&!)c .farmer's iHtmtljIn Visitor. 



167 



from the view, or retreat in the distance. It is 

 well that tlie fore3ts have stood for future clear- 

 ing: every tree will be worth something for use 

 when the railroads shall approach them to carry 



• ofF at little expense the valuable burden that 

 now covers, or may be producd upon the 

 ground. It is little more than a day's journey 

 from Mr. Norcross' steam-mill at Lowell up the 

 stream to his timber land in the mountains: the 

 railroad on the way to Plymouth will be com- 

 pleted the next season. Less enterprise and 

 risque than he lias shown in the expedient of 

 causing the logs to float by all the falls and ob- 

 structions on the way, would make a railroad all 

 the distance from Plymouth to his mountain en- 

 campment. He is entitled to make his fortune 

 from the opening of that wilderness to so sud- 

 den and so valuable an use. Where the stream 

 in successive falls tumbles over the rocks, sluice- 

 ways for the passage of logs are made by the 

 construction of winged dams compressing the 

 current swelled by rains and the melting snows 

 in the spring, so that successive jams of logs let 

 loose find their easy passage down. Each suc- 

 ceeding summer, at the time of low water, lias 

 been employed in blowing away the large rocks 

 which interrupt the channels: many tons of 

 powder have been used for this purpose high up 

 the stream. Mr. N. has found it an object to 

 blow away the rocks in the falls below the set- 

 tlements over which timber had been run many 

 years. Ilis men have been at work during the 

 past season along the river lower down. 



The winged dams upon the upper branch of 

 the Merrimack are constructed of spruce logs 

 which are more regular and straight than per- 

 haps any other kind of timber: they are made 

 as often as the fall in the river requires a back 

 flowage. For several miles of this roaring 

 mountain stream the passage of logs has been 

 made more easy than by the falls in the larger 

 river below. Just before reaching the upper en- 

 campment, the Hancock branch comes in. Over 

 the main stream a passage has been made in a 

 bridge of logs of two-thirds the length of the 

 bridges in this town across the Merrimack. Up- 

 on this bridge we had the opportunity to mark 

 the quantity of water in the dry season of Au- 

 gust, running out of a single stem of the Merri- 

 mack high up in the mountains. That stem at 

 no very great intervals all the way down contin- 

 ues to be fed by tributaries: yet the quantity of 

 water running above the Hancock stream seem- 

 ed to be one half equal to the whole running 



.stream of the Merrimack at the Bow or Hook- 

 sett falls in the dryest season of the year. With- 

 out doubt the greater portion of the waters 

 which supply the rivers on the way to the ocean 

 f.re carried into the air by evaporation. The 

 night fog which arises sometimes along the Mer- 

 rimack, furnishes for miles a local substance, 

 looking at a distance to be material. A remark- 

 able feature of the higher mountain country is 

 •'he greater humidity there than in the less ele- 

 vated lands below. A more steady and sure 

 supply of water motive power is, we believe, in- 

 variably found near the sources than far down 

 below of most of the principal New England 

 streams. 



Beyond Mr. Norcross' second camp, this 

 branch of the Merrimack finds some fifteen 

 miles further up, the pond at no very great dis- 

 tance from the VVilley house in the Notch: it 

 runs around the head of a more northerly tribu- 

 tary of the Saco which unites with the main or 

 Notch stream above Mr. Crawford's (arm in 



Hart's location. The valleys here in the moun- 

 tains are all feasible for roads along and near the 

 lesser streams, so that the timber hereafter to be 

 cut, will conveniently come down often from the 

 mountain sides. The roughest of these lauds 

 will hardly come up to the mountain towns of 

 Massachusetts Berkshire, over and through 

 which the great Western railroad has found its 

 way. Not so far from the seaboard and market 

 are the New Hampshire mountain lands as those 

 of western Massachusetts. Contrivances are 

 there found to bring down wood from the steep 

 mountain sides. The character of the soil of 

 this new country in the mountains is more gran- 

 itic than that of the Green Mountain range in 

 Massachusetts: rocks of pure granite along the 

 falls make their appearance in the bed of the 

 river. The prevailing wood in this region is not 

 the black growth of hemlock and spruce ever- 

 green : rock maple, beech and white ash, indicat- 

 ing a warm and a fruitful soil, pervade all the 

 wider openings. 



The desire to see this region of country in- 

 creases at every annual round. Each season the 

 company increases of visitors to these moun- 

 tains. Houses with larg«; accommodations have 

 been erected both near the notch of the White 

 Mountains and the notch at Kranconia. At Lin- 

 coln, near the Cascade, a very curious passage of 

 the stream through the rocks, a commodious 

 public house was burned clown about a year 

 since. Messrs. Kinney and Coftin were raising 

 upon this ground a new structure to accommo- 

 date the demand for the travel of the road the 

 next summer. The frame had been erected for 

 their new house: the main body of three stories 

 stood upon the ground 84 by 40 feet; to this 

 stretched out an addition of a wing of two sto- 

 ries GO feet by 30 feet on the ground. The Cas- 

 cade or Floom, the water excavation as in a deep 

 granite basin further on the way towards the 

 Notch, and finally the very expressive face of the 

 Old Man of the Mountain, as if ready for free 

 conversation with lookers-on at perhaps a mile 

 distance, are among the natural curiosities which 

 cause the travelled stranger to linger at the 

 Franconia mountain notch house. The estab- 

 lishment of the Messrs. Gibb at this cool loca- 

 tion was too crowded to receive any addition at 

 the time of our passing : indeed the surpassing 

 gayety and fashion surrounding the place, the 

 "old folks and young folks" in the attire of fan- 

 cy dresses and expensive negligees, seemed to 

 forbid the desire of mixing for a night in com- 

 pany that required a more formal introduction 

 than our back country taste would seek for a 

 present entrance. We halted a moment at the 

 Notch house and passed on our way seasonably 

 to reach a " sheltering port, a quiet home," five 

 miles further at the Iron works, where with one 

 of the editors of the Traveller and his Boston 

 friend, we found accommodations, food and un- 

 disturbed rest, such as a hard day's jaunt in the 

 mountains and a pretty good lull day's ride on 

 our way beside, seemed to ask for. Leaving 

 Franconia next morning, we took our course 

 westerly to a task for the Grafton farmers, ap- 

 pointed that day at Lisbon ; and our Boston 

 companions for the night parted with us for the 

 White Mountain notch, then as it had been for 

 some weeks previous, swarming with successive 

 visitors from various States of the Union in 

 search of health and pleasure. 



The population of Chicago, (Illinois,) is now 

 20,023. On the first of October, 1847, it was 

 1G,859. — Exchange pnper. 



05=* Mr. Timothy Darling of Hopkinton, N. 

 II. informs us that he raised the past season up- 

 on four square rods of his garden at the rate "I 

 eighten hundred and fifty bushels of onions to 

 the acre— giving (at the price of seventy-live 

 cents the bushel at which onions are estimated 

 in the back towns) the enormous value of 

 .f 1301 44 per acre. 



We think there must be some mistake in Mr. 

 Darling's calculation : we understood him to say 

 that the quantity of onions on the four rods was 

 a little over fifteen bushels. This would give 

 six hundred bushels to the acre. This is about 

 the highest crop of the best cultivators in Dan- 

 vers, Ms. and Weathersfield, Ct. We do not 

 doubt much of the light lands of easy cultivation 

 in New Hampshire might lie made to give a crop 

 of onions, surer than potatoes, of from four to 

 six hundred bushels to the acre. The land, with 

 proper manures expelling the weeds, might bo 

 so prepared that the work equal to a single hand 

 in the season could carry on at least two acres- 

 One man producing a thousand bushels of 

 onions as a summer's work would %ive to the 

 owner of land a large profit upon his hired labor. 

 It is worthy of trial to our persevering farmers 

 to try the onion crop upon well prepared light 

 lands. 



Fattening Swine. — If your corn is hard, it 

 will do the animals more good if ground than if 

 fed whole. As to feeding the meal wet or dry, 

 there is probably no difference, unless it is to be 

 cooked. We do not suppose that it '■■adds to its 

 nutriment to cook it" — hut we think the cooking 

 brings the food into a condition in which the nu- 

 triment is easier and thoroughly extracted. The 

 "proportionate" gain by cooking must depend 

 on circumstances, such as the hardness of the 

 grain, and the quantity fed to the animal daily. 

 A hog in good health will extract the nutriment 

 from a small quantity of corn or raw meal, daily, 

 but if full fed he is unable to do it, and the food 

 is oidy partially digested. The cooking assists 

 digestion, and in some instances will make a 

 difference of half the nutriment the food con- 

 tained—that is, by cooking, the animal obtains 

 the whole, whereas if the corn was fed whole 

 and raw, only half the nutriment might be ex- 

 tracted. — Albany Cultivator. 



^j" In the Monthly Visitor of last March we 

 said — 



" We have two tons of African guano (being 

 unable to procure Peruvian guano in Boston) 

 which is intended to be used on about twenty 

 acres of subsoiled light land prepared last fall : 

 this with our own fashioned compost of twenty 

 loads of fifty bushels measure each to the acre, 

 at the rate of two hundred pounds, is intended 

 for our crop of corn and potatoes — the latter to 

 be planted first as soon as the earth is fit for its 

 reception." 



This article, written at Washington city, was 

 carried into effect by our men at home. There 

 was but a shortened time of preparation for 

 planting in New Hampshire the last season : 

 more than half the usual days for planting after 

 the frost left the ground was foul weather. We 

 could not get in our manure and plant in season : 

 ten acres of our land remained to be planted on 

 the first of June. That ten acre lot of pine 

 plains land which gave us in 1847 a clear profit 

 of thirty dollars to the acre grown into potatoes, 

 was planted six acres in corn on the first, and 

 four acres of potatoes on the second and third 

 days of June. The corn was planting at the 

 time some of the neighboring fields were up and 

 hoeing for the first time. After the compost 

 manure, multiplied as five to one by the admix- 

 ture of turf and mould along side fences, ashes 

 leached and unleached with lime slakened in 



