GTlK ^farmer's ittcmtljln tlisitor. 



101 



higher plain on the east where the excavation 

 into the deeper clay hank is perhaps even greater 

 than where there is no impending mass of clay, 

 sand and calcareous marl overlaying. At this 

 lower point, the river makes lend above where 

 it took land away not ten years ago : in the 

 quick turn liehuv for more than a hundred rods 

 it takes away hy acres almost as last as ii makes 

 above, diving into the ground from the bottom 

 of the river ami carrying off annually thousands 

 of loads ol' as rich material for the compost mu- 

 lture bed as can he found any where in a state 

 of nature. The red streak running through the 

 upper diluvial hank, to the width of perhaps 

 twenty rods, begins here, to extend itself diago- 

 nally across the Dirk Plain to Soucook river: 

 the distance between is perhaps three miles. 

 The layers of pure clay, of mixed clay, of sand 

 and iron converted into roek, of coarse red 

 gravel approximating rock, are all close by in 

 the same bank, through which ooze high up 

 springs of pure water. Lying in horizontal 

 strata, covering boulders of granite moved out 

 ol place over to the south-east, everything here 

 proves that long since the upheaving earthquake 

 and volcano had thrown the earth and the rocks 

 'int of position, this deposite of plains land 

 had been overlaid in the flow' of deeper and 

 more pervading waters than now compose the 

 insignificant bed of the larger river: into this 

 plain in subsequent time artificial hollows as 

 ancient as I lie hills have been gradually formed, 

 presenting the gullies which enable the present 

 new lords of the soil to construct roads on a 

 gradual inclination through the bank dividing 

 the upper plain from the lower intervale. 



Two distinct periods are shown by the juts 

 along the river, presenting a lower and an upper 

 level, sometimes on one and again upon the other 

 side of the liver. The upper sandy level, espe- 

 cially the part of it with the natural hard pine 

 growth, has ever been considered our poorest 

 land. With shallow ploughing and no manure, 

 little can be expected from it: some of it is but 

 pure sand — very remarkable is it, that in some 

 places the sand is clear and white like that 

 deposited from the beating waves of the sea. 

 Vet it is our belief that this high and dry plain 

 may he made by no very expensive means the 

 base of the most easy and profitable agriculture. 

 We are endeavoring by our own experiments to 

 prove this ; and we believe our crops on some 

 fifteen ploughed subsoiled acres will this year 

 furnish actual demonstration of the fact. 



The Dark Plain in Concord, although profita- 

 ble for the wood growth which immediately 

 springs up when the larger trees are cleared off, 

 presents strong temptations to the lovers of im- 

 provement to convert portions of it into cultiva- 

 ted fields, excellent pastures and even good 

 mowing grass grounds, which we rlo not doubt 

 will make their appearance as upon "good laud" 

 within the. next ten years. 



The town of Concord in the whole of its 

 present extent, probably equal to a square of 

 eight miles on each side, contains an area of 

 about fifty thousand acres, of which three larger 

 and several smaller ponds and morasses with 

 the main river may constitute ten thousand acres 

 of water and waste lands : of the forty thousand 

 acres left there is scarcely one acre which may 

 not be made to be worth a hundred dollars in its 

 income upon a due investment of expense upon 

 it. So rapidly has the value of land appreciated 

 in a state of nature, that there are lots now 

 covered with second growth timber worth at 



least one hundred dollars to the acre, which 

 were bought not long since for less than one- 

 tenth of the money. One ol' the Eleven Lots, 

 half a mile out of the village, extending from 

 Concord bridge westerly over the old road and 

 turnpike, was sold two years since at forty-five 

 dollars the acre. The purchaser one year ago 

 sold that part which lies between the old road 

 and turnpike for ninety-five dollars the acre, 

 doubling the amount paid: he sold also the tim- 

 ber and wood on that part of light pine plain 

 soil, a second growth scattered, for sixty-two 

 dollars the acre, leaving him possession of the 

 land. His advance upon the part sold was near- 

 ly a thousand dollars, leaving him land worth 

 at the present estimates at least two thousand 

 dollars. The trade was an advance equal 

 to the original amount paid for the whole pur- 

 chase. 



Although there is so much of what was 

 thought waste land in Concord as to leave it 

 perhaps a greater extent of woodland twenty 

 years ago than any other town of the Slate, and 

 although there is a quantity of pure and excel- 

 lent light grey granite in the prominent Rattle- 

 snake on the west and Oak Hill on the east side 

 of the Merrimack, with the abundant supply of 

 ledges in other directions and boulders out of 

 place, south-easterly from the ledges at the dif- 

 ferent points ; yet cultivation, rightly undertaken 

 and carried on, might raise even the poorest acre 

 in the town to the value of an annual income of 

 more than one hundred dollars. The present 

 income of much the larger portion of this land 

 not actually growing wood is absolutely worth 

 nothing! Suppose we purchase a naked worn 

 out, rye field bearing only sorrel, and pay for it 

 ten dollars the acre: ten acres will cost one 

 hundred dollars. This land of itself, without 

 improvement, will not grow enough of vegeta- 

 tion to pay for taking it off. The ten acre lot, if 

 it pay no taxes, will consume the use of one 

 hundred dollars, which is six dollars, without 

 growing any better. The same ten acre lot un- 

 der cultivation, may be made to produce fifty 

 bushels of corn to the acre, at the expense of 

 perhaps not over hall' its price : we do know 

 that one ten acre lot of this precise land last 

 year produced a crop of potatoes of the value of 

 six hundred dollars to its owner, where the 

 whole expeuse of cultivation and preparation 

 for the market did not exceed three hundred 

 dollars. The same lot has growing in corn six 

 acres planted on the first of June, and four acres 

 of potatoes, planted on the second and third days 

 of the same month, which bid fair this year to give 

 a crop worth five hundred and may be six hun- 

 dred dollars, at an expense short again of three 

 hundred dollars. The land itself in its present 

 state, after the crops shall be taken off, is better 

 property at one hundred dollars the acre than it 

 was at the price often dollars the acre at the 

 time of its first improvement. Set out with ap- 

 pletrees at the distance of forty feet, with the 

 same care and attention that have been paid on 

 other grounds, the value of these late poor ten 

 acres, all the time paying its present income of 

 one hundred from a judicious cultivation and 

 rotation of crops, may rise to an income of one 

 thousand dollars the acre ! 



Who woidd not be charmed at the idea of 

 seeing the denuded Dark Plains, the abused 

 Dark Plains so often set on fire by straggling 

 poachers for the sake of stealing with more 

 avidity the rotting remnants of burned trees, be- 

 come rich fields for grass and grain and vegeta- 



bles, every acre yielding its annual profit on an 

 investment of one hundred dollars, or converted 

 into fruit and apple orchards giving an income 

 worth the use of one thousand dollars ! 



II' the poor pine plains may do this, how much 

 better might hundreds of acres of meadows, 

 producing poor hay not to exceed half a ton to 

 the acre, be brought to give a crop of belter hay 

 of at least six times ihe amount ? Two men in 

 good hay weather, with the use of the spiral 

 horse rake, may mow, make and house three 

 tons of hay in a day upon this ground, while 

 two men will have hard work to mow, make and 

 house one ton upon the unimproved land. The 

 income of the land of less production is abso- 

 lutely of no value to its owner, since the same 

 laborer may go out to haying this year on 

 shares and lake more as bis part than the 

 whole crop with the same labor upon his poor 

 land. 



These thoughts have grown upon us, not as 

 more applicable to Concord than to much of the 

 land over which our way led to Portsmouth on 

 the 29th June. There is none, or very little, poor 

 land in the towns all the way, nor can we say 

 that here the crops have degenerated, or that less 

 attention is paid to the cultivation than in other 

 towns of the Slate. In Pembroke, Chichester, 

 Epsom and Northwood, there iias been much 

 improvement in the last forty years. Evidence 

 of the prosperity of the inhabitants is seen in 

 the commodious, neat and ample houses and 

 barns passed on the way. Even in those parts 

 more neglected, the inattention has been repaid 

 in the trees and timber growing upon the poor- 

 est lands, where the value of this growth is all 

 Ihe time increasing by the nearer approxi- 

 mation of railways and other roads ready to 

 convey them into use. 



It is not exactly the sign of improvement 

 which we take to witness in the towns where 

 men and women of the more intelligent and 

 better sort have been horn and raised, that we 

 see the same field with its dilapidated log fences 

 or walls hedged in hy briers, brakes and bushes, 

 now planted with corn anil potatoes, now sowed 

 with oats or barley or wheat, and now again 

 producing a temporarily stimulated crop of hay, 

 while all the grounds surrounding it remain as 

 they have been for half a century or less in the 

 same unstirred, unimproved condition. The 

 grounds upon the rocky farms, the heavy 

 grounds which from shallow surface ploughing 

 drown out when wet and burn out when dry 

 whatever is planted upon them, are those 

 grounds which may best assure the crop. Have 

 these grounds so long suffered under shallow 

 ploughing and hill-manuring stimulating to one 

 crop only, that they have become dead— that 

 whatever crop now put in becomes an easy 

 prey to worms and the blight of rust ; the own- 

 ers of them should understand that there is a way 

 by which the same lands may rise to a produc- 

 tion equal to the greatest acres of which we 

 have an account. From necessity in Europe, 

 that necessity which confines the laborer to the 

 old grounds having no opportunity to change 

 them for new, the right kind of cultivation has 

 forced itself into extensive use. Is the land wet 

 and heavy, let drains below reach of the plough 

 be laid down and covered at suitable distances, 

 carrying off the water, and let the hard pan he 

 stirred deeper and more deep over them. Such 

 a process, aided only by (he usual stimulating 

 manures, will soon give life to such kinds of 

 land. Payiug for the first outlay of improve 



