October, 1842. 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



ir.3 



tliree acres of wheat on land pii'ii.irtd in acoursc 

 of rotation to he laid down to lijass. The Uiml 

 of wheat he raiises is the Black sea wiinat from 

 seed prornred live years a^o i>l 'i'lmmas Ames, 

 Esq. of Canterhurv. That v.:a- .Mi-, Whipple 

 pold all he had to span; for s-c.l at S'.'.lir per 

 bushel. He iisnally plants yj ai-r.'s cil' enni and 

 one half to one acre of potatoes, willi about 

 twentj loads ol' fine manure spread to the acre; 

 and his common crop is ahoiit .50 hushels of corn 

 and 300 of potato.s to the acre, and '^5 to 30 

 bushels of wli. ■:.•,. 'I'liis season lie has luo iicMs 

 of wheat, the oiw sou,, I April iO.ilie oiher April 

 15, with H hnsliels seed to the acre. The lirsl 

 field had been n.'aped and ^'ave forty-two slooks 

 of twelve Iiiindles eiieh to the acre. 



Mr. VVhipph' hieaks up his land from the 

 sward with a sin'/le yoke of nxen. and of coiu'se 

 cannot plouMh deep. The pan of his I md lon^' 

 cultivateil is seaicelv six inches lielow the sur- 

 face ; hut this shallow plomrhin- has not prevent- 

 ed its continued li'ilility. 'I'he stiirinjr of the sub- 

 soil would much increase the [uodnct, we have 

 no doubt. lie manures, ploii'ihs and plants oidy 

 once previous to hi\ inn; down to >.-rass. lie makes 

 aiaiuially from twelve to fii'teen loads of the best 

 manure from the drainage of sinks and the 

 working of the two lio^s which he always keeps 

 He keeps a stocic of aljont tillei.'U cattle old and 

 younjr, of which is a yoke of oxen, and he has 

 one horse rendv aluavs lijr w,n-k Ujion the farm 

 or for a carria^w' of conveyance. 



Mr. Whipple married i'nlo the Stinson family, 

 well known in the curly history of New linston 

 and Duid)arton : his laily has lrei|iienlly carried 

 off the premiums of the a,i;rieiilriiral society in 

 the maiuifacturos of cloth as well as those of the 

 dairVr biilter and cheese. A constant soiac-e of 

 {rain has been a flock of tine wooled sheep. Dol- 

 ing the late war with Great Brilain in one year 

 Mr.s. S. made in her own house :!ie cloth wiiicij 

 sold for S;300. " .Many <Ian,2h;ers have done vir- 

 tuously," but there is r.one of the Si:otch-Irish 

 descent on the New Hampshire hills ihat have 

 excelled those of the name of Coclnaii and Stin- 

 son. 



We cannot pass from this pioniinent i;i-ound of 

 Dtiid)arton with admiration for the prospects of 

 the country all aliout u.«, without noticing the 

 veiierahle patriot and sohlicr of the revolution, 

 the Rev. Walter Han is, D. D. who resides upon 

 it, and nearly sixty years ago was settled as the 

 first minister of l"he to\vn,''and who in all lhat 

 time has been one of the best farmers of the 

 county. Dr. H. was the pupil of the late Dr. 

 Emmons of Franklin, and one of the straitest in 

 the doctrines of John Calvin : but feu ministiMs 

 at anytime have loiii;er or better uniied their 

 people. He retired a li-w years ago iVom the sa- 

 cred desk, but not from the care of his larm. 

 Few men of tlii; saercd profession have discov- 

 ered a more vigorous intellect anil iii,;lirir talent 

 than this fjentlemun, now eight) -one years of 

 age, who prides himself in having been .-it first a 

 drunmier boy and afterwards a soldier in the wiir 

 of the rcvoliition. 



The passage from Dtmbarton centre to the 

 Sinieook village carried us through the town of 

 Bow, to whicli. excepting on the river and the 

 north-west corner, we v\cre an utter stranger. 

 The hills of that town are well descrii>ed by a 

 valtieil corres|iondent in the October nutnber of 

 our Monthly Visitor : they look down upon Con- 

 cord. Good farms are upon their to()s ; although 

 rocky and rough, the land is of the strongest 

 quality — the rust .so prevalent in the intervales in 

 the injury of crops seldom touches the wheat or 

 potato crops upon the higher hills; and long af 

 ter the early liost has killed the corn upon the 

 plains these highest hills are cruwneil with living 

 green. 



Between the Diinbarton and the Bow hills are 

 several good farms: of these we pass(>d on the 

 way those of Mossr.s. Oliver and Joseph Bailey, 

 William Brown and Alexander Putney. Mr. Ol- 

 iver Bailey's farm is very favorably situateil for 

 the production of fruit tree.s. What he will do 

 with all the common cider apples growing upon 

 his orchards, is more than we can tell. They 

 will not pay for the making of cider; but in the 

 feeding of cattle an<l hogs they need not be lost. 

 If all of them could be |)reseived as good bar- 

 relling winter u|)ples, they will probably be the 

 best item of profit upon his very productive 

 farm. 



Crossing the river at Hooksett, tiie Committee 

 passed through the busv liictorv village at the 

 tails over the new sliorlei".ed road'to the .Suncook 

 village in I'emhroke, in which the factory and 

 paper mills so busy twenty years ago have nearly 

 all been stopped, but near "to which have within 

 the last three years been erected extensive glass 

 works to supply the place of those long in ope- 

 ration at Chelmsford, Massachusetts. This vil- 

 lage is near the mouth ol' the Suncook river 

 which has its rise on the highlands of old Straf 

 I'ord county, south-easterly from the Winnipisseo- 

 ■.■ee lake. Her.- is a water power suflicieiit at all 

 times for all the varieties of mills and machinery. 

 Above this village at the distance of about half a 

 nnle from the river, lies the road to Concord, and 

 on a direct line of nearly three miles is a conlin- 

 oiis village over this beautifully smooth road. 

 On either side the larms seem to be aminally 

 improving. The two flourishing Academies of 

 Pembroke contribute to the beauty of the town 



well 



hhc 



;ne impri 



peaiance of the dwellings for the distance of a 

 mile up and down the main stieet. 



The garden of Jeiemiah Wilkins, Esip was 

 tin; oidy matter iti Pembroke entered tor the view 

 ol' the committee. Mr. W. was brought up as a 

 liuiner anil the son of an educated farmer of 

 Concord, and still owns productive intervale 

 lands directly opposite our village, of wliieli tin' 

 shrewd and wealthy larmers of Pem:,ro've arc 

 buying up lots svhenever they have a i lijinee. 

 Mr. \V. in the course of trade and in the use ol 

 his money for a few years, has become among 

 the mo.-t wr;:hliy citizens of the couiily. His 

 farming is upon (iili'erent spots away from home: 



:' our writing the smoke 



near the edge of the Concord inlervides. Mr. 

 Wilkins' gardcti this year was all the work of his 

 own hanils. The cut worms had made great 

 havoc in his garden beds: he however coiiipier- 

 cd them by replanting and transplanting. ]n one 

 entire plat of mangel wurtzel there were scarcely 

 half a dozen plants lhat were not set out. Mr. 

 Wilkins' garden, in the size and vigor of its veg- 

 etation, would well compare with that of Mr. 

 Jarvis. in Concord. 



Retmiung to Concord, the Committee passed 

 the improvements of the Chairman on the east 

 side of the livcr near Concord bridge. The 

 teams were ploughing the plains land lor a new 

 crop of rye, from which hr.ii been just reaped 

 ipiile a toli'iahle common cro[i, the seed for 

 v,'liich sprung up spontaneously from the scat- 

 terings ol' the last year's cradling in a very windy 

 .season. The rye came up at the distance gene- 

 rally of IVom four to six inches asunder — it spread 

 on the ground from the favorable fall season of 

 the last vear, and irrew u|) the past summer in 

 clusters." The land was covered with ijrcat uni- 

 formitv— the stalks were much taller and the 

 heads were longer tiian those of the previotis 

 year. .About one hundred ;md twenty siooks 

 were reaped from tlie ten acres. This setisoii 

 the ground was jdoughed still deeper than the 

 previous plotighing ; and the members of the 

 committee satisfied themsehes before leaving it 

 that this land might be and was likely to become 

 in the course of its management as good and as 

 profitable tillage land as tin- best in the county. 



With our improvements just begun in a swamp 

 through which runs living water from the plains, 

 in which we mean to make some of the best of 

 hind after the stumps shall be extracted, the cold 

 water cut off by drains, and on which we find 

 a rich bed of black veget.able muck as highly 



stable, ami In on;- i oin-field of eight acres unon 

 the recently deaie.! plains, our bielliren of 'the 

 Committee pas.-ed to the old Ferry plain lot of 

 lower intervale, which in the last six years has 

 come up to four fold its ohi crops of hay, oats 

 and potatoes. Our potato field of five acres had 

 the good fortune to unite the unanimous opinion 

 of tlie conunittee as superior to any other field 



After test in the late afternoon, when a threat- 

 ening black cloud at the north-west and the 

 vivid lightning and loud tlitmiler was bursting 

 over our heads, we procceilerl to the garden of 

 the Rev. Kdninnd Worth, which, if not for its 

 better crops that had been injured in the wetness 



north side of 

 have access n 

 was one of st 

 from a 



of the present year upon n newly made soil, 

 from the fiict that it had been literally created 

 out of a quagmire in the rear of his house, situ- 

 ated about fifty rods from the centre and westerly 

 from the main street, deserves geat commenda- 

 tion. 



On a subsequent day, members of the commit- 

 tee, who wished to do justice to other clergymen 

 of Concord — and of tiie clergy of New Hamp- 

 shire during the last fifty yeais many of them 

 have been the very best farmers and gardeners — 

 called, where they had been invited, to look at 

 two other gardens in the village of Concord. 



Rev. P. S. Ten Broeck has a garden spot of 

 little over half an acie : fiopi ti half a<-re as the 

 first crop he took full two tons of the best En- 

 glish hay, and upon it at a second mowing about 

 one ton has since been taken. The vegetables 

 in Mr. T's garden were upon a graufl scale; and 

 the fine spring pig of his own tending proved, 

 not less than his persevering miid.strations unti 

 instructions to the few worshippers of ijis de- 

 nomination in our village, his better judgment in 

 the ways and means for both mental and physi- 

 cal improvement. 



Rev. Nathaifiel Botiton, of the old North Con- 

 gregational Church, exhibited a well cidlivated 

 garden upon the orchard ground long known as 

 the pro[ierty of the late Maj. Livermore and his 

 « idow. Mr. Boiiton's corn of the common kind 

 from seed raised in the field of Richard Bradley, 

 ivsip measured fully eleven feet in height. The 

 dower garden near the house, exclusively the 

 work of Mrs. B. was laid out with much good 

 taste, and cultivated with great discretion and 

 diligence. A plum tree near the house was 

 bowed down with a weight of nearly ripe fruit 

 greater than the whole body of the tree: this is 

 remarkable for Concord street, inasmuch as it 

 has been sup|)osed that pear, peach and plutn 

 trees could not be made to bear on the soil near 

 to the river. This pimii tree stood in the shady 

 e house where the sun could not 

 re than two hours in a day. It 

 ual trees brought a few years ago 

 in Derry, and one of the only two 

 that lived : the other, a (teach or cherry tree, 

 grows well, but has never borne fruit in any con- 

 siderable quantity. 



Subsequent to these visits, two members of 

 the committee visited, on his request, the fitrrn of 

 Samuel Tallant, Esq. eight miles out of Concord 

 to the north-east in the town of CMiiieibnry: the 

 fiirins of Samuel, James, David aijd Hugh Tallant 

 are all in the same neighborhood, bordering up- 

 on the towns of Concord and Loudon. Like tho 

 other good tinins fin- wheat, they are upon swella 

 of rocky soil elevated some hundreds of feet 

 above the river. The chairman had for seven 

 yeais owned a farm here which he sold several 

 years since to one of the Tallants ; but in the 

 busy times when his trade required all his atten- 

 tion, he h.-id never until this time been in that 

 romantic part ol' Concoi-d : the wood and timber 

 in that direction still ccveis more than half of 

 )W n. The swells in Canterbury 

 lly cleat-ed than the lands in 

 f 'which on the east side of the 

 river is plain with a white and hard |)ine growth. 



Mr. Tallant, for several years, has been very 

 successful in his crops of wheat. He has found 

 quick lime sown over the ground in no very 

 great quantities while growing, as well as the 

 liming of seed before sowing, to be of very great 

 advantage: it has driven away the weevil and 

 the fiy. "The burden of wheat u[)on Mr.Tallant's 

 land was fully as large as any yet examined : it 

 was veiy dean and even — perhafis a little too 

 thick, which Mi-. T. attribnteil to the peculiarity 

 of this season in throwing from the seed more 

 than the common number of blades. 



Of the several farms and improvements which 

 have been examined by the Committee, none are 

 entitled to more cteditthan that of Messrs. Ceo. 

 W. and Jacob Dow, sititated half a nule from 

 the west parish village and main road runinng 

 northerly up the river in Concord. That beauti- 

 ful sheet of water known by the name of Long 

 pond (lately named Pennncook hike in due form 

 by a company of visitors) is about a mile west- 

 wai-dly from Merrimack rivei-, lying in a basin 

 surrounded by high hills at an elcv:iii-.m of about 

 one humlred i'eet above the river, ftn the south 

 a portion of the Rtitllesnake clitl's of granite and 

 a loafed mountain covered with wood, called Jer- 



that part of the 

 are more genei- 

 Concord, imicli 



