Stye .farmer's JHontljhj bisitor. 



71 



meat and vegetables were boiling. The tempo- 

 rary oven for baking beans was a bole in the 

 ground surrounded with stones, which, when 

 well heated, received the great iron pot with a 

 close cover, all enclosed until it tinned out the 

 well browned pork and cooked beans in most 

 excellent condition. 



Bui our most gratifying sport was at the jam 

 above the falls, whither u tew minutes before 

 twelve o'clock we followed the great lumber 

 king, who we think in stature, if not in size of 

 limb, is a little shorter than we are. His son, a 

 lad of sixteen years, who has worked down the 

 great body of logs in a red-shirt all the way, was 

 directing the floats to the channel in a skiff at 

 the very foot of the falls: the hands, with the 

 stalwart foreman, Mr. Barslon, were upon the 

 jam directly over the falls. In one hour's time 

 they had let down line after line of ihe logs 

 until more than half had already disappeared. 

 We tried our luck and found we could soon 

 walk the floating log straight wherever it was 

 necessary. Soon were we in the river midway 

 nearly at the edge of the most precipitous pitch 

 of water. A little further on as the large logs 

 parsed over they were thrown upon and tossing 

 and receding in great labor before they could 

 emerge to he on the way. A large division pass- 

 ed over while we were looking on, leaving us 

 nearly outside over the foaming of falling waters. 

 The lumber king nearer the shore pointed to 

 the tier on which we stood already starting, and 

 said if the mass moved too fast the men might 

 assist in saving us in the boat which stood be- 

 low near the foot of a less precipitous fell. With 

 not much of a scare we came off - safely from 

 this romantic excursion from one floating log to 

 another which slowly passing left us time to 

 reach the shore ; and all this was done before 

 we rode home three miles to Concord for dinner, 

 after which we have taken little less time in 

 writing this article than was consumed in going, 

 tarrying and returning from the ride. 



We have received a very fine present of a bee- 

 hive from Mr. James Priest of Oil Mill Village, 

 Weare, N. H. It is indeed a great improvement 

 upon all the other plans that have come under 

 our observation and comes to us highly recom- 

 mended. The Committee upon articles of Spe- 

 cial Improvement in our County Agricultural 

 Society, after speaking of other articles say — 

 " Last hut not least we would bestow a word 

 upon Cutting's Patent Changeable Bee-Hive, ex- 

 hibited by Mr. James Priest. This invention 

 was offered for our inspection with numerous 

 certificates of its excellence, without which we 

 shotdd not hesitate to pronounce it a highly beau- 

 tiful, ingenious and useful invention, and we 

 most cordially recommend it to the patronage of 

 all who need an article of t he kind." 



We would advise those farmers who keep bees 

 to make an investment of five dollars in one or 

 more of Mr. Priest's hives, which will n fiord 

 protection to their bees against the ravages of 

 the moth, cold weather and the starvation of late 

 swarms, thereby saving them each year more 

 than twice the money invested. 



Prospects of the Season. 



The season is unusually backward and the 

 White Mountains are still clothed in a mantle of 

 spotless white; a recent fall of snow upon them, 

 having repaired the ravages made upon their 

 winter raiment, by the rain and sunshine of the 

 spring. Various trees have begun to open their 

 leaves, and some of the fruit trees have given 



notice of their intention to blossom, an operation 

 however, which they would do well not to hurry 

 about. They may learn a lesson of prudence, in 

 that respect from the Progs, who having serena- 

 ded lor a few evenings, have wisely adjourned 

 the conclusion of their course of entertainments 

 until more agreeable weather. — Lancaster Coos 

 Democrat, .May 24. 



We do not consider the late snow upon Mount 

 Washington as at all an unfavorable index to the 

 present season. The new snow melting off 

 gradually swells the mountain streams, which 

 are the feeders below of the larger rivers : this 

 snow continuing long in the spring, is the 

 forerunner of a dry cold season most of all un- 

 welcome. Thus far, if the season be backward, 

 we consider it to be quite favorable to the growth 

 of most crops in New England. The fruit trees 

 have been here saved whose crops have been cut 

 off entirely at the South by untimely frost. We 

 have bad in May several sunny summer days; 

 but generally they have been wedged in with 

 easterly chilling winds suddenly following them. 

 Although the cold maybe unwelcome, the check 

 which they give to vegetation is often useful. 

 If we had the summer days of a single week 

 succeeding each other in May, grass and grain 

 would be of a sudden spindling growth, and the 

 crops woold of consequence he light. In all 

 these matters, the ordering of Providence is bet- 

 ter than any design or wish of man. 



What our Soil needs: deep and deeper culti- 

 vation. 



TTie agricultural ivealth of Ohio is strikingly 

 exemplified in the statistics for the year 1848, 

 presented in the report of the Board of Agricul- 

 ture. The Cincinnati Atlas estimates the wheat 

 crop of the Stale, that year, from the data thus 

 furnished, at 25,000,000 bushels. Eighteen 

 counties only, not including several of the lar- 

 gest wheat-growing counties, produced upwards 

 of 8,000,000 bushels. The statistics of corn are 

 not full— but in ten counties only, where there 

 are returns, the product is estimated at 12,000,000 

 bushels; in the whole State it is supposed to he 

 70,000,000 bushels. Of wool, the Atlas estimates 

 that 8.000,000 pounds were sheared in 1848— 

 2,000,000 pounds in eleven counties. This pro- 

 ductiveness is scarcely excelled by the gold- 

 bearing soil of California. — Exchange. 



Every new portion of the United States has 

 exceeded in the quality of its lands the reports 

 of the first examiners. In New England some 

 of its land deemed to be impracticable, if not 

 without value for cultivation, is found to be ex- 

 cellent on trial after the lapse of many years 

 from the time of its first surrounding settlement. 

 The higher mountain region even of New 

 Hampshire in the midst of rocks which give 

 coloring to the surface at a distance presents 

 some of the very best pasture lands: hundreds 

 and thousands of acres of these have but recent- 

 ly been cleared and improved, embracing some 

 of the ample pastures on which cattle from the 

 neighborhood of the sea are placed for fattening 

 after the opening of spring. The many thousand 

 acres of these yet to be opened are immensely 

 increased in value from their clearing having 

 been delayed until the time when all the timber 

 and fuel may be used to a profitable purpose in 

 supplies of the country below, to which it will 

 be easily taken whenever the contemplated rail- 

 ways already in progress shall reach their vi- 

 cinity. 



The settlements of Kentucky, earliest of the 

 West, opened about the time of the commence- 

 ment of the American revolution, say seventy- 

 five years ago. That country, underlaid every 

 where by limerock with superincumbent soil at 

 various depths, was exceedingly fertile : the deep- 



er surfuce soil was however only deemed practi- 

 cable for agriculture. A large portion of the 

 Stale was considered valueless— its now most 

 productive county, as is said, derives its name of 

 " Barren " from the prevalent opinion at the lime 

 of its origin. The greatest wheat-producing 

 county of Ohio was reported in this country 

 thirty to forty years ago, because it was of light 

 soil, as the poorest part of the State: this is the 

 county of Stark, in which we believe Massilon 

 is located, where more surplus wheat and flour 

 is now gathered and manufactured than in any 

 other equal territory of that noble fertile State. 

 So poor was considered that grand peninsula 

 between the great lakeB which constitutes the 

 present State of Michigan, that Gen. Tiffin, the 

 surveyor general of the United States for the 

 north-west territory, reported to the government 

 that there were not enough practicable lands in 

 the territory to be of any amount to be laid off 

 as the soldiers' bounty land after the war of 

 1812. This bounty land was then fixed so much 

 further west than Michigan, in Illinois, that very 

 few participators in them at any time dreamed 

 of the ability to personally visit them. Twenty- 

 three or four years after this, in 1838, on our first 

 and only visit to Michigan, the new State was 

 importing flour from Ohio up the lake for the 

 subsistence of its new settlers. Now it is sec- 

 ond only perhaps to Ohio in the production of 

 wheat and flour for exportation. 



At the opening of the grand canal of New 

 York about the year 1817, great was the produc- 

 tion of the virgin soil of the western part of that 

 State in the growth of wheat and flour. The 

 country about Rochester at once furnished the 

 wheat which had been nearly run out as 

 a crop in all the territory eastward of the 

 Hudson ; and soon we find not only Massa- 

 chusetts and Rhode Island, but even New 

 Hampshire and Vermont importing their bread- 

 stuffs from that region. From that day to 

 this most of the best New England families 

 within seventy-five miles of the sea use for 

 their daily bread the best western flour. But 

 since the first opening of a surplus of wheat 

 raised in New York, the production has reached 

 further and further west. The best of the New 

 York wheat lands are becoming tired or worn 

 out under the repetition of this as a crop, without 

 the due care and attention requisite to the keep- 

 ing of the land up to its first high production in 

 a series of years. It is to this point that we 

 would call the attention of agriculturists every 

 where. Our own memory and eye-sight have 

 proveil to us that in this country, as in the best 

 agricultural countries of Europe, for every kind 

 of production, the capacity of the land to yield 

 may be kept without deterioration ; and that the 

 most profitable cultivation of the land for a pre- 

 sent crop may be where the work is done 

 each year as much with a view to the after 

 crops as to the particular crop of the present 

 season. 



The whole West, as well as the East, must be 

 made acquainted with this important principle 

 of agriculture, which is destined to convert even 

 the barren and waste places of New England 

 into the fruitful garden and orchard, always pro- 

 ducing an abundance of each necessary kind of 

 food for man and beast sufficient for ourselves, 

 and leaving a supply for the due commerce with 

 foreign countries. The earth cannot be worn 

 out by any artificial action of man over its sur- 

 face. The soil of New England that has been 

 cultivated now two centuries, some of which 



