432 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Sept, 



At the farm of Mr. Luther D. Wood, in this 

 town, and tlu-ough the kind attentions of his wife, 

 I saw an excellent sample of the famous Cheshire 

 cheese. I was admitted to the dairy-room, which 

 was the perfection of neatness, and there, in all 

 their richness and fair proportions, saw fifty cheeses 

 upon the shelves, weighing, in the aggregate, about 

 two thousand and Jive hundred pounds, an equal 

 amount having been sent to market in the month 

 of June ! These wore "new-milk" cheese, as they 

 are termed, which means that they have all the 

 cream that the milk contained. This /Zwe thousand 

 pounds of cheese had been made this season be- 

 fore the middle of August, from a dairy of sixteen 

 cows. In appearance, I have never seen finer 

 cheese. Each one was encircled with a strip of 

 cotton cloth, it being too rich to hold together 

 without such help. Thanks to Mrs. Wood for 

 the opportunity of looking at her cheese dairy, the 

 first I have enjoyed for many years. Back of the 

 house were thirty-eight swarms of bees, busily en- 

 gaged in bringing their luscious stores from the 

 wild mountain-flowers and the white clover of the 

 valleys. The best honey I have found is made 

 from the blossom of the wild raspberry, and these 

 abound in all this region. Mr. Wood had eighteen 

 swarms only in the spring, and they had increased 

 to thirty-eight. Not half the attention is given 

 to the culture of bees that the business deserves 

 in this mountainous region. Truly, the land 

 abounds with milk and honey ; the evidence was 

 before me ; industry and skill are only required to 

 gather them in and make the household glad. I 

 saw large boxes of most excellent honey, which 

 is sold for a shilling to twenty cents per pound. I 

 suppose tons of this highly-prized luxury are left 

 uncollected every year, in this State, much of 

 which might be saved by a little pains in the 

 keeping and care of bees. 



The face of the country through which I passed 

 is extremely diversified. After leaving Sterling — 

 one of the most excellent agricultural towns I have 

 seen — old Wachusett, and the lofty hills in its re- 

 gion, came into vicAv, and still beyond them the 

 dim outlines of miniature Alps are seen as far as 

 vision can extend. Most of the valleys are very 

 narrow, rarely expanding to the width of a hun- 

 dred rods. These are cultivated, however narrow, 

 so that a corn or oat field may frequently be seen 

 containing less than a dozen square rods. Many 

 of the hill-sides are without stones, and in places 

 that can be approached with a team, I occasional- 

 ly see small cultivated fields. Grass, however, is 

 grown upon them where the hay cannot be taken 

 away by oxen or horses, but is rolled down the 

 hill, or "toted" down with poles, or, perhaps, as is 

 done in some of the mountain towns in New 

 Hampshire and Vermont, got down on sleds. The 

 process of hay-making here is slow and tedious, 



and in consequence of the frequent rains this sea- 

 son, a discouraging one. Where the land swells 

 into vast hills, only, the extent of the hay-fields is 

 very great. I have passed thousands of acres, 

 having excellent crops, waiting for the mower to 

 come and get it. The land seems admirably 

 adapted to grass, and yet I have not seen stocks 

 of cattle, horses or sheep, or barns, which indicate 

 that a large amount of hay is cut and fed out. 

 What becomes of such an amount as is on the 

 ground this season, I cannot learn, although my 

 inquiries have been somewhat minute on this 

 point. The English hay is not yet half cut, though 

 it is now the 10th of August. 



The crops look well all along my route. There 

 is little Indian corn, compared with what is raised 

 in Middlesex, Essex and Norfolk counties. The 

 oat crop, I think, was never better. A large space 

 is covered with it, owing to their high price in the 

 spring, and the demand for them which it was sup- 

 posed would continue through the year for array 

 u^cs. Barley is good, although I have seen but 

 few fields of this grain, or wheat in this region. 

 There is little orcharding, compared with the east- 

 ern portion of the State, and a large proportion of 

 the trees, which I see from day to day, are of un- 

 grafted fruit. 



I have said that I slept one night on the banks 

 of the brawling Iloosac river. This stream passes 

 through the centre of the town of Adams, from 

 north to south. On the northern side of the town, 

 Spruce Hill looms up 2,588 feet from the level of 

 the sea, and Old Greylock looks down upon the 

 busy villagers from his height of 3,505 feet. Peru 

 Hill, upon which stands one of the great, square 

 churches, of a past generation, two or three stories 

 high, rises 2,239 feet above the sea level ; and, at 

 a distance, the vane on the church seems to rise 

 about as much more ! The village has four dwell- 

 ing-houses, from one of which no smoke ever rises 

 from the chimney, with "nary" a blacksmith shop, 

 store or school-house ! 



All along the Hoosac river and the two or three 

 streams which unite and form the Westfield river, 

 there are mills for the manufacture of various arti- 

 cles of wool, cotton, iron and tv-ood. Where sev- 

 eral mills are near each other, there springs up a 

 village of more or less consequence, which be- 

 comes the centre of business and town meetings, 

 leaving the old, original village deserted and dis- 

 mal, and with scarcely any thing left but its name. 

 In these, there arc rarely any signs of fresh paint, 

 poetry or pluck, but things look seedy, dull and 

 decaying. 



In the woods, in the town of Huntington, (a new 

 town, I suppose, as I cannot find it on any map,) 

 I came across a mill where the manufacture of 

 wooden bowls is carried on, and I paused half an 

 hour to see the process of making. They are made, 



