122 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY YISITX^R. 



bed of Ihe sea, as ascertained by DocL JacksoD. 

 This part of the mouiitaiu ridge is not primitive 

 like the Crystal Hills : it is new red sandstone 

 belongin<r to the coal formation. That indefati- 

 gable civil engineer and scholar, Capt. Alden Par- 

 tridge, in the year 1817 traversed the whole of 

 this line of mountains, taking observations. The 

 pretended highlands recently discovered by the 

 British comnnssioners snutli of St. John are sta- 

 ted nowhere to exceed eleven himdred feet above 

 the level of the ocean. There are a few moun- 

 tains of considerable elevation near the sources 

 o( the Kennebeck and the Penobscot: of the lat- 

 ter, Mount Katadin, which may he seen from 

 Bangor fifty miles up the Penobscot bay, rises 

 5300 feet above the ocean. 



The mountain streams, particularly those in the 

 northern region of New Hampshire, are rife with 

 salmon trout, a fish of more delicious flavor than 

 any other that sjiorts in American waters— as 

 much superior to the peich and suckers and chubs 

 that are to be found in sluggish pools and streams, 

 as the running water of the cold mountain brook is 

 more grateful to the parched throat than the stand- 

 ing liquid of a summer frog pond. The sport of 

 trout-fishiug among the mountains has an air of 

 romance tempting to the inhabitant of the city to 

 journey many miles for its enjoyment. Those 

 who by instinct or education know how to handle 

 the fly or the minnow, who can await with pa- 

 tience the reached out arm long in the same po- 

 sition for a " glorious nibble" — who can leap oyer 

 log and stump, through bush and brake, angling 

 at the turu of an eddy, the tail of a weed bed, or 

 at the foot of a noisy waterfall, and enjoy the 

 sport with the gusto of Izake Walton one 

 htmdrcd and fifty years ago— such as these know 

 how to appreciate the pleasures of trout-fishing. 



No food ever tasted better than a supper of 

 trout at the White Mountain House on returning 

 ti'om my last freezing expedition in the month of 

 August 1836. The hungry vi.>iitants expected 

 their sharpened appetites would soon exhaust the 

 stock of fresh trout held by the mountain land- 

 lord ; but before nine o'clock at night au inhahi- 

 taut brought in an addition of twenty-five or thir- 

 ty pounds which lie that afternoon had angled 

 from a stream running down the side of the 

 Pnndicherry mountain. This was by no means 

 eipial to the fishing on the Margallaway last sum- 

 mer by two young men, Doct. Jackson's assist- 

 ants in the geological examination : in a little 

 more than one hour they took from that stream 

 one himdred pounds of trout. The skill of the 

 exiierlenced angler is hardly requisite where the 

 waters and nmuniain streams are so much more 

 abundaiit tli.cii the Mien who have time and incli- 

 nation for lliP sport. 



Of the auinials that formerly tenanted these 

 mountain regions lew that are ferocious remain. 

 The bears sometimes make havoc among the 

 sheep in the isolated settlements surrounded by 

 mnntitain and forest: in such cases the neigh- 

 borhoods turn out and make common cause in 

 conquering the enemy. A species of wild cat, 

 the Siberean lynx, are also common which proy 

 upon the domestic animals. Wolves likewise 

 continue to exist in no very great numbers. 

 Beavers, otters and other furred animals, are 

 taken in num!)ers by several experienced hunts- 

 men of that region. Formerly this was the re- 

 sort of the moose, which was sliot so identifully 

 that his meat was a common food to the first set- 

 tlers. Deer continue to be numerous among tin- 

 mountains, and would much increase .innually. il 

 is said, if the wolves were hinited off t!i(> grounds. 

 Southerly of ilie White Mountain Notch there is 

 an area of mountains from twenty to forty miles 

 over, many of the valleys of which are not often 

 frequented by man. In these vallies the deer 

 herd like a fold of sheep in the winter, feeding 

 upon browse : during the time of deep snows 

 they hardly leave their places of shelter ; the 

 lii'Mtsnian on snow shoes comes down upon 

 thr-m and desjiatches ll'eni with liltle ado. 



Deer stalUiiis; in l"!u!:ipe has so many fascina- 

 ti<i!!S tint the proprirtoi-s of extensive districts of 

 land appro]iri:ite tlnMn es|ipri.illy for this pur- 

 pose: this mode of hunting is called deer stalk- 

 ing where it is practised in countries so wild and 

 precipitous as to renilrr the piu-suit of them with 

 horses and dogs impracii.T.lile. Blaine, an En- 

 glish author on Rural Sports, observes that 

 '■there must be some peculiar charm in this 

 sport, similar to that of huntinjf the chamois, 



which although it holds out almost an equal 

 chance of destruction at one time or other, nev- 

 ertheless appears to entwine itself more and 

 more round the heart as its dangers increase." 

 The late Duke of Athol. (he says,) was an in- 

 stance of this devotion to deer stalking, to the 

 exclusion of most other sports: he pursued it al- 

 most to Ihe day of his death. Deer stalking is 

 confined principally to the Highlands of Scot- 

 land, embracing some of the most interesting 

 scenery imaginable. The highland forests, be- 

 ing the properly of men of rank and wealtli, to 

 this day are pieserved for the accommodation of 

 wild game, particularly of red deer. The forest 

 of the Duke of Athol, set apart for red deer, is 

 said to include a hundred thousand English 

 acres. This vast tract has been benefitted by 

 tree planting of its noble owner which, according 

 to Dr. M'CuUoch, amounted to thirty millions in 

 number. The forests of the Earl of Sutherland, 

 including bens or mountainous regions rising in 

 Alpine grandeur to a vast height, and termina- 

 ting ID the beautiful lochs of Naver, Veallach and 

 Corr, at their feet, occupied a tract of hunting 

 grounds of fifty miles in length and from ten to 

 thirty in breadth. The forest of Marr, fifteen by 

 nine miles; the extensive deer haunts in Ross- 

 shire ; the forest of Corrichbah owned by the 

 Marquis of Breadalhane, whom Baine character- 

 izes as a general lover of sporting, who had rev- 

 elled in the trouting of the Scotch rivers and 

 lakes, and whose boat had been often seen on 

 Locli Lomond, that boast of the Scotch and the 

 admiration of every beholder; — are among some 

 of the districts devoted to deer stidking in Scot- 

 land. 



The beauty and grandeur of scenery in Scot- 

 land or Switzerland or any other country of Eu- 

 rope, cannot exceed that of the mountain region 

 which I have been describing. What magnifi- 

 cent landscape will compare with the different 

 vie>vs at the Notch — with the Silver Caseade, half 

 a mile from its entrance issuing from the moun- 

 tain eight hundred feet above the subjacent val- 

 ley, passing over almost perpendicularly a series 

 of rocks so little broken as to preserve the ap- 

 pearance of a uniform current, and yet so Ihr dis- 

 turbed as to be perfectly white? — ^>vith the Flume 

 at no gi-eat distance liilling over three precipices 

 from llie height of two hundred and fifty feet — 

 down the two first, in a single current, and over 

 the last in three, uniting again at the bottom in a 

 basin fiamed by the hand of nature, perhaps by 

 the wearing of the waters, in the rocks ? — with 

 the impencling rocks directly overhead on either 

 side to a vast liciijlit rent nsuniler by that Power 

 which tiisl npheiivid the mountains, leaving bare- 

 ly S])ace I'm- the liitid stream of the Saco and the 

 road to pass? — uith the track of the aw fid ava- 

 lanches at no great distance on cither side com- 

 ing down from the height, throwing rock.s, trees 

 and earth across the defile, damming up the 

 stream and forcing it to seek new channels, and 

 covering up or carrying away clean to the surface 

 of the hard rock the long travelled road ? 



If the eye is not here sated with the grandeur 

 and beauty of the stupendous works of the Al- 

 nfighty, aiul the changes he has wrought, let the 

 traveller pass into the Franconia Notch, near the 

 source of Ihe Merrimack river twenty miles south- 

 erly of the Wliite Mountain Notch. At various 

 points there have been marked upon the sides of 

 mountains resemblances of parts of the human 

 face, as the nose, the Jlps, and mouth, and the 

 chin and neck. The greater age and decay of 

 the higher primitive mountains of New Hamp- 

 shire, striking off or washing away the decotnpo 

 sing felspar or naked rock, make these figures of 

 parts of the human face or body more pointed 

 and conspicuous than the Anthony's no.se in the 

 Uighlainls upon the Hudson, or the Nose and 

 Chin, the loftiest summit of the Green Moun- 

 tain range in Man.sfield. Vermont. The Man of 

 the Mountain at Franconia Notch has long been 

 personiited and apostrophized : his covered head 

 is the sure forerunner of the thunder shower or 

 storm ; and in the world of fiction he is made the 

 main agent of the mountain ger.ii who bewilder 

 and mislead the benighted traveller, and whose 

 lodgement is in the rocky caverns hitherto unfre- 

 quented by the human tread. ThePrqfile is perched 

 at the height of more than a thousand feet : the 

 solid rock presents a side view or profile of thc 

 human fiice, every feature of whicli in the dui- 

 proportion is conspicuous : it is no inanimate 



profile — it looks the living mau as if his voice 

 could reach to the pro))ortionate distance of its 

 greater size. The face of the old man, like every 

 thing human, is destined to change — it will fall 

 away as the mountiiin rock of which it is a part 

 is doomed to be broken oft' ami carried down to 

 ti^rtilize the valley below. But a short time be- 

 fore I last saw him, his cravat had fallen into the 

 receptacle of things whose identity becomes 

 lost upon earth ; and his now naked neck made 

 him resemble the huge front and chest of some 

 finned Grecian or Roman gladiator. 



The Franconia gorge is one of those i)oint3 

 where the waters of the Connecticut long flowed 

 rnak'ng up the greater volume of the more an- 

 cient river of Merrimack which comes down 

 fi-om the north, receiving several branches from 

 the east and west before it passes by the capital 

 of New Hampshire : from Concord this Notch is 

 due north about sixty miles; and although moun- 

 tain is piled on mountain on either hand, for sev- 

 enty-five miles there are few roads more level in 

 any direction than this pass among the mountains : 

 a railroad either through this pass north and 

 south or from it east and west in the midst of 

 seemingly impassable moimtains may be con- 

 structed perhaps with more easy facility than 

 over apparently level routes upon the sea coast. 

 In the making "of railroads there is a literal veri- 

 fication of the Holy Scripture : " Every valley 

 shall he exalted, and every mountain and hill 

 shall be made low ; and the crooked shall be 

 made straight, and the rough places plain :" No 

 p,-u-t of America presents so good roads as we 

 find in the alpine towns of New England. 

 Within the last few years the roads have been 

 constructed upon the principle of avoiding all 

 rise and fiill except what is necessary in sur- 

 mounting the lowest point of any given height 

 The enterprise of our peojde sto[is not until the 

 course of every considerable road is changed 

 where a rise of more than lour degrees is en- 

 countered. Those who visit the mountain re- 

 gion of New Hampshire will find the roads a- 

 round the passes as easy as the travelled stage 

 roads in any part of the United States, and the 

 scenery much more interesting than upon any 

 level champaign country. 



The subsiditig waters at the Franconia notch 

 have left bodies of water, like the lochs so cele- 

 l«-ated in the Scottish Highlands, flowing through 

 the Femigewassett branch of the Merrimack on 

 the one hand and the Wild Ammonoosiick to tlie 

 Connecticut river on the other. This mountain 

 region to the east and west, until recently, has 

 been considered of little value. The township of 

 Lincoln in the mountains long contained only a 

 single family keeping a house of entertainment 

 upon the Notch road. The census just taken 

 has increased the number of lamilics to more 

 than twenty. Up one of the tributary streams 

 several thousand acres of nearly level land cover- 

 ed with a beautiful growth of timber have been 

 opened: the quality of the soil is excellent; and 

 young men find as little difficulty in making pro- 

 ductive farms upon it as in any part of the coun- 

 try. Up another of the tributary .streams a path 

 was cut within a year i)ast to a district not em- 

 braced in any surveyed town: here several hun- 

 dred thousand feet of elegant clear white pine 

 timber were cut down ; and the experiment of 

 floating it down the stream, the only way of 

 bringing it out, at first considered very dubious, 

 was completely successful. 



This wild ali)ine country, the residence of the 

 stag, of whom Buftbn says — " his lofty mien, his 

 elegance and power, are suflicient to distinguish 

 him from all other inliabitants of the forest" — 

 has more attractions than those who have long 

 lived in sight of them had supposed. As the dif- 

 ficulties of access are removed, new and beauti- 

 ful tracts of land in the valleys and upon the 

 mountain sides are opened to clearing and culti- 

 vation. Here is the towering white pine running 

 into the air many feet without a limb, furnishing 

 the mast of a ship or the main beam of a bridge, 

 which is worth in its place often over a hundred 

 dollars: here is the tall and stately maple which 

 standing in the pride of life produces its fifteen or 

 twenty pounds of sugar in a season, or when cut 

 down is manufactured into cabinet work more 

 henutifid than mahogany : the tall ash, thestindy 

 hcech and birch, and the evergreen hemlock and 

 larch grow here as in land of deep virgin soil. 

 Within twenty years much of this mountain hind 



