3II)C JFarmcr's ittontljln llisitor. 



103 



who follow and carry out I lie system of their 

 elder and leader, Mr. Taylor, for their kind faces 

 and civil treatment during the time of his tarry. 



The scythe establishment having grown to an 

 extent too unwieldy for the management of one 

 man, Mr. Dunn has procured an act of incorpo- 

 ration under which he has disposed of a part of 

 iiis interest and responsibility. This arrange- 

 ment may place the establishment upon a more 

 permanent and sure footing than it could be in 

 the hands of an individual. The stock of the 

 company will consist under its intended enlarge- 

 ment of two thousand shares at one hundred 

 dollars each. The real and personal property, 

 ns we understand it, has been put in by Mr. 

 Dunn, less than the actual expenditure, as a por- 

 tion of the capital stock. Men who would in- 

 vest their money with a prospect of immediate 

 advantage, will choose this already established 

 in a name and credit which will aid in the assur- 

 ance of success. The capital as fast as it is in- 

 vested here is not obliged to await the construc- 

 tion of any part of the works, but commences 

 its earnings the moment it is paid in. The pro- 

 duct of scythes is said to he more than double 

 that of any ether known in the world, and is 

 still capable of increase. Straw knives and 

 grain cradles are also made here; and the com- 

 pany may extend their business to all kinds of 

 agricultural tools. Gentlemen who desire to 

 participate in the honor of giving success to the 

 efforts of a man so deserving as Mr. Dunn, might 

 promote their own as they could the interest of 

 a young and growing country by subscribing for 

 and taking shares in these great Maine scythe 

 establishments. 



We were much delighted with the country in 

 that part of Kenneheck county which embraces 

 the valley of the thirteen ponds. Mount Vernon, 

 Fayette anil Headfielil, not to mention the splen- 

 did finning town of Wiiilhrop, turn out cattle 

 not to be exceeded in any part of the United 

 States. The working oxen raised and fattened 

 here are taken eastward and become the stalwart 

 workers to draw the millions of lumber logs 

 which are annually collected in the sledding of 

 winter upon the upper waters of the St. John's, 

 the Penobscot and the Kenneheck. Many are 

 the names and numbers of families in the inte- 

 rior of New Hampshire of our acquaintance 

 who removed to this part of Maine forty and 

 fifty years ago at the time of its first settlement. 

 We could go into no town where we had not 

 personal knowledge through such a New Hamp- 

 shire connexion. These men and women of 

 Maine, with their descendants do no dishonor to 

 their paternity. Many of them, from governors 

 and senators and magistrates do,wu to plain citi- 

 zens, are men of wealth and independence: 

 their strong characteristics have been sobriety 

 ami industry ; and generally long life and pros- 

 perity have been their reward. 



As a specimen authorizing these remarks, 

 close by Mr. Dunn's establishment in Fayette 

 we pitched in his plain fanner guise upon the 

 Hon. J. A. U., whose family at Amherst was fa- 

 miliar to us as a boy forty to fifty years ago. He 

 had gathered wealth, and married two sisters, an 

 elder and a younger of the respectable family of 

 Aiken in Merrimack, N. H. From these he had 

 raised sons and daughters. We had no time to 

 enjoy an invited visit to his hospitable roof, sur- 

 rounded as it was with all the evidences of good 

 taste both within and without. We will here 

 name the fact mentioned us that Mr. U. raised 



for market recently a yoke of oxen which weigh- 

 ed dressed 10(10 pounds each — a single ox thai 

 dressed 1900 pounds; and that his sou now had 

 upon his farm of the Hereford breed a pair of 

 steers four years old that girt seven feet. 



We had forgotten to mention that Mr. Dunn's 

 establishment has an annual transport of 3000 tons 

 sixteen miles to and from Augusta, the nearest 

 point of navigable waters, mainly of coal and 

 iron anil manufactures, which costs three dollars 

 a ton. The new railroad, when completed, will 

 reduce the distance over a much more level road 

 to be made, down to four miles. And the prob- 

 able time is not far distant when a railroad 

 branch direct from the Androscoggin may come 

 all the way up the fine valley of the thirteen 

 ponds from the point of confluence of this tribu- 

 tary stream. 



Time and health will not permit us further to 

 descant upon the suggestions offered in this ra- 

 pid, but exceedingly pleasant excursion into 

 Maine from the fourth to the seventh July inclu- 

 sive. We brought along home our grain cradle 

 and bunch of scythes as extraordinary baggage ; 

 and in their diligent use in already securing 

 more than fifty tons of hay of the best quality 

 our farm has yet produced, we have since divid- 

 ed our attention with other busy laborious em- 

 ployment extending to the full measure of 

 strength of an enfeebled constitution. 



Note.— Imiiiin . 



Mr. Hill: — Have you ever practised sowing 

 oats on mi adow land turned over, rolled down 

 and hai towed ? 1 have this season tried a piece 

 of laud in ibis way where the grass had run out. 

 The oats came up well and grew vigorous as 

 any 1 ever saw till about the 20th of June, when 

 that hot scalding weather checked them, as the 

 grouni was somewhat gravelly iu places. We 

 had one good shower on Saturday the 7th inst., 

 which revived them for a tew days. But the 

 scalding hot weather since has used them up 

 and to-day, July 20, I have cut them what was 

 left. Probably, if the land had been subsoiled, 

 they would have stood the drought beHer. 



Should be glad also at some future lime, to 

 have your experience on the permanency of 

 grass on subsoiled land ; depth of ploughing, 

 &c, &c. 



L. D. 



In the experience of the present year thus far 

 the editor of the Visitor is able to present the 

 belief (to his own mind as strong as perfect de- 

 monstration) that if his correspondent had stirred 

 his ground to mi equal depth — say it was. eight in- 

 ches— below the movement of the surface plough, 

 his field of oats would scarcely have lelteven the 

 extreme drought of this dry summer: they 

 would have been a tolerable crop, although the 

 heat and dryness of the months of June and Ju- 

 ly have been unfavorable to the growth of oats 

 on the best of ground. 



We find it has been considered by many good 

 practical farmers around us an act of temerity 

 bordering on folly and madness for us to make 

 and plant a field of twenty-five acres af potatoes 

 upon the sterile dark plains of Concord, where 

 if men had ever ploughed for a croj) of rye, they 

 had dared not go beyond the depth of six inches 

 lest the coarse and loose sand and gravel should 

 leach away if it did not poison every spear or 

 blade of vegetation that should start for a 

 growth. We state to our Connecticut friend 

 that we have braved all ridicule and all opposi- 

 tion about us, and planted such a field. And 

 what a season have we had in which to do this 

 work ? So dry that we can look on many up- 

 land fields unwind us usually sure of a crop, 



burned up and producing little or no vegetable 

 growth. Our friend Carleton at the West parish 

 on the fine soil of a farm lying along the north 

 shore of Long Pond complained that the entire 

 destruction, upon his well-prepared ground, on 

 his early pens, was a loss of one hundred dol- 

 lars. We planted our field of potatoes upon the 

 dryest plains of Concord— to the weaker portion 

 of fifteen acres, after the alone hoeing which we 

 have given them, we applied two tons of ground 

 plaster which cost us sixteen dollars : this was 

 in that part of the ground which had not a tho- 

 rough manuring in the spring. While most of 

 the vegetation iu the fields off of the lower in- 

 tervale has drooped, this has preserved the 

 greenness of a growing crop all the lime. For 

 eight days of the severest drought previous to 

 the providential rain of Saturday, July 21, the 

 early potatoes at the roots remained stationary, 

 but the vines did not yellow and grow pale: in 

 five days after that shower the potatoes already 

 set increased in size one-half while the small 

 ones have formed and grown in unusual num- 

 bers and strength. With another such rain 

 within a week and no blight, a good crop of ear- 

 ly potatoes on two acres will he assured beyond 

 all doubt. As fur the fifteen acres of New York 

 reds, with the exception of the ground of the 

 manure piles where the alkali introduced into 

 the compost has left it destitute of every thing 

 green, we have no where seen — aud others who 

 have visited this field say the same — so luxuriant 

 and rich a growth of potatoes as we present up- 

 on this field. Upon a larger portion of this, 

 highly manured, we did not think it necessary 

 to sow plaster; and here, if any where, the 

 drought has done injury. The rich growth had 

 begun before the shower to yellow in its lower 

 leaves; but Jemmy Donovan, who came to us 

 from Ireland a year ago, and who has watched 

 and worked upon this potato field nearly every 

 day from the first planting and hoeing, assures 

 us that since the rain the yellowing is lessened ; 

 and he still thinks these potatoes "a fine gar- 

 den." 



Nearly the whole of our potato field was sub- 

 soiled to a depth as far beneath the surface fur- 

 row as we could induce an additional hired 

 team to sink the point of the plough into the 

 sand : the result is, that the growing potato vine; 

 are a sure index of the depth of the plough 

 Wherever the ground was cheated of the sub 

 soil plough upon a balk or in the field, the pota 

 to vines are as much shorter and less as the twi 

 ploughs left the stirred soil of less depth. 



Our experience on our longest subsoiled lam 

 is that of an intervale plat of five acres near th 

 Concord bridge on the easterly side of the Met 

 limack. This ground after it was subsoiled wa 

 planted three years aud has now produced 

 grass crop of three years. The depth of th 

 surface plough was eight inches— that of th 

 subsoil plough below it eight inches. The ph 

 had been previously mowed a few years, tr 

 last of which did not yield over half a ton t 

 bay to the acre. We purposely left a strip o 

 either side of a middle land over n rod wide o 

 the two sides: in all the six crops taken froi 

 this ground the diminution and inferiority i 

 growth, whether of potatoes, corn, oats or grae 

 have been apparent. The inferior growth I 

 gruss and grain might be traced at the distani 

 of forty and fifty rods. The hay upon tli 

 ground, being the higher intervale of the U 

 was only about two-thirds of the crop of tl 

 two last years ; the first crops each year we 



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