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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dec 



that if it don't, farmers arc cheated out of their 

 Just dues. We must take the twenty-five cents a 

 pound that is vounchsafed when our miserable 

 currency system takes a tumble ; but when pro- 

 pitious gales blow we are denied the benefit, 

 tiirough preposterous fears and unscriptural com- 

 binations ! One of my workmen has just bought 

 a coarse gray coat for nine dollars, — that could 

 have been bought for five before the war — and 

 since the ])rice of making it has by no means 

 doubleil, the material in the coat costs the con- 

 sumer twice what it once did, and yet wool is sell- 

 ing hereabouts for fifty-five and sixty cents a 

 ])ound. I advise nobody — I protest, as in duty 

 bound. H. T. B. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 LETTER FROM THE HILLS. 



The best farms and best roads are in the valleys. 

 Ilence, those who ramble will rarely write yon 

 about farming upon the hills, which are either a 

 majority, or plurality, in New England. 



This is Orange County, Vt., very hilly, — indeed, 

 all hills, did not hills mean valleys, too. From 

 many good pastures all the high mountains in this 

 State and New Hampshire can be viewed, and the 

 tourist can be well paid for rambling over ihem. 

 Their sides are so steep, that the man who cleared 

 them would, at first thought, seem to have been a 

 simpleton. Cattle, feeding on their sides, some- 

 times lose their balance and roll down, as I saw, 

 yesterday, was the case of an unlucky ox. The 

 soil itself, once clasped by the roots of tl^e trees, 

 falls by its own weight. Great ti"ees grow at the 

 height of 3000 feet above the sea. Mount Mans- 

 field has timber all around the Tip-Top House fit 

 for firewood, though the last three or four hun- 

 dred feet of the peaks are naked. 



Vermont, thus clothed with forests and soil, has 

 little waste land, and is amazingly rich in sheep, 

 cattle, horses, and in butter and cheese. Sap- 

 sugar, the best of all good things, is had almost 

 for the asking. The sugar maple is llie natural, 

 spontaneous shrub, bush and tree. Cut off the 

 first growth and up spring the maples — so thick, 

 that an old resident assures me tlictt at the end of 

 twenty-five years, the soil is exhausted and spoil- 

 ed, so prolific is the second growth. Many of the 

 sugar orchards have an undergrowth of maple 

 chapparal, requiring roads to be mown every year 

 in which to gather the sap. This county is riven 

 in twain by a fissure, through which an affluent of 

 White River comes to the South Royalston depot. 

 On one side cattle are sometimes troubled with 

 bone-ail, showing a deficiency of phosphate, while 

 on the opposite side of the valley there is no com- 

 plaint yet, and milch cows fatten or fail-up as 

 they are driven from one side to the other. Glanc- 

 ing at the deficient soil it shone in the sun like a 

 silicious loam. But such sand, on such hdls, when 

 was it made? That boulder tlicre glitters, too. 

 Limestone — mica. Is mica magnesia ? I don't 

 remember. Well, this soil is very soft, ploughs 

 and works easily, grows great potatoes, (none for 

 your market this year,) fine buckwheat — or the 

 Indian wheat as it is called here — oats and spring 

 •wheat. Some fields come into red-top easily and 

 naturally, others into red clover. In June, the 

 the dandelion colors the pastures as far as the eye 

 can reach. I am assured that newly cleared land 

 will not give a good crop of spring or winter wheat 



as it did forty years ago. Hence, timbered land 

 often is w'orth no more than pasture, and the own- 

 er will give the timber, Avood and first crop, for 

 clearing it. The first crop will be potatoes, sec- 

 ond oats, or wheat, with risk of mildew. 



There is some tendency to an absorption of 

 small farms into large ones, with tenants, or mort- 

 gagors, though Vermont's energetic young men do 

 not all emigrate. I see my friend's A\ E. Fanner 

 is receipted to 1865. His hay crop looked formid- 

 able. One, "Davis' Improved," was all the mow- 

 er in market. May be he could cut over some of 

 his smoothest land with a machine. He ventured, 

 carefully, a little further, and further, walking be- 

 hind and watching and tending over the most ap- 

 palling rocks and ofi"sets, stone-heaps and trees, 

 cutting a maple an inch in diameter inside the 

 bark. His team, by the way, was a light one and 

 soon learned not to go through even a light ob- 

 struction, but back out. It is true that knives 

 and guards caught it somewhat. But these are 

 plenty. The mowing-machine has gone up, with 

 a witness, to the hill-tops and Mill never come 

 down. So, builders, go on ! Be ready for the 

 next camjiaign. The haying w'as finished mostly 

 by the loth of September, though a little grass 

 yet remains to be cut. The potato blight came a 

 little before the 1st of Sept. What is it, physio- 

 logically ? It arrested them instantaneously, to 

 all appearance, when but one-third grown. The 

 rot also prevails to some extent. Instead of send- 

 ing two hundred thousand dollars' worth to mar- 

 ket, as she has done some years, Vermont has no 

 more than enough for herself. Hay is large in 

 bulk, corn is uncommonly fine, oats and wheat no 

 more than middling in quantity or quality. Ver- 

 monters are good livers, good citizens, good pat- 

 riots, hos])itable, and if your correspondents by 

 habit will but encounter her hills as well as vales, 

 lying so often like a half-opened fan, they will find 

 ample materials for useful and entertaining letters 

 to your readers. A. M. 



Chelsea, Vt„ Sept. 24, 1863. 



For the New England Farmer, 

 HORTICULTURAL K"OTES— XyTo. 3. 

 A few words about cherries, a fruit that ripens 

 with the raspberries. It has been a valuable fruit, 

 though of late it has not done well. The trees are 

 recovering, however, from the injury they received 

 a year or two ago, so that there was considerable 

 fruit this season. Years ago, the Black Tartarian 

 was, perhaps, the very finest variety raised, but it 

 is now hardly worth growing extensively. The 

 trees become diseased. Very early cherries are 

 of no great use, for the birds take them all. There 

 are many varieties in the catalogues of nursery- 

 men, but not a great many of them are planted to 

 any great extent. The leading sorts for market 

 are : — Black Eagle, a very fine cherry by the way. 

 Downer, a rather late red cherry, tree hardy, pop- 

 ular market variety. Black Tartarian, very large 

 and fine, not so popular as formerly. Sparhawk's 

 Honey, or Honey Heart, a red cherry, very sweet 

 and good. Napoleon Bigarreau, a hard-fleshed, 

 red variety, cracks badly in wet weather. Black 

 Heart, is an old, and somewhat popular sort. 

 Coe's Transparent, is a very handsome, light-color- 

 ad fruit of lai-ge-size ; promises well. Mayduke, a 

 very early, red cherry, quite acid, good for cook- 

 ing. Early purple Guinge, a dark purple fruit, 



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