492 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



1 was soon toiling up the steep side of the moun- 

 tain. A man was plowing some of the highest 

 cultivated land and scolding at his horses with great 

 energy. I wondered that such a beautiful pros- 

 pect as was now before us did not awaken in him 

 kindlier feelings. There is a carriage-road half 

 way, or more, up the mountain. At the end of| 

 this a rude shed is standing, where horses may be 

 tied and guarded for twelve and a half cents each, 

 by somebody who appears at a call. Provender 

 is provided, also, to those who will pay for it. 

 From this station, the path to the summit, 144 

 rods, is narrower and steeper. It consists of 

 sharp, broken stones, and is shored up on the outer 

 side by dead trees which abound. 



The latter part of the way I found to be up hill 

 work, most decidedly, and was glad when I arriv- 

 ed at the top. There I found the martin-box I had 

 seen from below to be a good-sized house ! The 

 yard around it enclosed all the eligible standing- 

 ground, so I applied my knuckles to the door to 

 which the path led. It was opened by a comely 

 young woman, and I was soon upon the house-top 

 with glass in hand. The wind was cutting and 

 cold, and although I had put on my overcoat, 1 

 was soon obliged to abandon my post. A short 

 time, however, afforded much gratification. The 

 beautiful valley of the Connecticut was before me 

 for miles. The village of Northampton lay shroud- 

 ed in belts of trees. Church spires rose up from 

 the thick forests on every hand. Numerous vil- 

 lages dotted the landscape. I could have looked 

 long upon such a scene in a milder day. 



I learned that the family remain through the 

 winter upon the mountain. The getting up of a 

 sufficient quantity of ice requires considerable la 

 bor. Why don't they freeze their ice up there 

 as there is a spring near the summit 1 I found a 

 sweet little girl of some three years of age in the 

 house, whose pretty manners set me searching my 

 pockets for plums. 



It was much easier descending. On my way 

 down I met the proprietor of the house with his 

 horseand little cart. I'he load, which would have 

 been just a freight for a wheelbarrow, seemed quite 

 enough for the stout horse, which stopped every 

 few rods upon the steep ascent to take breath. 



I reached the cars at half-past eleven, and was 

 soon back again, with my bunch of broom corn and 

 pleasant experience, in Springfield. 



Before my return home the next day I visited 

 the Cemetery and the Arsenal. The Cemetery is 

 a charmed spot. The surface is one series of vale 

 and hill and quiet dell, approached by winding 

 paths. The deep green of beautiful trees mingles 

 with the light from the spotless marble. The mur- 

 muring fountains chant a continual requiem for 

 the dead, while the spray falls, an emblem of the 

 mourner's tears. 



The new Arsenal is worth visiting. The war- 

 ^f "1 tt>W me that in the one room and a half, now 

 filled with guns, there were one hundred thousand. 

 In all the arsenals, there are three hundred thous- 

 and muskets. 



ThS'y are manufactured at the rate of four thous- 

 and a month. The shops are filled with the most 

 ingenious and complicated machinery, which ac- 

 complishes the work with a speed and exactness 

 truly wonderful to witness. The cost of the arm 

 is now about $7.50. Ten years ago it was over $17 

 East of the Armory grounds is the lot enclosed 



for the Ilorse^ Show, to come off the 19th of this 

 month. Two hundred stalls are being erected 

 here, inside a high board fence, which surrounds 

 the thirty acres. The Horse Show promises to be 

 a great affair. 



But it is time this communication were ended. 

 It shall be. Let me say, however, that the kind 

 hospitality I received, although nameless here, 

 will not soon be forgotten. w. d. b. 



Concord, Mass., Oct. 3d, 1853. 



For the Neiv England Farmer. 

 PLO'WING. 



BY HENRY F. FRENCH. 



The book of Job is supposed to have been writ- 



ten about fifteen hundred years before Christ's 

 coming; and the writerof itspeaksofP/ouv/ig-with 

 as much apparent familiarity as you or I should 

 mention the process in the Farmer. In the first 

 chapter, it is said that a messenger came unto 

 Job, and said, " The oxen were plowing, and the 

 asses were feeding beside them, and the Sabeans 

 fell upon them and took them away." 



For more than three thousand years men have 

 been learning how to plow. It is the most com- 

 mon and familiar operation on every farm ; and 

 yet, perhaps, is worse done than any other work. 

 One reason is, that it is so common a process, one 

 that we learn to perform, in some way, so early 

 in life ; that it is as mechanical a business as turn- 

 ing the grindstone, and few farmers think of ex- 

 pending much thought about the matter. Any- 

 body is thought to have wit enough to plow ; and 

 plowing, especially with oxen, being a slow, dull 

 business, is entrusted to slow and dull people. 

 Job talks like a thrifty farmer, and his live stock, 

 including five hundred yoke > of oxen and three 

 tl^sand camels, would indicate that his farm 

 wWk was worth looking after. But, like many of 

 modern times, he neither held the plow himself 

 nor required his boys to do so ; for, on that un- 

 lucky day just alluded to, " his sons and daugh- 

 ters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest 

 brother's house." He left the plowing to his ser- 

 vants, just as most of us do, if we have them. 



Ancient and common as plowing is, it is, per- 

 haps, done with less intelligence and real appreci- 

 ation of its advantages than any other farm labor. * 

 Ask the first half-dozen plowmen you meet at their 

 work, what good it does to plow the land, and 

 their answers will indicate, at once, how much 

 thought they have given the subject. One thinks 

 the main object is, to kill the weeds and grass, and 

 another to make easy hoeing. The common la- 

 borer always prefers the plow which carries the 

 ividest luork, with very little regard to pulveriza- 

 tion. The manifest fault in plowing, within 'my 

 personal observation, is, the use of plows which 

 run shoal and wide. The teamster always likes 

 to show at night a large day's work, without hurt- 

 ing his team ; and a plow which runs six inches 

 deep and fourteen inches wide, gets over the ground 

 mucJi faster and easier than one which runs eight 

 inches deep and a foot wide. Turning the land 

 over is thought to be the main object ; and in this 

 region, where oxen are more abundant than men, 

 four or six oxen are often used upon a large plow, 

 to do the work which one yoke would perform 

 much better. 



Jethro Tull thought and taught, that by thorough 

 pulverization of the soil, manure might be dis- 



