324 



NEW ENGLAND FARMEE. 



July 



chiefly red top or white top and white clover. 

 Herdsgrass is short-lived, a biennial properly, and 

 its bulbous root is destroj-ed by close cropping. 

 Two things are essential to a good lawn, — keeping 

 it close, and frequent rolling ; not merely frequent 

 mowing, but preventing the grass ever maturing 

 into stalks. Nature will do something, and has a 

 great propensity to perfect her works regularly, 

 first the leaf, then the flower, then the fruit, then 

 death forever, or for the season. Grasses follow 

 tliis law, and if once allowed to go beyond the 

 leaf, are reluctant to go back to leaf-making 

 again. We see the same thing in fruit trees, which 

 usually make little wood while full of fruit, but 

 which are readily diverted from their tendency to 

 bear fruit, into producing wood and foliage, by 

 taking off" their blossoms. By keeping the grass 

 short, as is done by constant feeding by animals, 

 the process of leaf-making is constantly repeated, 

 and then constant treading at the same time keeps 

 the soil compact and uniform, which seems to be j 

 favorable to a thick, but not to a rank growtli. 



MENDING ROADS. 



This is the season for "working out the taxes" 

 on the roads, and I, of course, stopped and ex- 

 changed civilities with my old acquaintances en- 

 gaged in this pursuit. I have no criticisms to 

 make on what they were doing, but in general, it 

 may be said, there are two or three principles that 

 need to be understood, on this subject. One of 

 these relates to the cure of wet places, Avhether 

 springy hill-sides or swamps. Those places are 

 miry and soft, not because of surface water, but 

 because of water below. The remedy is by draw- 

 ing the water out. A single three-inch tile drain, 

 or a stone drain, laid four feet deep along the up- 

 per side of the road, if it be across a hill-side, 

 would, in many cases, at the cost of one dollar a 

 rod, do more to harden the path than ten times as 

 much spent in hauling gravel, and in labor. The 

 water should be cut off" before it reaches the road, 

 if possible ; if not, a drain each side, three or four 

 feet deep, will draw away all the water from the 

 centre, without disturbing the road-bed, while 

 piling sand and gravel on to soft mud only deep- 

 ens it. It is merely an application to the symp- 

 toms, while drainage removes the disease itself. 



BALDWIN ArPLES. 



Chester is one of the best fruit towns in the 

 State, and the Baldwin apple has been a favorite 

 fruit here. There is an impression, as I gather 

 from the papers, and from private sources, that the 

 Baldwin has become more tender or the climate 

 more cruel, so that the two are not now so well 

 adapted to each other as formerly. I found sev- 

 eral first rate fruit men at work on the road, and 

 put the question to them, as I have to other intel- 



ligent men hei'e, as to whether the Baldwin is less 

 reliable than formerly. I think the fair conclusion 

 is this, that the old orchards of fifty years' growth 

 and more, are dj'ing off by natural decay, and that 

 the old natural trees which were grafted a dozen 

 or twenty years ago, as most all of them were with 

 the Baldwin, are failing through old age and over- 

 bearing. Again, about 1855, many young trees 

 were winter-killed in all parts of New England, 

 and the Baldwin, which is doubtless more tender 

 than most varieties, suffered very much, and as it 

 had been long a favorite, and was largely planted, 

 its loss was generally observed. 



I think, however, that the young orchards of 

 Baldwins, which escaped that severe winter, and 

 those since planted are here perfectly healthy, and 

 if I were now to plant an orchard in Chester, or 

 the vicinity, on high and hard land, I should, for 

 market purposes, plant one-half of it, at least, with 

 the Baldwin. The granite hills and the clear air 

 of old Chester are wondei-fully favorable to the 

 growth of fruit trees ; and by the way, I have to- 

 day been reminded that it is not unfavorable to 

 the growth of enterprising and strong-hearted 

 men, which leads me to say 



SOMETHING ABOUT THE WAR. 



As I rested a moment at the post-office, the 

 Manchester stage arrived, and upon it one of the 

 soldiers of the 2d N. H. Regiment, Joseph Morse, 

 who was taken prisoner at Bull Run, now on his 

 return from North Carolina, where he with hun- 

 dreds of others was paroled. He had been in the 

 prisons of Richmond and Salisbury about a year. 

 We had but a moment's conversation, as he had 

 not yet seen his family. To the inquiry how he 

 had been treated, he replied, "You can judge some- 

 thing of it, when I tell you that four men were 

 shot in the prison where I was, for looking out at 

 the window." He looked in good condition, al- 

 though he said he had suffered from various dis- 

 eases. I met also at the post-office Mr. Brown, 

 of Chester, who has five sons now in the army. I 

 asked him if he had any son at home. He said 

 yes, he had six more at home, and two of them 

 wanted to enlist. Chester has a population of only 

 about thirteen hundred, and has sent fifty soldiers 

 to the war, one of whom was killed at Williams- 

 burgh. 



You perceive that my six-mile journey was by 

 no means barren of incident or interest. Indeed, 

 I have hardly begun to tell you about it. The gar- 

 den seeds which I planted on the 20th of May, are 

 well up. The frost that followed on the Saturday 

 after, did not venture on to the hill, and the to- 

 mato plants M'hich I brought from Boston are safe 

 and flourishing, and on the whole, I am having 

 quite too good a time not to share it with you and 

 our readers. h. f. f. 



