15 



load of hay on the 17th day of July, and the last on the first 

 day of September. The aftermath was cropped by his cows 

 and other stock. This great length of the hay season was due 

 to the interruptions of its operations by the harvesting of such 

 of his grain crops as matured during this period. 



His grass lands were also partly kept in heart by annual 

 floodings from the Merrimack. These came every spring upon 

 the melting of the snows upon its head waters, and occasionally 

 in summer from heavy rains. Our records of the rain-fall 

 extend back only about thirty-eight years. Beyond that limit 

 they are very scanty and unreliable. There can be no doubt, 

 however, that the precipitation was greater one hundred and 

 fifty years ago than it is now. Then the primeval forests cov- 

 ered a much larger part of our area than do the secondary 

 woods of to-day. 



Forty years ago the maximum rise of the Merrimack was 

 some twenty feet, and the Fennycook intervals were yearly 

 enriched by freshets. Since then the forests have been thinned 

 or removed altogether on large areas, and the lakes and many 

 of the large ponds have been converted into reservoirs for the 

 retention of the spring waters for summer use by the mills at 

 Manchester, Lowell, and Lawrence. Thereby the vernal inun- 

 dations have been largely diminished, to the serious detriment 

 of interval grass lands. Fields, therefore, upon which good 

 crops of grass were formerly made perennial by freshets, are 

 now kept in heart only by frequent pulverization of the soil, 

 fertilizations, and reseedings. 



As a keeper of horses, cattle, and sheep, the first minister ot 

 necessity had pastures for their partial support. To keep these 

 in good condition he was accustomed to prevent, so far as he 

 could, all noxious vegetation thereon, and to cleanse their sur- 

 faces by burnings in the spring. In his time the ground was 

 more humid than now, less compacted by the feet of cattle, and 

 more productive. The contest was more with objectionable 

 vegetation than, as now, with a lack of moisture and a dearth 

 of feed. 



When, a week or ten days after his ordination, the first min- 

 ister brought his bride from her father's home in the good old 



