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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Sept. 



ry. Men will stand the heat much better if 

 they partake of warm drink, than if they im- 

 bibe freely of cold water. — Maine Farmer. 



LETTER FBOM THE FABM. 

 Among the Farmers. 



Concord, July 22, 1867. 



John Adams' recommendation to ring the 

 bells, fire off crackers and big guns on the 

 Fourth of July, has been lived up to, to the 

 very letter, for a good many years. Perhaps 

 that was well enough when cities and villages 

 were few and far between, compared with 

 what they are now, — when there were not so 

 many children in the streets whose clothes 

 might be set on fire by a rollicking rocket, nor 

 half as many horses to be frightened and run 

 away with, and break, the limbs or necks of a 

 carriage full of people ! 



It certainly was refreshing on the last 4th 

 of July, to find a quiet day and be able to 

 drive about the town without critical danger 

 of being run away with, or upset by a fright- 

 ened horse. 



After all, I am inclined to think some of 

 the farmers of this town were as patriotic in 

 visiting and examining the farms of each other, 

 as they would have been in the loudest de- 

 monstrations of drum and trumpet, big guns 

 and crackers. 



At the close of their winter meetmgs, the 

 Concord Farmers' Club, voted to spend the 4th 

 day of July in visiting as many of the farms 

 of the members as time would permit ; and in 

 accordance with that vote commenced their 

 perambulations by driving to the farm of 



Mr. Abiel H. Wheeler. Most of the 

 land which he cultivates is rather moist, can- 

 not be conveniently drained, and requires con- 

 siderable skill to manage it so as to get re- 

 munerative crops. With skill and industry, 

 however, he has succeeded in every crop he 

 has undertaken, with the exception of apples. 

 He now has a large number of apple trees, 

 very vigorous, and of beautiful form, which 

 make an abundance of wood every year, but 

 have never fruited. A portion of the land 

 upon which they stand has been heavily crop- 

 ped with corn, strawberries, asparagus and 

 potatoes. In the hope that the trees would 

 cease their growth, in part, and produce fruit. 

 But no effort in that direction has been suc- 

 cessful, 60 that he has cut down an acre or two 



of them as cumberers of the ground. The 

 remainder will probably share a similar fate. 



All the crops on Mr. Wheeler's farm were 

 clean and promising. In strawberries he had 

 three acres ; in asparagus, two acres ; In pickles, 

 five acres ; in watermelons, one acre. He 

 keeps quite a large stock and "makes" milk 

 for the market, but as the cows were at pas- 

 ture I did not see them, and made no in- 

 quiries as to quantity or profit. 



The next call was at the nursery grounds of 

 Mr. Albert Stacy, the worthy post master of 

 this town — a gentleman who loves flowers and 

 farming as well as good old Izaak Walton did 

 "virtue and angling." A year or two since 

 he purchased a "peat hole," with peat In it, 

 and some scrub oak and sandy plain land at- 

 tached. The hole was drained and peat thrown 

 out; scrub oaks cut and burned, and their 

 ashes mingled with the peat and spread upon 

 the land, and now it is covered with the finest 

 three acres of early Valentine beans that I 

 ever saw. Along side of them are \i acres of 

 pop corn, 5 acres of potatoes, 6000 peach 

 trees and 1000 pear trees, together with other 

 varieties of nursery truck. He has made more 

 than two plants grow where only one grew be- 

 fore, and, one of these days, is to tell the Club 

 whether he has done it profitably or not. 

 Our next call was at the farm of 



Mr. Charles A. Hubbard, and a large 

 farm It Is, and well tilled, although large. We 

 found him patriotically getting in hay ! but he 

 left all and followed the club. He cuts some 

 seventy-five tons of hay, keeps a large stock 

 of cattle, makes milk for Boston, rakes some 

 hundreds of bushels of cranberries, makes 

 money at farming and knows how to be liberal 

 with it when earned. Had I not been called 

 away, I should be more precise in describing 

 his operations. His buildings are spacious and 

 In excellent order, and the pair of bays and 

 comfortable carriage at the door, were indica- 

 tions that the family ride sometimes as well as 

 work. 



Mr. James P. Brown has a large farm, and 

 one capable, I think, of producing more for 

 the same number of acres than any other in 

 town. One compact field directly behind the 

 barn contains eighty ^cres. A portion of this, 

 where it seemed to need it, has been under- 

 drained, which has wrought wonderful changes 

 on it. The crops on it were very fine. One 

 acre in rye was remarkably stout. He has 



