



