574 



NEW ENGLAM) FAR^VIER. 



Dec. 



which they use for pitch. The young sap- 

 lings, straight, light and durable, are used for 

 poles in horticulture. But it is now recom- 

 mended rather for its beauty than for the eco- 

 nomical value of its timber or roots, and we 

 hope our illustration will be sufficiently attrac- 

 tive to cause many persons to embellish their 

 homesteads with this or other evergreens. 



For the New England Farmer, 

 HARVEST TIME. 

 Although the summer which has just gone 

 by was colder and wetter in this vicinity than 

 any preceding sunmier for several years, it 

 was by no means so unfruitful a season as some 

 agricultural writers represent it to have been. 

 Taking all things into account, I believe that 

 the farmers of this section of New England, 

 have but little reason to complain of the re- 

 sults of the season's work ; for if some of our 

 crops have fallen below the yield of last year, 

 others have come out in greater abundance 

 than in any previous season for a long time ; 

 and as certain articles of produce, — potatoes 

 and onions, for instance, — command a much 

 higher price to-day than they did a twelve- 

 month ago, it is my opinion that many of us 

 have gained almost as much in one way as we 

 have lost in another. 



I think that every New England farmer of 

 long experience will admit that we have had 

 no better season for hay during the last twenty 

 years. As a general thing, the first cut was 

 larger than that of 18G6, while the crop of 

 rowen was the heaviest that has been mown for 

 a great while. In fact, 1 have no recollection 

 of a moister summer than that of the present 

 year. The pasturage continued good through- 

 out the season, so that there was no need to 

 feed our cattle at the barn. Of the corn fod- 

 der which I planted in June, with the inten- 

 tion of feeding it to my heifer, in case of an 

 August drought, not a stalk has been eaten, 

 and it is now in the barn-gable, ripe for winter 

 use. 



No ; if farm produce should be held at fam- 

 ine prices, during the winter now almost at 

 the door, it will be in consequence of the 

 knavery of speculators — not because of a scar- 

 city of "food. If the crops of '67 be somewhat 

 deficient, as compared with those of some ear- 

 lier years, there is yet a sufficiency for all. 



At any rate, there is hardly a possibihty of 

 starvation on the farm which I occupy. I ad- 

 mit that my potatoes suffered somewhat from 

 the rot, but the loss was not extremely heavy, 

 after all ; for from thrte-quarters of an acre 

 of the Beach lot, I harvested about seventy- 

 seven bushels of (Jleasons, which were sold in 

 the market here at the rate of a dollar a 

 bushel — not an unremunerative price. The 

 onions, too, were thinned altogether too freely 

 by the maggot, so that I was able to gather 



only two hundred and sixty bushels of Silver- 

 skms oflT of one acre of land ; but as they 

 brought a dollar and ten cents a bushel in Bos- 

 ton market, I sustained no loss in this case. 

 My cabbages numbered about forty hundred, 

 — all grown in a field containing one-and-a- 

 quarter acres ; these I disposed of at an aver- 

 age price of six-and-a-half dollars a hundred, 

 — realizing on this crop alone the sum of two 

 hundred and sixty dollars. Squashes, on my 

 place, came to nothing. I have hardly enough 

 for my own wants. But the yield of hay was 

 enormously heavy, the weight of both cuts 

 being not less, in my opinion, than six and a 

 half tons, the mowing lot measuring two acres 

 and a quarter. My apples were not worth 

 gathering ; but a friend of mine informs me 

 that his orchard is rapidly improving, and that, 

 judging from present appearances, it will next 

 season yield a fair supply. For the first time 

 in four years, he has just sent a few bushels to 

 market; and yet, in the fall of '61, that or- 

 chard yielded a hundred barrels of excellent 

 fruit. 



How deliciously pleasant are these early 

 October days. The skies seem nearer now 

 than at any other season, while earthly objects 

 appear farther away. The bluffs beyond the 

 river have assumed a greater remoteness, and 

 the hilltops that were faintly visible, last even- 

 ing, on the western horizon, are no longer to 

 be seen. Through the enveloping haze, — a 

 spiritual rather than a material substance, — 

 the maples glow like a subdued, but yet smoul- 

 dering fire. The briers are red with apple- 

 thorns ; over every pasture wall the barberry 

 bush reaches forth its bunches of crimson ber- 

 ries ; and the leaves of the sumachs on the 

 roadside look to have been steeped in blood. 

 Belated honeysuckles are blossoming in the 

 meadow ; here and there the low grounds are 

 blue with asters ; and under the orchard trees 

 lie heaps of fragrant apples, green, and golden, 

 and russet, and red. 



And the sounds that fall upon the ear have 

 no disturbing effect on the prevailing quiet; 

 they but serve to render our enjoyment more 

 complete. Immense bumble-bee>:, — resplen- 

 dent in their black and yellow apparel, — are 

 drawing in the fiower-cups ; squirrels are 

 chattering to each other in the nut-trees ; 

 crickets are chirping, far and near. We hear 

 the cawing of crows in the wood on the river- 

 side, and at intervals one of the black- 

 robed conclave gives utterance, once and 

 again, to the cry: '■'holly-liuu-k! hollij-haivk!'''' 

 and then is still. As we ajj^roach the river, 

 the king-fisher ijuits his perch on the blighted 

 locust, and hurriedly wings his way to the op- 

 posite shore, — loudlj' sounding liis alarm-rat- 

 tle as he flies. Blue-jays are screaming in the 

 covert; wild geese, — the vanguard of a grand 

 army moving rapidly southward in pursuit uf 

 the retreating summer, — are honking overhead ; 

 and from morning to evening, from the gloam- 

 ing to the dawn, into the listener's heart pene- 



