vlIjc -farmer's ittontbm foisttor. 



89 



up ilie sleep between h;s line ami our own some 

 half a mile from t lie marked trees dividing the 

 two towns. Leaving ihat we returned nearly 

 down the mountain, crossing several streams 

 ridged between with a heavy growth of almost 

 every sort of trees, rock maple, heeel), black and 

 yelluw birch, as well as spruce, hemlock, hack- 

 matack ami firs with scattered brown and white 

 ash. The line of town, which is the line of the 

 hits, was near the upper point of the first moun- 

 tain steep through which, alter the great shower 

 of the preceding evening, there were gorges 

 with the rush over the rocks of magnificent wa- 

 ter-falls. It would hardly he credited by those 

 who look upon the mountain from the high 

 grounds at the centre village in Salisbury some 

 five miles off, that here in the mountain was 

 much heavy timbered land laying nearly at a 

 dead level, and particularly a fiat sufficient per- 

 haps for one of those beautiful farms which are 

 sometimes found perched high up between the 

 granite hills of our State out of sight and per- 

 haps out of mind to most of the inhabitants, 

 and especially whose beauty is unknown ami 

 uuappieciated to the passing stranger who view- 

 ing the mountains at a distance is disposed to 

 give us credit only its a Stale of distinguished 

 sterility. 



We expected in the mountain midst to leave 

 our guide and our son, the latter to return for 

 the horse and gig and to go round and meet us 

 on the south side. They left us alone to the 

 solitary ramble over the gorges and cliffs; hut 

 in half an hour leaving ua to the passage over 

 one swift mountain stream in a wood which had 

 not been visited by perhaps twenty persons in 

 the last half century, our mountain companions 

 concluded that ours was an act of temerity, that 

 we might faint away or fall down over some 

 ledge, or that we might meet and he devoured 

 by some great wild cat or catamount. We saw 

 here no signs of wild beasts so prominent as 

 that noticed by our guide where the teeth of the 

 hedge hog had gnawed off all around as high as 

 he could reach the hark of hundreds of the 

 beech and birch, arresting the growth of all and 

 destroying the life of some. We had proceeded 

 only some half a mile before the heads of hu- 

 man beings following us from the north-east ap- 

 peared. Who could these be but the guide and 

 the son who had lately left lis, whose concern 

 for us soon grew to a fearful anxiety that we 

 might be lost, wounded or maimed, if not killed 

 in the woods. We had intended to go direct up 

 and down the steep sides of the easterly end of 

 Bald mountain ridge: Mr. Pingree's purpose 

 was to persuade us that this might he dangerous, 

 and to conduct us by the way of the first cleared 

 mountain pasture over the Salisbury line. Just 

 north of this is one of those mountain lakes 

 deep in its waters, into which flows the stream 

 coming down in the first valley north of Raid 

 bill. This pond discharges its waters northerly 

 to West Andover : it is not so elevated as to for- 

 bid it for the passage of a railroad much less 

 difficult and expensive than many passes en- 

 countered by the route of the present Northern 

 railroad, and culling off" a distance from the cap- 

 ital of the Stale to Connecticut river several 

 miles short of any other contemplated route. 

 Mainly over the east end of our lot defined in 

 its limits only by the marked boundary of the 

 contiguous owners north and south did we ex- 

 pend nearly three hours in wending our way 

 along a forest of the original timber so high as 

 to prevent a view in any direction to a distance, 



We turned eastward into Salisbury instead of 

 pursuing the line over Bald hill : in the o|ien 

 clearing our guide again left us, and our way 

 nearly a mile more was to the Greeley mountain 

 house, which had but recently been occupied by 

 hands who had commenced coaling upon ihe 

 mountain, clearing, burning over, harrowing, 

 sowing in grain a«d fencing as a compensation 

 to the owner for the wood cut down to be used 

 in making coal. 



We found Mr. Greeley wailing at his moun- 

 tain house, directly to the north of which some 

 hundred rods distant was the pile of stones 

 which marked his lot from ours, leaving us the 

 owner of a few acres on the south side of Da Id 

 hill coining down its almost perpendicular steep, 

 u the wood just at the loot of this hill, Mr. 

 Greeley conducted us to three large granite 

 boulders which have evidently been moved into 

 their place by a mighty power long since ihe 

 world began. One of these, of ihe size of a 

 large house affording a shelter nearly all around 

 formed by its rounded si les, seems to have been 

 laid upon a superstructure keeping it in position 

 as the skilful layer of wall fence would place his 

 foundation: a tall tree falling upon it had fur 

 several years been a way by which persons could 

 climb to the top : this tree, now rolled off and 

 broken, left us no opportunity lo mount the giant 

 rock whose capacious top was large as the deck 

 of a man-of-war ship. 



Resting a short time after the forenoon jaunt 

 of as many as half a dozen miles among the 

 trees, over mountain ridges and water cascades 

 in the valleys, in the afternoon with Mr. Greeley 

 we took another direction. Our intention at first 

 was to go up the travelled road and path desig- 

 nated which led directly to the mountain top. 

 But turning out of our direction half a mile for 

 the purpose of seeing the young cattle turned to 

 another pasture lot, we were delayed loo long lo 

 effect that object before evening. We contented 

 ourselves with again visiting Bald hill entering 

 it on its south-west spur. Rising to the highest 

 peak of this hill, we were enabled to look at the 

 country at a distance more than half around the 

 horizon, and especially could we view the timber 

 covering of the extended side-hill which of all 

 these lauds was to us the most interesting. To 

 the very top of Bald hill the land exhibited evi- 

 dence of fertility. Here the sheep stripping 

 and clearing off the hushes had introduced the 

 grasses which make pasturage. Evidence of ihe 

 effect of the great movement of rocks from 

 north-west to south-east appears to the very top 

 of the mountain, portions of which lie as the 

 back of a turtle with a smoothed top surface. 

 The grinding off of the rocky face all showing 

 progress in ihe direction of the moved boulders 

 is as apparent as if the work had been (lone hut 

 yesterday. Among the trees springing up spon- 

 taneously since ihe fires swept away those of a 

 larger growth, are thousands of the beautiful 

 mountain ash. Settling off to a lower level on 

 the northerly side are numerous acres of young 

 sugar maples. Seeming lo come down the 

 mountain, we passed nearly the whole length ol 

 its back-bone ridge, and when we really encoun- 

 tered the main descent upon the sleep south 

 side we found il dangerous from the steep- 

 ness for the distance of several hundred feet. 

 The high-heeled hoots of the present time had 

 been through the day a tripping obstacle in this 

 mountain excursion : the obstacle increased as 

 the limbs became more weary ; and when we 

 arrived buck to the point of the afternoon start 



ing, any comfortable resting place had been 

 most welcome. But by mistake of that one of 

 our company who preferred iriiut angling to 

 mountain views and mountain trees, the old 

 horse und buggy had not come up to our reli-f, 

 and a mile and a half further uu foot down the 

 mountain to one who had already travelled that 

 day a greater distance than any other day of his 

 life was accompanied by a physical suffering 

 which after it is over seems to add to the inter- 

 est of any laud or mountain excursion. Satis- 

 fied of the fact that our lot was greatly more ex- 

 tensive than il was supposed at the time of our 

 purchase, and that the direction of the moun- 

 tain valleys would bring the timber and wood 

 upon il very accessible to railroad communica- 

 tion, we thought our time well spent in that 

 day's jaunt upon Kearsarge. 



Useful Invention. 



During the past winter, a Horse Rake that 

 adapts itself to rough, uneven surface, and ran 

 be used as well on land of this description as 

 upon the smooth and level meadows, has been 

 patented by Mr. Calvin Delano, of East Liver- 

 more, Maine. This, in a broken and extended 

 country, like ours, where it is impossible for the 

 farmer always to get his grass or hay fields into 

 such condition as has been hitherto found neces> 

 sary to cut and secure the entire burden which 

 they have yielded, may be considered as one of 

 the most valuable improvements in agriculture. 

 Each tooth is made to act independently, and 

 adapts itself to the particular surface over which 

 it passes — whether it be level or raised, or de- 

 pressed. Premiums have been awarded by the 

 Kennebec and Franklin County Agricultural 

 Societies, and ihe most abundant and satisfactory 

 testimonials of its great value, and the ease and 

 perlect character of its operation, in raking the 

 entire crop of hay, and depositing it in winrows, 

 have been received by the patentee from a large 

 number of individuals who had it in use during 

 the last summer.— .V. Y. Farmer and Mechanic. 



Hundreds of people at the capital of New 

 Hampshire have within the last two weeks had 

 opportunity to see in opeiaiion Mr. Delano's 

 new horse rake. Every observer must have 

 been convinced of its utility, if not its advance 

 in ready execution of a most important part of 

 hay-making, over every other invention, doing 

 the work quite as rapidly in rough ground us 

 the celebrated spiral horse rake, without the in- 

 convenience of incorporating wiih the hay a 

 bottom of dirt or other matters that do it injury. 

 We wait for experience in relation 10 Mr. Dela- 

 no's rake. But the thorough trial and approba- 

 tion it bus met with in the best hay-growing 

 country of New England — in Kennebec and 

 Franklin counties of the Slate of Maine — per- 

 haps are stronger its recommendation than any 

 thing we should offer from our own experi- 

 ence. — Ed. Farmtr'a .Monthly t'isitor. 



(TJr* In a future number of the Visitor, by 

 permission of Professor Rust, we will re-publisll 

 from his Report the article which | resents spe- 

 cimens of school-houses in Dublin, Manchester, 

 Somersworth, &C, with the engravings; and 

 other interesting matters contained in the same 

 report. 



fi'indfaU. — A very worthy, industrious, and 

 poor tit it lily in Ihis city lately received intelli- 

 gence of Ihe death of an uncle, by which the 

 fifth of £84,000 property of the deceased lulls 10 

 them. Good, — Cleaveland Plaindealer. 



