13 



this little community had been heretofore under the pastoral 

 guidance of these three ministers. 



Shortly after his ordination the new minister returned to his 

 former home, married a wife, and a few days afterward 

 returned with her on horseback to Pennycook. He was at this 

 time twenty-five years old. His earthly possessions were a 

 wife, a small tract of primeval forest, an uncertain future, and 

 a salary of <£ioo a year, so long as he could earn it, equal, 

 according to Dr. John Farmer, to $130.67 of the present cur- 

 rency of the United States. This, doubtless, would have been 

 larger but for the fact that the income of his prospective farm, 

 given him as an encouragement to settlement, was expected to 

 so far complement his salary as to render it adequate to a frugal 

 support. 



This early practice of giving to the first minister a farm may 

 not have been a bad one. It brought him into closer touch 

 with his people than he would otherwise have been ; it gave 

 him a clear idea of their daily thoughts, of their characters and 

 aspirations ; it made his and their worldly interests the same. 

 Whether some arrangement akin to this between pastor and 

 people would at this day produce like results is by no means 

 unworthy of a candid consideration. A clergyman must know 

 and sympathize with his people in all their varied interests if 

 he would most successfully offer to their acceptance the great 

 spiritual truths of which it is his high privilege to be the bearer. 



Such was the condition of little Pennycook in 1730; such 

 were its people ; such was its first minister, a preacher of 

 righteousness and a tiller of the soil. The yellow pages of his 

 diaries contain vivid pictures of New Hampshire farming in 

 the middle half of the last century. To a few of these I desire 

 to call your attention. 



III. 

 What of his far?ning? 



The mowing fields of the first minister were kept productive 

 mostly by the rotation of crops and the occasional pulveriza- 

 tion of a virgin soil. Fertilization is not mentioned in any of 

 his diaries which have been preserved. Haying began in July 

 and continued on through August. In 1764 he housed his first 



