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NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



Oct. 



For the New England Farmer. 



MUSINGS AMONG THS MOUNTAINS OF 

 NEW ENGLAND. 



Top of Grand Monadnoc Mountain, ) 

 August 15, 18G0. | 



High up in the azure blue, 3500 feet above the 

 "city of notions," I have dined to-day. This is a 

 beautiful mountain, standing entirely alone in its 

 native majesty, towering up into the clouds in its 

 granite stateliness, with no other elevation around 

 it to creat monotony or destroy the romance of a 

 full view of its base. Not a farm extends up to 

 its base but some portion of it may be seen from 

 this point. Deep ravines, huge piles of rugged 

 gi'anite all around, a beautiful farming country as 

 far as the eye can extend, clouds flitting by just 

 above your head — everything seems to inspire 

 one's thoughts v/ith lofty emotions and holy as- 

 pirations, and force upon his mind the impression 

 that he is nearer God and the Heavens than those 

 far down in the valley below. What a "masterly 

 inactivity" seizes upon the imagination ! Occu- 

 pying the easterly slope of the mountain, reach- 

 ing up to the very pinnacle where I stand, and 

 stretching far away upon the rich valley below, 

 lies the town of Jaffrey, one of the best farming 

 toAvns in Cheshire Co., with its five beautiful lit- 

 tle lakes, its many fine fields of wheat now ready 

 for the harvest ; its rich patches of corn, oats, rye, 

 barley and potatoes, all looking exceedingly well ; 

 its hundreds of young fruit trees recently planted 

 out, loaded with fruit ; the old church at the cen- 

 tre of the town where the late Rev. Laban Ains- 

 worth ministered to the people for nearly half a 

 century, said to have been raised June 17, 1775, 

 the day of the Bunker-Hill fight, and now used 

 as a "town house;" back of this is the old burial- 

 ground, M'hich holds the first century of the town, 

 among whom ai'e the following names : Rev. and 

 wife, the father, mother and one brother of Joel, 

 Isaac and Edmund Parke, names familiar to every 

 business man of Boston ; O ! and a few steps 

 more brings me to the grave of a mother ; "and 

 she was the dearest mother that God ever gave" — 



"She's sleeping in the valley, 



And the mocking bird is singing all around," — 



a sister and a brother. 



Four miles from its base, in the easterly part 

 of the town, situated upon both sides of the Con- 

 toocook River, is the beautiful village of East 

 Jaffrey, unsurpassed in its healthy location, its 

 romantic scenery, its magnificent hotel, erected 

 the past season for the accommodation of parties 

 visiting the Monadnoc, and the public generally ; 

 its beautiful school-house for the district school, 

 (the best in the county,) fine dwellings, busy 

 work-shops and factories ; all this lies spread out 

 before me as I stand upon this rock in the clouds 

 and look away to the East. Upwards of 200 per- 

 sons have visited this spot to-day. The present 

 accommodations upon this mountain are meagre, 

 but I believe ere long some person of means will 

 seize upon the opportunity to build a fine stone 

 house near its top for the accommodation of those 

 wishing to board for a season. The sun-rise seen 

 from this point, in a clear morning, is truly beau- 

 tiful. In a clear, pleasant day, with a powerful 

 glass, I think Bunker-Hill Monument might be 

 distinctly seen. 



About four miles from this point, directly north, 



iS the ti wn of Dublin, another good farming town. 



Here is where the late Rev. Sprague spent 



his ministerial life, about whom, in connection 

 with the Rev. Laban Ainsworth before mentioned, 

 so many curious anecdotes have been related. 

 Here in Dublin, is the dividing ridge between the 

 Connecticut and Merrimac Rivers. The church 

 in which the eccentric Sprague used to preach 

 was literally "the dividing of the waters" as re- 

 ferred to in the Scriptures, for the water from the 

 north side of the house went to the Merrimac, and 

 that from the south side to the Connecticut. Upon 

 the western slope lie the towns of Troy and 

 Marlboro'. Next beyond is the town of Keene, 

 a wealthy and beautiful town. Far away in the 

 smoky distance, faint and blue, rise the broken 

 ridges of the Green Mountains. 



The mountain cranberry grows luxuriantly to 

 within a few feet of the top of this mountain, and 

 the vines are now nearly red with a fine crop of 

 fruit. I would suggest to persons experimenting 

 with cranberries on upland to plant out some of 

 this variety. The barn swallow is up here to-day 

 twittering about merrily, while a large portion of 

 them left for the South about the fourth inst. I 

 had a fine flock of martins this season, which left 

 the fifth inst. From some cause or other the 

 swallows and martins have left about three weeks 

 earlier than usual. The spring time is gone, the 

 summer is nearly ended, and the sweet little songs- 

 ters that came up among these mountains to war- 

 ble their cheerful notes to the tillers of the soil, 

 and obey the laws of propagation by multiplying 

 their species, are nearly silent ; the season of the 

 rose, the noblest of flowers, is gone, but stupid is 

 the man who will suffer his garden to be void of 

 flowers until cut down by the icy hand of the 

 north. But the most interesting of all seasons, 

 the harvest season, is at hand. Never did crops 

 look more promising than at this moment, in this 

 section. The midge is doing some injury to the 

 wheat crop here, but the earliest fields are so far 

 advanced that but little damage will be effected. 



East Jaffrey, Aug., 1860. L. L. Pierce. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 IN-DOOKS-F ARMING. 



Messrs, Editors : — I noticed in your issue of 

 June 30 a short article on "In-Doors-Farming," 

 from a New Hampshire farmer's wife. I think, 

 with her, that it is too often the case that the far- 

 mers' wives are the most hard-working class. 

 Their cares and anxieties, it is true, are almost 

 endless ; still, I think the writer has enumerated 

 some things that no farmer who cares for his wife 

 as he ought, would expect her, as a general thing, 

 to do. I think the milking, feeding hogs and 

 turning the churn crank, belong to the men folks, 

 as a general thing. But if they are sick, or un- 

 avoidably obliged to work unseasonably late get- 

 ting in hay, or grain, before a rain, or anything 

 of that kind, they will find no one any more wil- 

 ling than myself to help in these matters. No 

 reasonable man Avill ask his wife to do these things, 

 much less expect them, as a matter of course. 



Another thing. I don't think it hurts the men 

 folks to help wash. They do their share, and no 

 small share either, at dirtying the clothes ; why, 

 then, should they not help wash them ? perchance 



