150 



&!}c limner's iHontljto iHsitor. 





ture, that the roots of trees seek <lee|> in the 

 earth, perforating rocks and rocky subsoil, to 

 bring up this potash and other mineral manures 

 which they there find ; that this substance is an- 

 nually thrown off upon the ground to form the 

 rich soil which produces luxuriantly in the first 

 crops after the land is cleared ? And may we 

 not account for the greater sterility of the pine 

 plains by the lact that the evergreen growth, the 

 narrow leaf, remains on the trees, throwing a 

 greater stringency in both leaf and wood, and 

 thus requiring greater artificial aid and more 

 time to bring the land to its higher point of 

 production ? 



Of all the smal'er verdant annual growth cal- 

 culated to make the earth productive we consider 

 clover to excel the other grasses, as well as buck 

 wheat and other small grains. There is a clo- 

 ver, the white honey suckle, that springs natural- 

 ly out of the ground : go where you may, fir in- 

 to the woods, and clear up the highlands, and 

 soon the honey suckle clover makes its appear- 

 ance— it is a sweet feed for cattle. The butter 

 made from the milk of cows feeding upon it has 

 a delicacy nf taste and flavor such as we find 

 from no other feed. The white clover is every 

 where brought out upon new land by the appli- 

 cation of ground plaster: from one to five hun- 

 dred pounds to the acre maybe applied to much 

 of our lands with great advantage. It is pre- 

 cisely that mineral material which the light lands 

 want to give out their best production. On all 

 the limestone soils of the Connecticut river val- 

 ley from the Green mountain ridge on the west 

 to the White mountain ridge on tiie east, plaster 

 is a most effective stimulant on land already fer- 

 tile to the largest crops. In the upland lime- 

 stone soil of Lisbon, N. H., we have seen a hun- 

 dred pounds of plaster to the acre double the 

 quantity of potatoes in the same field. 



The southern clover, which gives .an early 

 crop for hay and a later crop for seed, is a most 

 effective worker in a light sandy soil upon the 

 Merrimack river where we have little or no 

 limestone. in its composition. Plaster will bring 

 up this clover upon such a soil— it will grow up- 

 on any sterile ground with plaster wherever sor- 

 ril will grow.: by subsoiling it will grow luxuri- 

 antly. The valuable office which clover per- 

 forms on these sterile lands we believe to be 

 more in the operation of the roots than in the 

 body of leaf and stalk above ground. These 

 clover roots, we have seen in a yellow pure sand 

 of probably ninety-five parts in a hundred run- 

 ning in the ground change the yellow saDdy soil 

 to rich blackness. Wherever the roots of the 

 clover take hold, the quantity of corn or pota- 

 toes from a single bill will be double that where 

 no clover grew the previous year if both places 

 should be eg.ua! in all other respects. 



Further of this clover growth: as in the roots 

 of the beech and maple as well as the hemlock 

 which has planted itself upon the top or side of 

 some nearly naked granite boulder finding sus- 

 tenance in the rock itself for the growth of a 

 large tree, so we have seen the clover root work- 

 ing a crevice into the hard rock under ground, 

 by which it turns a portion of the rock into a 

 black soil. Its operation there is similar to that 

 upon the sand. The atmosphere, the influences 

 of frost, of rains and shines, the action constant- 

 ly going on which converts rocks into soil, with 

 easy artificial aids, will turn the "gravel hill 

 lauds" throughout New England into fruitful 

 fields. 



{XT" Two thousand bushels of good potatoes 

 have been raised this season, byCapt. II. Nicker- 

 son of this town, on ten acres of laud. — This 

 beats Hon. 1). Webster and Gov. Hill out and 

 out, in raising potatoes. Piscataquis is "corning 

 up : 'on potatoes this year, if nothing else— and 

 her pigs we think, can't be beat, if they can have 

 potatoes enough to eat. — Dover (Maine) Piscata- 

 quis Observer. 



Never has there been a more une\pertedlv 

 agreeable disappointment than ill the growth 

 this season of late planted potatoes through the 

 interior country on ground of recent clearing. 

 Four hundred bushels per acre on ten ordinary 

 acres is the largest product that ever came with- 

 in our notice. Far in the interior potatoes are 

 worth twenty-five cents the bushel for the starch 

 manufacture: his crop at thai tate will give one 

 hundred dollars to the acre. Dover iu Maine is 

 the shire town of Piscataquis county about fifty 

 miles from Bangor, upon the river Piscataquis: 

 it is in the midst of a newly settled country fast 

 extending towards the north-east in Maine. The 

 fertility of these new openings probably exceeds 

 that of any other portion of New England : rail- 

 roads will soon bring that country to an easy 

 seaboard market. Who would go to California 

 to dig for gold rather than with a few days' labor 

 extract one hundred dollars from a single acre 

 of land in food for the sustenance of man better 

 than gold? This grand potato crop however 

 from those this year latest planted cannot be ex- 

 pected as a general thing: the occurrence sel- 

 dom takes place of frost holding off in this part 

 of the country from September 15 to October 

 15, as was the case this year. Our quantity of 

 potatoes would have been doubled if the whole 

 ground had been planted with long reds one 

 month later than the time of our planting. The 

 great crops of potatoes this year have been of 

 those planted in the month of June. 



Genesee Valley outdone on the Granite 

 Hills. — Mr. Joseph Gage of this town has this 

 season harvested, threshed and cleared tip 

 120 bushels of clean handsome wheat from 

 three acres of land. Forty bushels to the acre 

 on the hard hills of New' Hampshire is pretty 

 well.— Clarcmont Engle. 



Further up to the north on the Connecticut 

 river valley than Claremont, we have had notice 

 of fine crops' of wheat the current year at the 

 rate of twenty-five, thirty and forty bushels to 

 the acre. Down that valley has been floated the 

 timber from the tall pines which has been used 

 in the finish of the best houses of the southern 

 cities from Hartford onward. Hundreds and 

 thousands of acres have been cleared of these 

 splendid trees with no great advantage to the 

 owners of the soil. But there are maty acres 

 of these tail pines yet left ; and the straight long 

 spruce, almost of equal value, seems to be inex- 

 haustible. The railroads connected all the way, 

 to be extended to the northernmost point of this 

 valley, will soon give a higher value to this tim- 

 ber: these railroads coming in competition with 

 the river,, the reduced tolls will make the stand- 

 ing trees worth something. We have heard of 

 the pines selling as they stood on the ground at 

 forty, fifty and sixty dollars apiece two hundred 

 miles from the sea as the river runs. Mr. Pat- 

 terson at Orford, who owns the fine Pratt farm 

 near.xkc delightful village, had upon his back 

 lands a timber lot the clearing of which was 

 called for to furnish [nidge timber for a railroad 

 in Vermont. On this clearing he sowed k«8t fall 

 wiiile; ■ heat ; and lliejigull of this sowing was 

 a l"f '^°^v>hels at the rate 



°f ' -■otf' the acre amid 



ihe pine stumps. The brother of Mr. Patterson 

 at Piermont, next town above Orford, makes it a 

 common affair to raise his thousand bushels of 

 corn year by year. Ha curs hay enough to feed 

 a ton a day to his slock of cattle, and turns out 

 annually from thirty to forty fat beeves for the 

 market. His farm is that cleared sixty or seven- 

 ty years ago by ihe father of the family. Con- 

 necticut river farms go a little before all oiIi.t 

 localions in the State. 



Few people living on sterile grounds can 

 appreciate the richness of much of the soil in 

 the Connecticut river valley. Potatoes, nearly 

 all grown since the drought was broken in Au- 

 gust, turn out on those lauds two and three hun- 

 dred bushels to the acre. One gentleman in- 

 formed us that Col. Thomas Kent of Orford on 

 twenty-three acres would have at least five thou- 

 sand bushels. There is some satisfaction in dig- 

 ging polaloes that give three hundred bushels to 

 the acre. The potatoes high up the river do not 

 bear the high price they do upon the seaboard: 

 they are taken at home for the starch factories 

 at twenty-five cents the bushel. The crop of 

 the present season is said to be better than it had 

 been for the last seven years previous. The de- 

 lay of frost until the middle of October has ad- 

 ded greatly to the value of both the potato and 

 ihe corn crop. 



The clearing of lauds upon the tributary 

 streams of the Connecticut river high up the 

 mountain sides is but beginning— it will hereaf- 

 ter be done mainly for the use of the wood and 

 timber growing in the forests. These will be of 

 increased value as the opening railroads shall 

 extend towards them. What cannot be convert- 

 ed into timber and firewood will be turned into 

 charcoal, which would give a profit for the trans- 

 port two hundred miles from the interior to the 

 cities. 



A few years ago we visited some firms be- 

 longing to Gov. Page near the Moosehillock 

 mountain in Benton, seven or eight miles out of 

 Haverhill. His lands, purchased for a trifle per 

 acre, reached up ihe sides of the mountain, 

 where were growing large orchards of the su- 

 gar maple. The fires of the past summer and 

 fall during the long drought have been destruc- 

 tive to the timber lots among the mountains. A 

 careless farmer burning his grounds run the 

 fires over the neighboring mountain lands of 

 Gov. Page, who thought, as is said, that ihe sum 

 of three thousand dollars would not pav him the 

 damage. Gov. Page, being a practical farmer 

 who has labored with his own hands and made 

 money from farming, may he supposed a eood 

 judge as to the value of these lands. For seve- 

 ral years he has been in the habit ol" clearing and 

 burning off entirely, and found his account in 

 making rich pastures by more than paving ex- 

 penses in the first crop of wheat. 



Several instances of the success of a crop of 

 winter wheat at Haverhill, Bath, Lyman and 

 Lisbon were mentioned to us: the more suc- 

 cessful is a kind of winter wheat the seed of 

 which was brought from Wisconsin and north- 

 ern Illinois. It has been thus far a surer crop 

 than spring wheat. Upon ihe new hill land.-:, 

 the produce generally is never less than twenty 

 bushels to the acre. In New York we under- 

 stand the average crop of winter wheat not to 

 exceed sixteen bushels to the acre. 



All along the northern forest line of New Eng- 

 land from the St. John to lake Cli:nnplain the 

 fine country is to become an agricultural region 

 profitable for cultivation. The climate, although 



