1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



137 



crumbled into dust on the least handling. Eveiy- 

 ^yhere the melancholy signs of decay and desola- 

 tion presented themselves ; and it required no 

 stretch of the fancy to make us imagine we had 

 reached the outakirts of nature. 



At this point, the SrJiaJloch was in full view, a 

 mile or more in front of us ; but how was it to be 

 reached ? There was no beaten track ; the rock 

 was almost perpendicular ; the surface crumbled 

 beneath our feet at every step, and the slightest 

 mishap would precipitate us a thousand feet into 

 the valley beneath. We embarked upon the 

 crumbling debris, the dust of ages, and sank at 

 once deeper than our ankles in the stony detritus. 

 At every step, a mass of this uncomfortable and 

 unstable terrain was set in motion, and it was 

 scarcely j)ossil)le to prevent ourselves moving 

 downward with it. Occasionally the force of this 

 sliding mass would communicate a locomotive im- 

 petus to a huge boulder, when might be heard a 

 sound of something leaping and dashing from 

 point to point, crashing through brakes and bram- 

 ble, or the branches of trees, and at length plung- 

 ing, with a voice of thunder, into some cryptic 

 chasm, there to rest till doomsday. I had, "how- 

 ever, learned to walk the mountain side ; and not- 

 withstanding the almost insurmountable difficulties \ 

 of the track we had to traverse, I contrived, by the j 

 use of_ the alpenstock, which served as a kind of ' 

 Blondin's balancing-pole, as well as the exercise 

 of a nervous caution, to reach the entrance of the 



cavern 



It might be thirty feet high by forty wide, the 

 roof rising internally, like a domed vault, until 

 another twenty feet was added to the height. The 

 threshold for fifty feet or so was strewn with the 

 rough pavement of splintered rock, the sharp edges 

 of which cut like the blade of a knife ; or huge 

 boulders, so smooth and slippery M'ith perennuil 

 damp, that it was almost impossible to scramble 

 over them ; or, perhaps, a huge quadrangular slab, 

 polished as a glass mirror, on a gradient of fifteen 

 or twenty degrees, invited the foot only to betray. 

 Not many feet beyond us, blazed innumerable! 

 stars, which glistened like spangles or diamonds 

 in the ebon horizon. | 



From the roof the water had evidently oozed 

 down from time immemorial. Its foil, however, 

 had been arrested by an icy hand, even at the roof; 

 as fresh streams from the' rock above penetrated 

 through, and trickled over the congealed surface, 

 icicles grew and grew till they reached the ground, 

 but instead of falling perpendicularly to the floor, 

 they formed outward and bent inward. Interlac- 

 ing these pro])s, as it were, of a structure built 

 from the top, frozen bands or branches, which in- 

 tersected each other, created the most perfect trel- 

 lis-work, or, more properly speaking, the most 

 deHcate filigree-work. The result was a scene of 

 real enchantment, and I seemed transported, as in 

 adream, into the midst of an Eastern paradise. 

 Kiosks, with innumerable minarets, or pavilions, 

 or painted pagodas, or wliat you will, rose before 

 me, vanishing away in the distance, all of the 

 purest crystal. My guide likened the view to a 

 pnie grove clad in snow ; but the illustration was 

 feeble. It might have been better to have described 

 It as a Gothic cathedral, the pillars in the nave be- 

 ing constructed of glass, and lit up from the inte- 

 rior ; but even this similitude is faint and imper- 

 fect. — Temple Bar. 



For the New England Fanner. 



WEATHER AND CHOPS IN VERMONT. 



Snow in January— No Real "Hard Times"— Excellence of the 

 Ex')eTtea'*''''~^''"'^ ^^^ Hogs— Description of a Slieep Barn 



Mr. Editor : — Having a few leisure moments 

 thzs stormy Saturday evening, I think I can do no 

 better than to have a short chat with my brother 

 iarmers through the medium of what is emijhati- 

 cally the "New England Farmer." 



Up to about the middle of January there was 

 hardly snow enough to make it good getting 

 around m the woods, but now, hke a railroad train 

 behind tmie, it is puti ing in some of its best strides 

 —having snowed seven of the last eleven days— 

 and this Avinter will certainly be an exception if it 

 does not make up all lost time before the middle 

 of April. 



Our formers, I think, have as little cause for 

 complaint in regard to the "hard times" as any 

 class of people, for most of us, at least, have 

 enough to eat, if it does take a bushel of oats to 

 buy a yard of cotton cloth ; corn plenty, oats plen- 

 I ty,j)otatoes plenty, wheat Ave don't mention in this 

 vicinity, and a good yield of barley with those who 

 sow it. And, Iiy the way, I think this is a grain 

 altogether too much neglected, in this section, at 

 least, tor the interest of the farmer. 



Speaking of barley puts me in mind of some 

 hogs killed last month by Mr. R. W. Toliy, of this 

 town, that were fotted on barley. They were 

 slaughtered when 18 months and 18 days old, 

 Were three in number, and weighed,when dressed, 

 03G, 523 and 486 pounds. These hogs had no 

 extra keeping ; their feed the first summer beino- 

 milk, and through the winter two pailfuls of raw 

 potatoes per day. The potatoes were cut fine, 

 about a quart of meal to the pailful put on top of 

 them, and then boiling water sufficient to scald 

 the meal poured on. Last summer they had noth- 

 I ing but milk, until the milk began to fail, after 

 which they had barley meal. 

 I Mr. Toliy says he had rather have a bushel of 

 barley than a bushel of corn, to feed hogs. A year 

 ago last fall he butchered two pigs the day they 

 were 9 months old, one of which weighed 358 and 

 the other 337 lbs. I think vou must'acknowledge 

 that he is ".some" on pork, barley or no barley. 

 _ If I had time, I would like to give you a descrip- 

 tion of Mr. Toby's sheep barn. It is so arranged 

 that each sheep is by himself; there is no crowd- 

 ing, no treading on the fodder, each sheep gets 

 lis own gram and no more. The arrangement is 

 by no means expensive. Should you think it ac- 

 ceptable, I will at some future time send you a 

 description of it. Jake Bomsty. 



Calais, VL, Jan. 25, 1862. 



Remarks. — Please send us the description you 

 speak of. You may see an inquiry in another ar- 

 ticle for the plan of a sheep-barn. 



Peas with Potatoes.— A letter in the Agri- 

 cultural Gazette, an English paper, states that a 

 single pea inserted into each piece of potato that 

 is planted, will produce a large crop of peas, and 

 tend tp check disease in the potato. It is a prac- 

 tice with some to plant peas with potatoes, here. 

 The potato stems answer a good purpose for the 

 pea vines to run upon. 



