134 



&l)c .farmer's illontijlu bisitar. 



forgotten. How can it be otherwise ? Tlie oc- 

 cupants have no permanent interest there. They 

 can hence feel no possible identity with the ob- 

 jects around them. They live in one house one 

 year; in another the next year, and so on 

 through life, leaving each in turn with as little 

 thought or regret as they would step out of a 

 railroad car in Which they had journeyed a few 

 miles. Their furniture, also, instead of being 

 preserved for a life time, and cherished with af- 

 fection as in the country, is cast aside, and new 

 substituted in its place, with the unconcern of 

 casting away a pair of old shoes. In going from 

 house to house, they go from street to street in 

 the same unconcerned manner. 



Now is it possible that, in such a whirl and 

 change — in such a perpetual transition from 

 place to place, there can be any permanent local 

 sympathies? And, if the local sympathies do 

 not arise, their intended influence is not felt. 

 Hence, under such circumstances, these auxiliary 

 agencies in producing the delights and the moral 

 influences of home are lost. In like manner all 

 similar agencies for kind purposes may be neg- 

 lected or repudiated, and we be left to the unas- 

 sisted impulses of our nature, like the primitive 

 inhabitants of our land. Others may ridicule all 

 this as old fashioned and nonsensical ; but we 

 trust the day will never come, when we shall 

 voluntarily neglect to gather fragrance and flow- 

 ers from the retrospect of life. 



It is not indeed our lot, as it is the lot of some 

 favored ones, to connect a family chronology for 

 a life-time with the same local scenery. Our lot 

 has been one of vicissitude; but we would go a 

 day's journey with railroad speed for the pleas- 

 ure of retracing the woodland paths of our 

 childhood, and to survey anew the spot where 

 stood the cabin in which we were horn. Save 

 that cabin all around is comparatively a daguer- 

 reotype of those early days. Here, the sacrile- 

 gious band of ostentatious improvement has 

 committed but few depredations. The hills and 

 the vdleys remain as they were ! The forest 

 trees still spread out their long branches and 

 thick foliage for the comlbrt of man and beast ! 

 Close by stands Agonock— a cragged and pre- 

 cipitous spur of Saddleback — scowling and 

 frowning as of old ; his equanimity, to appear- 

 ance, not having been disturbed since the time 

 of Noalfs flood. To help form a landscape of 

 equalled magnificence and beauty, his granite 

 kindred. Kearsnrge and Mount Washington, of 

 more wide-spread fame, at greater distances, 

 cast their towering shadows on the blue sky. At 

 his feet is spread out dear Suncook, mild and 

 placid like a sleeping infant. On its shores we 

 were wont to bathe and fish ; and, here we would 

 again gather pebbles, casting one by one upon 

 its silvery bosom, causing rimple after rimple, 

 not unlike the pulsations of the virgin queen, 

 whose name it bears! Sadness might indeed 

 rise up before us ; for the grave-yard could alone 

 tell us of the human forms with which we were 

 accustomed to commune ! Nevertheless, it 

 would be good to resort thither; for in that quiet 

 S(JOt hopes of heaven, would kindle, and of 

 friendships there to be renewed and made per- 

 fect. 



Who could count the thoughts that in one 

 short hour would there flit across the mind ? or 

 what painter could delineate the images that 

 would, as it were, rise from the ground and 

 dance before the mental eye? What sympathet- 

 ic being can say, it would not be good there to 

 bring up such reminiscences of a long track of 



years, all but blotted from human recollection, 

 and to re-embody visions, reaching into the un- 

 seen future in that undying world, where the 

 pure in heart can alone enter? Can those born 

 in the growing city, after the lapse of half a 

 century, thus gather food for the soul ; thus re- 

 taste the sweets of childhood ; thus feel anew 

 the buoyancy of youth ; and thus be assisted in 

 their aspirations after the land, not to be warmed 

 and cheered by the light and the heat of the ma- 

 terial sun ? being overshadowed by the glory of 

 the Ancient of Days; the land whose waters 

 will be the rivers of salvation, and whose bread 

 will be the unfailing essence of immortal ex- 

 istence and plenitude! 



FLEMING GROVE. 



From the New England Farmer. 

 A nice Potato patch. 

 Mr. Editor : Having recently made a flying ex- 

 cursion through a section of the Granite State, 

 the interests of agriculture received a due share 

 of my attention. Jt was indeed a flying excur- 

 sion, for with the present well-arranged facilities 

 for travelling in that direction, no other term 

 would express the speed with which one may 

 progress. Such is the perfection of these facili- 

 ties, that it might seem that no further advance 

 can be made therein, unless bales of merchan- 

 dise and cars of men, women, and children, shall 

 hereafter be transported on magnetic wires, as 

 we now send billet-doux and price currents; a 

 thing not \ery probable, but as much within the 

 imaginings, as the other was twenty-five years 

 ago. 



However, my object is not to give an essay on 

 the wonders of steam or electricity, or even of 

 their consequents in the growth of villages and 

 cities, as if under the influence of magic. Here, 

 indeed, the field is ample, and is filled with inci- 

 dent surpassing the utmost limits of romance in 

 the past age. What would then have been con- 

 sidered high-wrought ficiion is beginning to ap- 

 pear tame ami insipid, compared with the real 

 wonders in science and art, now as familiar as 

 household words. It is a truth which receives 

 universal homage, that the human intellect is 

 just waking up from a deep sleep— is just, as it 

 were, bursting asunder a prison-house which 

 hound it with a despotism as firm as the body 

 may be enslaved by statutes, and chains, and 

 bars of iron. We behold its achievements, but 

 cannot, at first, feel that they are realities. We 

 are half inclined, notwithstanding the evidence 

 of our senses to the contrary, to suppose the 

 whole a mjre dream of delusion. 



Nor is this effervescence of genius, if it may 

 be so termed, confined to the use of steam, of 

 magnetism, or mechanical power. The bosom 

 of the earth, as if under some hitherto unknown 

 spasmodic influence, is participating in kindred 

 developments. It was feared that the eastern 

 portion of our country was worn out and be- 

 come worthless, like an old garment. Such is 

 not the fact. We are beginning to witness re- 

 sults in agriculture as unexpected and as much 

 surpassing calculation, as those in science gene- 

 rally and the mechanic arts, to which allusion 

 has been made. Who, a few years since, would 

 have dreamed of here raising forty tons of tur- 

 nips, or eleven hundred bushels of carrots on an 

 acre of land? Who would have thought the 

 means of fertilizing it so simple and so abund- 

 ant? The processes of our fathers in agricul- 

 ture were seemingly as inefficient as were those 

 in machinery; and now the farmer who undei 



takes to produce corn, or hay, or esculent roots, 

 with as little regard to fertilizing agents as they 

 had, would be esteemed as much behind the 

 age, as to transport his produce two hundred 

 miles by an ox team requiring two full weeks, 

 when he might do it in two days on a raUroad' 

 at a fourth part of the expense. 



On reaching the capital of New Hampshire, 

 knowing that Ex-Governor Hill, for the last ten 

 years, has devoted himself mainly to agriculture, 

 we were induced to call on him, to witness bis' 

 success. * * * « # s 



We had no sooner exchanged civilities than 

 an invitation was given to accompany him on an 

 excursion over his farm. The invitation was of 

 course accepted. In a few minutes, we were on 

 a drive to his farm, lying mostly on the eastern 

 side of the Merrimack river. His farm consists 

 of three or four hundred acres of land— we were 

 not [.articular to take notes, as we now wish we 

 had done— perhaps a sixth part of the rich in- 

 terval on the west bank of the river, and the 

 balance of sandy pitch-pine land. The hitter, 

 till his own experiments with it, was deemed 

 worthless for agricultural purposes, and cost 

 him only about five dollars an acre, timber and 

 all. The timber was worth more than the cost 

 of the land. We believe it is five or six years 

 since he began to cut the timber and to till the 

 soil. Ten or fifteen acres annually yielded to 

 the axe and the barrow, and a good crop of rye 

 was the result. Succeeding to this, the plough 

 with a span of horses, and a subsoil plough with 

 six oxen, among the roots and stumps of trees, 

 upturned and loosened the upper strata, the 

 depth of sixteen inches. A muck bed in the 

 vicinity contributed freely its fertilizing proper- 

 ties, and good clover rewarded the enterprising 

 proprietor for bis labor. Next in order comes 

 a crop of potatoes; and, it would be difficult for 

 any one, who has not witnessed it, to realize 

 what skill and indomitable perseverance in agri- 

 culture can accomplish. Although we were We- 

 ighted with his subsoil ploughing then in pro- 

 cess ; with a large rye field; with several In- 

 dian corn fields; with barns filled with hay that 

 would have elated the largest farmer in the 

 country; yet we most admired his potato field 

 on this pine timber land, which we had known 

 from childhood, and considered worthless. 



Perhaps of this description of land there were 

 under cultivation, in the same or contiguous en- 

 closures, about sixty acres, and one third of it 

 composing the potato patch in question. Our 

 impression is, that no manure had been used on 

 it, but a compost made in the ordinary manner, 

 and a moderate quantity of African guano; yet, 

 « hat potatoes ! We pulled up samples here and 

 there all over the field, and found an increase 

 upon the seed of about twenty per cent, in 

 weight, and in some cases numerically; that is, 

 twenty new tubers for the single one used for 

 seed. What he has already dug, and from the 

 produce last year of an adjoining patch, he esti- 

 mates his crop this year at four thousand bu- 

 shels. As soon as harvested, they are to be con- 

 veyed to Boston by railroad, a distance of sixty 

 miles, and deposited in cellars till demanded in 

 the market, then yielding him, it is estimated — 

 such is their excellence— at least one dollar per 

 bushel; or four thousand dollars for the entire 

 crop this season. What an example for the imi- 

 tation of his neighbors and fellow-citizens! 

 What an example, especially, for retiring politi- 

 cians and retiring merchants or professional gen- 

 I tlemen! Here, the wane of life, rich in varied 



