THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



123 



luis been turned into farms— the stout hard wood 

 growth has given way to the axe of the settler. 

 Ahnost the only increase in the agricultural pop- 

 ulation of New Hampshire during the last ten 

 years has been in the mountain region, from 

 which it has been repelled only by the cold win- 

 ter climate, the object of dread to some, but more 

 to be desired for health and long life than almost 

 any other climate on earth. 1 know a family of 

 sons and daughters born upon the side of the lof- 

 ty Moosehillock which mounts nearly five thou- 

 sand feet above the ocean, thirteen of whom aver- 

 aged more than six feet each in height ; and this 

 family has repeatedly turned out its three thou- 

 sand pounds of maple sugar annually, made at 

 that season when iarmers who have no sugar 

 trees are lying upon their oars. 



Werner says " the vast sandy plains of Sartany 

 and Africa retained their inhabitants in the sliape 

 of wandering shepherds. The granite moun- 

 tains and the low calcareous plains gave rise to 

 different manners, and different degrees of 

 wealth and intelligence." The spirit of Liberty 

 dwells upon the mountains and among the hills. 

 Look to the Highlands — to the 



" Scots who hae with Wiillace bled, 

 §cot3 whom Bruce had often led"' — 

 Look to Switzerland — to William Tell— to the 

 Tyrolese, 



•' Where the song of freedom soiindeth'' — 

 to the Circassians upon the Caucasus now con- 

 tending for Liberty against the whole power of 

 Russian despotism. Can we find in the plain 

 country of any nation on earth samples of a val- 

 orous, a chivalrous, an indomitable spirit such as 

 these ? Where is the district of country that can 

 present a race of men more devoted to liberty 

 and independence, more courageous and daring, 

 than those who came from the hill and moun 

 tain towns of New England to fight the enemiei 

 of the country at Lexington and Bunker Hill.' 

 Such men as Rogers and Stark in their 

 shoes in the war of 175G could do more with a 

 single company of Rangers, natives of New Ei 

 gland mountain towns, to keep at bay and annoy 

 the French and savage foe, than Lord Howe's en- 

 tire command of several thousand British troops 

 I wish not to tempt the farmers who have 

 flourished upon the easy soil of the seaboard, 

 who enjoy all the wealth of prosperous industry, 

 in reclaiming thousands of acres, originally as 

 rough and uninviting as our wild mountains can 

 be ;"l wish not to tempt them from their com- 

 fortable retreats and the improvementg made 

 with their own hands. A deer or fox chase on 

 horseback would be much more inviting upon 

 the plains of Jersey or Long Island, than deer 

 stalking upon Catskill, Moosehillock, or the Fran- 

 conia iriountains. He who has earned his ease 

 ought not to be enticed into hardship ; although 

 we" often find our greatest blessings in our most 

 severe labor and om- most painful hardships. 

 ■ The mountain region of New Hampshire has 

 been denominated the Switzerland of America. 

 Our scenery is surpassed in beauty by no scene- 

 17 on earth. Coming down from our 



tains, I would direct your attention to our beau- 

 tiful lakes. The eye never traced a more 

 splendid prospect than the view from Red Hill, 

 now situated in the new county of Carroll, forty- 

 five miles north-east from the capital of the 

 granite state, near one of the principal stage- 

 roads leading to the White Mountains. The 

 view from Mount Washington shows the liigl 

 mountains aroiuid as successive dark waves of 

 the sea at your feet, and all other objects, the vi 

 lages and sea, ns more indistinct from their dii 

 tance. The view from Red Hill, an elevation of 

 some twenty-fivo hundred feet, which is gained 

 on horseback, brings all objects distinctly to the 

 naked eye. On the one hand the Winnipiseo- 

 gee lake twenty-two miles in length with its bays 

 and islands and surrounding villages and farms 

 of parti-colored fields, spreads out like a field of 

 glass at the south-east. Loch Lomond with all 

 its splendor and beauty presents no scenery that 

 is not equalled in the environs of the Winnipis- 

 eogee. Its suite of hills and mountains serve as 

 a contrast to increase its splendor. We stand on 

 the higher of the three points of the Red Hill, 

 limited every where by regular circular lines 

 and elegant in its figure beyond most other moun- 

 tains. The autumnal foliage, overspreading in 

 the season after vegetation has been arrested by 



the frosts the ranges of mountains, is a beauty 

 our scenery that has never been described by 

 inhabitant of Great Britain, because no such 

 scenery ever there existed. It results from a mix- 

 ture of the evergreen with trees whose leaves 

 are deciduous. Their verdure is changed by 

 the frost, so as to present in variety of color the 

 most splendid beauties of nature. Many tinc- 

 tures are often found upon the same tree. " Dif- 

 ferent sorts of trees, (says Dr. Dwight,) are sus- 

 ceptible of different degrees of beauty. Among 

 these the maple is pre-eminently distinguished 

 by the great varieties, the finish, the intense lus- 

 tre of its hues, varying through all the dyes, be- 

 tween a rich green and the most jjerfect crim- 

 son." Facing the east at the right of the lake we 

 discover the range of Gunstock moinitains run- 

 ning down some twelve or fifteen miles, and at 

 the lef\ hand on the north-east the Great Ossipee 

 mountain range of about equal extent. Nearly 

 surrounded by mountains, the lake depends 

 mainly for its supply of water U()on its own 

 springs : there are several ponds at a higher ele- 

 vation of the basin which communicate with the 

 lake, the outlets of which with other mountain 

 rivulets furnish sites for mills and machinery. 

 There are excellent farms in the several town- 

 ships surrounding the lake, as well as upon the 

 islands of the lake itself. To those who doubt 

 the feasibility of the land so far north, the fact 

 may be stated that Indian corn which requires 

 length of season and a hot sun is here produced 

 as readily as in the State of Connecticut or in the 

 counties of Now York up the north river. Re- 

 peatedly upon the islands of Winnipiseogee lake 

 has a greater crop of Indian corn been taken 

 from the land than has been presented in any 

 other printed account I have ever seen of a crop 

 in New England: one hundred and thirty-one 

 bushels of shelled corn to the acre by two per- 

 sons in the year 1839, and more than that num- 

 ber of bushels in the year 1840, were produced 

 These extraordinary crops were due as much tc 

 the preparation of ground and excellent culture 

 as to the capacity of the land ; but land which 

 under any circumstances would produce 

 such a crop must be set down as worthy the oc- 

 upation of any farmer. The soil of the islands 

 is the same as that found upon the mountains 

 and adjacent elevations— not alluvion, but prim' 

 five soil of granite and gneiss with the hard pan. 

 The mountains themselves in all directions are 

 becoming extensively cultivated for pastures 

 wherever there is soil : the best of these pastures 

 are said to be where the surface of the ground is 

 one third or one fourth covered with rock 

 Over most of the isolated mountains since the 

 country was settled the fires have been suffered 

 to run," so that the lai-ge trees and even the soil 

 itself in some places have been burnt off to tht 

 naked rock. The mountain pastures turn off 

 the fattest cattle : they attract more rain from 

 their greater height, and are less liable to drought. 

 Some of the best grazing farms in New Hamp- 

 shire are upon the moinitains. Passing on the 

 north side of the Great Ossipee in the summer 

 of 1839, I observed a flock of children who had 

 just left a school house— (for our mountain chil- 

 dren as well as the more wealthy children of the 

 cities are well instructed in the rudiments of ed- 

 ucation, and many of them become eminent as 

 instructors or in the liberal professions in distant 

 States)— turn into a road concealed every where 

 but at its entrance where there was a mill on a 

 stream running from the side of the mountain : 

 on inquiry I found that this little flock of some 

 twenty were born and belonged in the basin of 

 the mountain a mile or t«o above, where several 

 fine farms had been cleared. The view of the 

 lake and its environs from Red Hill is beautiful 

 beyond my feeble jjowers of description. But 

 turning westward we have a still nearer view 

 from the same eminence of Squam lake, another 

 "splendid sheet of water, indented by points, 

 arched with coves, and stud<led with a succession 

 of romantic islands:" this is six miles long and 

 about three miles broad. Like the Winnipiseo- 

 gee the waters of Squam lake are remarkably 

 pure, and both are stored with lake trout, a spe- 

 cies differing somewhat from the mountain trout 

 and weighing from two to eighteen iiounds : these 

 trout are taken generally with baited hook 

 through the ice in the winter. 



The prospect from Red Hill is nnt>.onfined to 

 the two lakes: to the north and east it embraces 



beyond the two villages of Sandwich the White 

 Face Mountains and the Jecorway peak with oth- 

 er mountains eastward in the Slate of Maine to- 

 gether with the valley and amphitheatre of the 

 Bear Camp river and the Ossipee lake, another 

 beautiful sheet of silver water which discharges 

 itself through the Saco in the State of Maine. 

 From the Red Hill looking west and south we 

 descry the Cardigan, the Kearsarge, the Monad- 

 nock, and the two beautiful prominences low 

 down upon the Merrimack whose Indian appel- 

 lation is Un-can-nu-nuck. 



If Mr. Jefferson thought a single point upon 

 the Potomack where that river breaks through 

 the Blue Ridge to be worth to the European ob- 

 server a voyage across the Atlantic, will it be 

 deemed extravagant if I should say to the inhab- 

 itants of a town or city of the United States any 

 where along the Atlantic ocean, that the Notch 

 of the White Hills, the Notch of the Franconia 

 mountains, the Cascade or the Flume, or the 

 Face of the Old Man, or the view liom Red Hill, 

 one alone or all together, are worth ten times the 

 expense and labor of a journey of one hundred, 

 five hundred or one thou.sand iniles? Ladies 

 and Gentlemen, I hope hereafter the pleasure of 

 hearing that many of those now present have 

 been induced to visit our mountain region : it will 

 be a high gratification to meet them personally 

 on their retiu'u, assured that they will reproach 

 mo with having presented no exaggerated view 

 of " the Moinitains of New England, their Soil 

 and Agriculture." 



Interesting Philosophical Facts. — Soiuid 

 travels at the rate of 1149 feet per second in the 

 air, 49(i0 in water, 11,090 in cast iron, 17,000 in 

 steel, 18,000 in glass, and from 433C to 17,000 in 

 wood. 



Mercury freezes at 38 degr. Fahrenheit, and 

 becomes a solid mass, mallsable under the ham- 

 mer. 



The greatest height at which visible clouds 

 ever exist does not extend ten miles. 



Air is about 816 times lighter than water. 

 The ])ressure of the atmosphere upon every 

 square foot of the earth amounts to 21C01bs. An 

 ordinary sized man, supposing his suri'ace to be_ 

 14 square feet, sustains the enormous pressure of 

 30,240 lbs. 



Heat rarifiesairto such an extent that it may 

 be made to occupy 5,500 times the space it did 

 before. 



The violence of the expansion of water when 

 freezing is sufficient to cleave a globe of copper 

 of such thickness as to require a force of 28,000 

 lbs to produce the same effect. 



During the conversion of ice into water, 140 

 degrees of heat are absorbed. 



Wrter, when coiyerted into steam, increases in 

 bulk 1800 times. 



One hundred pounds of the water of the Dead 

 Sea contains 45 lbs. of salt. 



The mean annual depth of rain that fiills at 

 the Equator is 96 inches. 



Assuming the temperature of the interior of 

 the earth to increase uniformly as we descend at 

 the rate of 1 degree in46ft'et,at tlie dnptli of (JO 

 miles it will amount to480,000 degrees Fahrenheit 



a degree of heat sufficient to fuse all known 



substances. 



The explosive force of closely confined gun- 

 powder is six and a half tons to the square 

 inch. 



Thunder can be heard at the distance of 30 

 miles. 



Hailstones sometime fall with a velocity of 

 113 feet in a second, and rain at 34 Ihet in a sec- 

 ond. 



The greatest artificial cold ever )>n)duc(;d is 91 

 decrees Fahrenheit. 



Electricity moves with a greater velocity than 

 light, which" traverses 900,000 miles of s|iace in a 

 second of time. 



Lightning can be .seen by reficetiou at the 

 distance of 200 luWes.— The jV. Y. Tribune. 



The Dairy.- The annual produce of the Dai- 

 ry in the State of New York is set down in the 

 census returns at §10,497,033 ; that of Vermont 

 at $4,892,097 ; Massachusetts $2,273,', 19 ; New 

 Hampshire $ 1,. 58.5,955 ; Virginia *l,454,8til ; 

 Connecticut Sl,365,653; New Jersey .«1 31.5,C7(J; 

 Teiinesee 8930,003 ; Indiana $751,471; Mary- 

 land ilf466.55.^. 



