18 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



only in one riglit line, but extends in every di- 

 rection ; at first only tliose flow towards the aper- 

 ture which are in a horizontal plane with the up- 

 per level of the vessel, but by degrees the high- 

 er strata are aflfected, and their pressure from n- 

 bove in a tight vessel or tube (for the sides of the 

 barrel become tight by the pressure and pack- 

 ing of the earth and "the swelling of the staves 

 with moisture) is at length suflicient to force up 

 and sustain a column of water something above 

 the surface of the adjacent soil. I presume were 

 the communication to be cut off by any means 

 with lands, though distant, higher than the sur- 

 face of the ground around the barrels, it would 

 not rise above the rim. — Probably witli a neater 

 adjustment and a perfectly water tight apparatus, 

 a still greater elevation might be obtained. The 

 origin of natural springs is accounted for in pre- 

 cisely the same way ; the only diflerence is that 

 we furnish an artificial reservoir for the almost 

 imperceptible arteries of the earth, which oth- 

 erwise would steal away to some natural orifices 

 issuing at the surface. The stones assist in ena- 

 bling a small quantity of water to rise to a high- 

 er level ; perhaps their natural coldness aids in 

 condensing terrestial vapor. 



It may be considered analagous to the creating 

 an issue iu our own flesh by inserting a pea, for 

 instance, in a muscular part of the body, and thus 

 creating a dissemination of the natural lymph to 

 one particular office. I should have made trial 

 of this plan on my own place, but (fortunately in 

 all other respects) mine is a piece of giound a- 

 bounding in water and would add no corrobora- 

 tion therefore to the experiments of the inventor; 

 requiring so little trouble, perhaps some of your 

 contributors will put it into execution and com- 

 municate the result. A Sdbscriber. 



Fondness of farm stock for salt. — In this 

 country a small portion only of the agricultural 

 community have tried the efiicacy of salt upon 

 farm stock. The avidity with which it is de- 

 voured by both cattle and sheep, and even by 

 horses, is astonishing ; while the influence gain- 

 ed over them through their eargerness to obtain 

 it IS equally surprising. A flock of sheep or 

 drove of cattle may instantly be brought togeth- 

 er as if by magic, from every corner of an exten 

 Bive pasture, provided they can hear the voice oi 

 see the person of him who comes prepared with 

 a small quantity of salt; for, on getting a hi 

 that there is salt about to be distributed, tli 

 come bounding along as fast as their legs can 

 carry them. Though the common practice is to 

 deposit the salt in small rude troughs, or upon 

 piniiks of wood or flat stones, yet so anxious are 

 these creatures to get at the salt, that scarcely 

 the shyest of them will refuse it from the hand 

 of the person who supplies it It is an interest- 

 ing sight to witness two or three hundred sheep 

 come at the farmer's call, bleating and frolicking, 

 and somewhat inconveniently hemming him in 

 by their pressure on all sides. With regard to 

 cattle, it is hardly safe to venture into an open 

 pasture with salt in your possession ; for so eager 

 are they to obtain it, that they do not allow time 

 for depositing it upon the places intended for it, 

 or even upon the ground, if nothing else beat 

 hand. Huge oxen, with long formidable horns, 

 are rather rough companions when they press 

 closely around you; and it sometimes happens 

 that you experience much difliculty iu getting 

 your formidable friends satisfied. Horses are 

 under a similar influence, although they seldom 

 exhibit their partiality in so striking a" manner. 

 During some years I owned a fine and noble 

 animal ; but when I first purchased him he was 

 somewhat shy and intractable. In the summer 

 season he, along with two or three others, was 

 turned out to grass, and notwithstanding the gen- 

 tleness and tameness of his companions, it was 

 with the greatest diflicultv that he was haltered 

 when thus running at large. Oats, Indian corn, 

 and other tempting things were ofl^ered to him in 

 vain ; but when he once had tasted salt, he forth- 

 with became the slave of his passion ; its talis- 

 manic power was wonderful, for from that day 

 any individual about the farm could aasilv take 

 hmi captive, provided half an ounce of salt was 

 oflered as a bribe. Indeed it was not necessary 

 to coax hiin to sufl^er himself to be taken ; on the 

 contrary, he would come voluntarily to his en- 

 slaver and endeavour to coax him out of his salt. 

 — Marklrmr. Expi-t^s. 



The Slooutains of New England, their Soil 

 and Agriculture. 



AnMdress delivered at the TabtnuKk be/on the 

 Lyceum of the city of JVew lor*, Februani, 184J, 

 by Isaac Hill. 



The scholar who has been devoted to his books 

 through life, who has made himself acquainted 

 both with languages dead and living, who has of- 

 ten pored over the beauties of ancientand modern 

 fine writers, wiio has habituated himself to the 

 recollection of dates as well as of particular 

 events, whose memory at once fastens upon any 

 |)oiut of history or any beautiful or striking illus 

 tration either in poetry or prose, is such a man as 

 can best adapt himself to every intelligent and 

 inquiring audience. The man of science who 

 has spent a life in the pursuit of some one favor 

 ite study, who has gone over the milky way of 

 heaven and calculated with exactness the distan- 

 ces and the movements ot the many suns 

 around which millions of unseen worlds revolve 

 in the boundless expanse of space ; or else gone 

 into the depths of the sea or the bowels of our 

 mother earth for demonsstralion that long anterior 

 to the existence of man and long before the pre- 

 sent sun lighted our dark planet, or the " morning 

 stars sang together," or ever the world was crea- 

 ted in its present shape, there were other animals 

 adapted to other elements existing ; or else, by 

 comparison of the known with the unknown and 

 by exact mathematics, or by chemical affinities 

 resolving matter into its original elements, is able 

 to prove the results which at once astonish and 

 delight the inquirer: these, and such as these are 

 they, who can hardly fail to instruct, to entertain 

 and to fix the attention in well arranged facts of 

 such an assembly as gathers from time to time in 

 this place.— Your speaker, on this occasion, comes 

 not with any advantages of this kind— he comes 

 not with the advantage of the learning of the 

 schools. The means of knowledge, which al- 

 most all young men of the present time possess, 

 were, in early life, thrown beyond his reach: he 

 IS hut a poor cosmopolite, who has given his at- 

 tention to too manv things to be accurately in- 

 gratiated in anything; and his discourse must 

 of consequence be confined to what he himself 

 has seen, rather than to what has been accurate- 

 ly analyzed and described by others. 



Mr. Jefll-rson, in his Notes upon Virginia, writ- 

 ten nioie than half a century ago, expressed the 

 opinion that the mountains were first formed and 

 that the rivers flowed afterwards. The face of 

 the country in all directions confirms this opin 

 ion. There is rarely a valley that seems not to 

 be made by the overflowing waters— there is 

 a gorge in the rocks through which the waters 

 escape that has not been worn out by the stream 

 that has for ages passed over it. 



Reflecting on the revolutions continually takiu" 

 place upon the earth's surface— that every rain 

 discharged upon the hills and mountains, brings, 

 on Its way, to find a great level in the ocean, not 

 only that portion of the earth which is decompo- 

 sed into finer particles, but oftentimes rocks of 

 various sizes with trees and their stumps and 

 roots and every kind of vegetation— what other 

 conclusion can we arrive at, than that our highest 

 mountains in the cour.se of time must find a level 

 with the sea, and even that old ocean itself must 

 at some future period usurp the place of the 

 land ? 



Trav-elling in any direction in the mountain re- 

 gion of our country, I want not the aid of scien- 

 tific men to convince me what has been, what is, 

 and what will be. Can you traverse the waters 

 of the majestic Hudson and pass where these 

 break through the highlands without coming to 

 the conclusion that before this barrier was broken 

 through, these waters must either have rested on 

 an extended lake above, or run ofl^ to the ocean at 

 some higher .-md diffeient point? Observe as 

 you pass up from the city of New York the reg- 

 ularity in line of bceak and in height of the Pali- 

 sades on the Jersey side extending on the river 

 many miles. This break had its origin, without 

 doubt, in the first overflow making its way over 



a direct course where there was no more 

 prominent object to change it. Directly within 

 the highlands the course of the river is meander- 

 ing, and the river is now of contracted and now 

 of expanded width, from the many obstacles it 

 necessarily encountered of unequalmagnitude on 

 Its way down. 



More recent than the valley of the Hudson 

 above the higlilaiid.s is the valley of the Connec- 

 ticut above the spot where the latter river broke 

 through its gorge nearest Long Island Sound con- 

 necting with the ocean. Haying never personal- 

 ly visited the valley of the Housalonic which has 

 Its sources in the midst of the Green Mountain 

 range near the south line of Vermont, I am una- 

 ble to (brm an opinion whether or not the valley 

 of the Hudson above the highlands formerly dis- 

 charged us waters in that direction, whether they 

 connected with those of the Connecticut still far- 

 ther east, or whether they found a way to the 

 ocean by the channel of the Delaware still fur- 

 ther to the west. The relative age of the rivers 

 must be matter of' conjecture. The sources of 

 the Susquehanna and the Delaware are near 

 each other; and the canals which unite the Del- 

 aware with the Hudson, the Susquehanna with 

 the Mohawk in the eastern branch, and with the 

 waters of Lake Ontario on the western branch, 

 prove that it would require an elevation of the 

 present waters of less than seven hundred feet to 

 flow out the Niagara falls, and connect the wa- 

 ters of every river running south-westerly "to the 

 ocean from the Connecticut to the Potomac. 



Perhaps the relative age of the several rivers 

 may be measured from the more near or remote 

 resemblance of their basins to alluvial formations. 

 That the whole of western New York was for 

 inany ages submerged long after the greater por- 

 tion of the country eastward and including the 

 greater |iart of the valley of the Hudson was dry 

 land, does not in my judgment admit of doubt: 

 to its more recent formation into dry land, may 

 we attribute its greater fertility ; and to the recent 

 limestone formation not only of that but of the 

 vast region further west, is it due that the land 

 produces abundance of wheat, while the region 

 first described is by no means natural to that pro- 

 duction. 



Of all the river valleys at the eastward none 

 B more productive than that of the Connecti- 

 cut. I have travelled on that river from its mouth 

 ally to its sources: fertility is not the jieculiar 

 aiactcristic of the alluvion near its banks — it 

 extends up the sides and nearly to the tops of the 

 high lands on either hand. The river at some 

 former jieriod of time was a series of lakes : en- 

 countering several barriers, it has broken through 

 them at different periods, and found its way di- 

 rect to the ocean. Below Middletowu in the 

 State of Connecticut, it suddenly changes its 

 course and has evidently dug its channel through 

 the ridge with as much regularity as if it had 

 been done by human means. Below this point 

 the land is of the primary f()rmatlon and existed 

 many age.s, while the ground where stand the 

 beautiful cities and villages on the river above was 

 the bottom of a lake. 



Proceeding up the Connecticut to the centre 

 of Massachusetts near Northampton, we find an- 

 other barrier, broken down between Mount Hol- 

 yoke and Mount Tom— still further up at several 

 points are successive gaps broken through ; and 

 of these there is a succession at intervals wher- 

 ever there is a mountain and a fall far up to the 

 north beyond the forty-fifth degree of latitude. 



I have satisfied myself that the lakes above 

 Bellows Falls, if not all the way above Mount 

 Tom and Mount Holyoke, discharged their waters 

 formerly through the valley of the Merrimack. 

 This valley has not, either in its alluvion or its 

 highlands, equal fertility to the Connecticut. The 

 mountains li-om which its waters descend are 

 more ancient and more rugged — they send not 

 down the same rich particles which constitute the 

 river bottoms : the lands of the valley are older ; 

 and the mind turns back to the period when a 

 mightier flood passed down the Merrimack val- 

 ley, leaving the thousands of acres of level pine 

 plains at an elevation of some seventy-five feet 

 hove the present river bottom in the place of the 

 present alluvion, over portions of which the 

 swelled stream annually flows. This pine plain, 

 at the same elevation wherever it appears on ei- 

 ther side, must have had the former relation to 

 the great stream that the fertile bottoms have to 

 the present stream which has lost the accumula- 

 ted waters now flowing through the valley of the 

 Connecticut, and perhaps of other streams run- 

 ning to the ocean still further west. 



I cannot be under a mistake as to the conjec- 

 ture that a portion of the Connecticut waters for- 

 merly flowed through the Merrimack valley. I 



