&l)c jTatmer's iHcmtljln faisitor. 



103 



boitom, although it may spring up for growth 

 after the planting, will nevertheless lie easily 

 uprooted by the boe, and in dry weather will 

 nearly all die out. We have gone through two 

 hoeings of seven acres of potatoes where the fin 

 grass was greatly prevalent : the Buhsoil plough 

 had so effectually tntdled and checked the roots, 

 that they were comparatively of trifling trouble 

 in lessening the day's work ;it hoeing. If ilie 

 roots of the white-weed or the yellow butter cup 

 which pervades the ground almost as had in the 

 hay crops of the interior counties of Maine, mul- 

 tiply like those of the fin grass, we believe 

 that subsoil or deep ploughing, turning the fur- 

 row bottom-side up and exposure to the winter 

 frosts, will lessen, if not drive out the lusty 

 grow lb of wee Is which cut in the best season 

 can make but poor hay. 



Along the road in Newington and all the way 

 in Portsmouth north of the " Christian shore " 

 there are beautiful farms, some of which are in 

 a high state of cultivation. The first from the 

 Piscataqua bridge is the neighborhood of Frinks, 

 and all over the town are the Pickerings, both of 

 whose names are familiar as representatives in 

 the legislature from the old town during the 

 last fifty years. The worthy postmaster of New- 

 ingtou with a French name, born in this region, 

 but emigrating and returning with a West India 

 wife, sets the example of a successful farmer, 

 working with bis own hands in the field : a fe- 

 male domestic with peculiar African color and 

 features, so old as to forget her age if she ever 

 knew it, did the work of her absent master in 

 the field, of receiving and returning the mail 

 bag to the stage. The colored aged house ser- 

 vant should have been named Fidelity from her 

 very appearance: that appearance in an octoge- 

 narian colored female face as the faithful nurse 

 of infancy and the careful watch for the family 

 in all that relates to its welfare, cannot often be 

 mistaken. Mr. DuRocbemont, the farmer of 

 Newington, is the son of the printer of Ports- 

 mouth (we believe a Frenchman born) who con- 

 ducted a very respectable and useful newspaper 

 of that town nearly fifty years ago. While on 

 the way through Newington, passing a neat new 

 cottage with a barn of small dimensions, we wit- 

 nessed the uniijue cultivation of what we sup- 

 posed to be an Irishman or Scotchman. The 

 small field of corn was planted in bills without 

 the discrimination, of rows either way: not a 

 plough or a hoe hail probably been used in the 

 piece of ground. The man was improving his 

 ground by digging and turning it over between 

 hills with the spade. We are free in opinion 

 thai ibis might be a mode of cultivation produc- 

 ing the largest crops: we suppose it may be the 

 mode in Ireland where the tenant of a single 

 acre lias to begin with the annual payment of a 

 rent for that acre equal in amount to the price 

 of the entire fee of the same amount of land in 

 the United States. The spade will do a much 

 more effective service to growing coin and pota- 

 toes than the hoe. Stirring deep the ground 

 between the bills, the roots of the growing crop 

 are stimulated to a ready growth without being 

 cut off to do them a material injury. 



The Piscataqua peninsula, embracing Newing- 

 ton and Portsmouth, upon extensive farms which 

 seem never to have been subdivided, has many 

 venerable orchards with trees probably planted 

 prior to the revolutionary war. In the orchards 

 arc blended with the apple an unusual number 

 of pear trees: there are more of these upon the 

 " William Hill farm " than we remember to have 



seen in any part of (he country: the button pear 

 of a small size is the common natural pear. Of 

 the ancient pear trees fifty years ago, youthful 

 recollection presents our early climbing upon 

 one of these high trees, where the one side hung 

 with the juicy and lucious orange, grafted by an 

 ancestor, while the other hung in an innumera- 

 ble company of the diminutive button pear, 

 smarting and puckcry to the taste, and tolerable 

 only when mellowed to yellow ripeness. The 

 ancient orange and hell pears have become su- 

 perseded in the horticultural nomenclature by 

 an almost countless company of modern names, 

 which designate any thing better than the quality 

 or value of the fruit so much prized by those 

 who cultivate the pear with the same gusto that 

 bonvivants cork up and keep under seal choice 

 wines, to he talked of as more valuable for the 

 long keeping. 



Just in that part of Portsmouth most frequen- 

 ted coming into town over the mouth of the 

 tide water mill pond from the north, the Eastern 

 railroad crosses the street upon a level, making 

 the entrance to the town with carriages more 

 dangerous. The danger has given to the inhabi- 

 tants the habit of passing into town at the upper 

 end of the mill pond : over this way the stage 

 carried us by the almshouse farm, where some 

 fil'teen or twenty hands were hoeing their corn 

 and potatoes a second lime. This almshouse 

 farm, we should think, to be better cultivated and 

 more productive than any other in that part of the 

 town. The crops of growing hay on the new 

 laid down fields were as large as we had any 

 where seen. The facilities of making manure 

 composts, as appeared from the roadside along 

 these premises, seem not to have been neglected: 

 the director of ibis farm (we judge from the life 

 almost to moving animation of the soil viewed 

 while passing along ibe road) understands the 

 vaHue of deep ploughing coming to the aid of 

 the rich stimulating manures with which he fills 

 his ground to saturation. Our intelligent stage- 

 driver pointed to one field which last year husk- 

 ed rising seven hundred bushel baskets of sound 

 corn: another luxuriant field was growing corn 

 which, despite of the cold and wet, had arrived 

 to the full size of the best of seasons on the first 

 of July. The almshouse is a large brick struc- 

 ture like that of one of our ancient colleges or 

 best built brick factories. The poor of Portsmouth 

 have exceedingly comfortable quarters, making 

 them at home here. We had not lime to enter, 

 as we passed the premises afterwards on the 

 same day, the house for a particular examina- 

 tion. The rooms are so constructed as to he 

 easily well ventilated and warmed : of this the 

 opened windows at the top, exposing the clear 

 white washed walls, presented us evidence ; and 

 the flower pots displayed around the paling at 

 the front entrance proved that poverty itself 

 in this country has the means equally with 

 wealth to enjoy all the luxuries of nature. 



The new avenue to the town carried us direct- 

 ly by the splendid residence of the lion. Levi 

 Woodbury, which, although absent with his fam- 

 ily much of the lime in the last twenty years, 

 has been kept in an admirable state of preserva- 

 tion. Its mansion of wood was as bright and to 

 appearance as new as when, soon after he had 

 been united to bis amiable V* ifc, yet presenting 

 almost the youthful face of her own family of 

 daughters, we made the first visit thirty years 

 ago. The house is constructed of wood — it is 

 three stories with the square hipped roof fash- 

 ionable forty years since. It was built by Samuel 



Ham, Esq. a merchant of Portsmouth long since 

 deceased, at an expense not less than twenty 

 thousand dollars. If ue remember right, it was 

 purchased as a present from the father of Mrs. 

 W. at the cost of only six thousand dollars in- 

 clusive of about thirty acres of fine land stir- 

 rounding it. Almost like that of the Patroon as 

 we leave Albany on the Troy road, is the man- 

 sion of Judge Woodbury covered up with trees: 

 ihe ladies, since their late return from Washing- 

 ion, complain that they cannot socially see their 

 friends in town through the thick foliage of 

 the trees and shrubbery as they were wont to do 

 before these had gained their luxuriated growth. 

 As this land is favorable lo the production of 

 fruits such as grow so far north, in their season 

 Judge Woodbury has abundance of all that ap- 

 petite may desire which are freely served out to 

 his friends and neighbors. His beautiful villa 

 is far enough out of town to be called in the 

 country, and near enough for a daily morning or 

 evening walk to active limbs. 



Landed from the stage at the Rockingham 

 house at three o'clock, wc had opportunity during 

 the few hours of the afternoon to look about this 

 ancient town, which is truly on many accounts a 

 desirable place of residence. For a town mainly 

 wooden built and of so long standing, Ports- 

 mouth is that cleanest and neatest compact 

 place we now remember to have been in. The 

 Rockingham house is one of the most airy and 

 best kept houses of the country — more comforta- 

 ble and ample in its accommodations and rooms 

 quiet and well fitted either for the lounger or 

 the invalid. What we much admired at ibis 

 house in the city, was its neat and beautiful 

 flower garden alongside of one of the best 

 kitchen gardens for cultivating the fruits and 

 vegetables. Maj. Coburn, whose Dracut garden 

 lung supplying his public house at Lowell was 

 known to us longer hack than the days of rail- 

 roads, true to his horticultural taste, was at work 

 in the garden early of the first July morning 

 when less fat landlords than himself might he 

 supposed-not to be out of bed. This early morn- 

 ing about a public bouse in the chill of easterly 

 winds — with the Irish girls always washing the 

 floors and stairs, and the windows of the sitting 

 room up, as if inviting air from abroad less cold 

 than the accumulation of the night air, without 

 fire from within ; — the early shivering with the 

 cold feet of the invalid is not so pleasant as our 

 own home kitchen lire. Maj. C. however, soon 

 taught our curiosity for information in Hie 

 gardening line how to combat worms and a 

 backward season with the best effect, to forget 

 the cold. 



The Rockingham house is probably the most 

 costly private dwelling ever erected in New 

 Hampshire. The mansion house of William 

 Gray at Salem and that of the late (Jen. Peabody 

 at Newburyport, left by their proprietors when 

 removing into the marts of trade in a larger 

 sphere, were like the Rockingham house changed 

 into elegant hotels. Their beautiful tapestry, 

 figured and bordered with pictured elegance — 

 their costly rich glass windows with deep shut- 

 ters and embossed golden ornaments formerly 

 part of the dressing to rich damask curtains — 

 more gingerbread work of the Corinthian order 

 in a single parlor than all the gaudy curious 

 work in wood of the largest modern house con- 

 tains — were remembered as arousing our early 

 sleeping wonder when awaking under the high- 

 post curtains more than thirty years ago: alas 

 and alack ! that age and asthma should now 



