1911 
THE RURAI< NEW-YORKER 
31 
A FARMING TOWN IN SOUTHERN NEW 
HAMPSHIRE. 
The first settlements were made in this 
town near the close of the seventeenth 
century, and were made up almost wholly 
of children and grandchildren of the Puri¬ 
tan English settlers who came to the neigh¬ 
boring town of Hampton during and soon 
after 1638. This town had become quite 
fully settled by 1773, when the popula¬ 
tion numbered 652. Emigration to the in¬ 
terior towns of the colony began at the 
close of the French and Indian War and 
continued for 40 years or more, but fami¬ 
lies were large iu those days, and the popu¬ 
lation gradually increased till 1840, when 
the permanent inhabitants numbered about 
850. There has since been a small but 
irregular falling off to the present figure, 
which is 783. The change in the character 
of the population has been less than in 
many country towns. The census of 1790 
gives the names of 99 heads of families 
and of these families 92 are still repre¬ 
sented by descendants living within the 
limits of the town or near its borders. It 
follows that several farms have been in 
possession of the same family for six or 
seven generations. One piece of land which 
I now own has never been conveyed by 
deed since the year 1708, and then it was 
by a deed from father to son and without 
consideration. 
This has always been almost exclusively 
a farming community. A few families on 
the seashore depend in part on Summer 
boarders, and we have the usual number 
of tradesmen and mechanics needed to 
supply the wants of a country town, but 
we have no manufacturing of any descrip¬ 
tion. The grist mills, tan yards and va¬ 
rious forms of home manufactures, which 
were here 100 years ago, have long since 
disappeared. 
The type of farming which now prevails 
is very different from that of the former 
days when most of the needs of the family 
were supplied by the farm itself. i re¬ 
member when considerable grain was raised, 
but now , very little is produced except 
what is used for green fodder. There was 
likewise a great falling off in field corn, 
but the high prices of the last few years 
have brought about a revival of interest 
in this crop, which can be raised to per¬ 
fection in this region, if the flint varieties 
are planted. Twenty-five years ago pota¬ 
toes were raised quite generally; sometimes 
five or six hundred bushels on a farm, 
but now the quantity raised is barely suf¬ 
ficient for home consumption, and some 
years potatoes are shipped iu here by the 
carload. Nevertheless good crops can be 
obtained by thorough tillage and generous 
use of fertilizer. There is always a good 
market for poultry and eggs and prac¬ 
tically every farm has a flock of hens, but 
I know of no case where this is made the 
chief business of the farm. Several persons 
have tried to carry on the hen business on 
a large scale, but the final outcome has 
usually been disappointing. There is a 
fairly good demand for fresh vegetables 
and small fruit at the nearby Summe: re¬ 
sorts, and a man who could peddle his 
goods should obtain substantial returns. 
Very little is done here in this line al¬ 
though there are several good-sized truck 
farms in the nearby towns. The produc¬ 
tion of milk for the Boston market has be¬ 
come the principal occupation of the farm¬ 
ers of this town. The milk is collected 
at his door and the Winter price is about 
38 cents for a can of 8Vt quarts. Very 
little butter is made; nearly all we use 
coming from Maine and Vermont. The 
keeping of large herds of cows means lots 
of hard confining work, and the profit 
seems to figure out pretty small, but as 
farmers continue at it year after year and 
seem to keep in fairly comfortable circum¬ 
stances there must be some money iu it. 
I have heard many discussions of the 
orchard question as applied to this lo¬ 
cality, and 1 hesitate to give an opinion 
on it. There are some years in which 
substantial returns come from the sale of 
apples, and this year is one of them. 
Apples as good as any can be raised here. 
I think there is no doubt on this point. 
A few days ago there were five carloads 
sent iu a single shipment from our station 
to Chicago, and the New England agent 
of the Canadiau Pacific Dispatch tells me ■ 
there is a good demand there for New 1 
England Baldwins of good quality, and that ; 
is the variety mostly raised in this region. i 
1 hear many of my friends declare that 
the labor and expense of caring for an or¬ 
chard makes the business unprofitable and 
very few young orchards are being planted. 
I set out a small orchard two years ago, 
and I was given to understand that my 
courage was more to be admired than my 
judgment. It is my idea that the or¬ 
chards have not had a fair show, and that 
if they were regularly and properly culti¬ 
vated, fertilized, pruned and sprayed a dif¬ 
ferent story might be told. 
The sale of standing timber has been an 
important source of income to many of our 
farmers. This section was originally an 
unbroken forest, mostly of pine and hem¬ 
lock, and although there are some valuable 
lots still standing, the inroads of the past 
30 years have made great changes. A 
sale amounting to five or six thousand dol¬ 
lars has not been uncommon, and I have 
personal knowledge of a farm iu a nearby 
town from which the owners have received 
for the sale of standing growth about 
850,000 within the last five years, and 
many acres still remain untouched. 
The subject of taxes is of importance in 
a farming community and in this regard 
we are fairly fortunate. Our rate is 814 
per thousand, divided about as follows: 
State tax, 83; county, 82.60; schools, 
•83.65; highways, 82, and miscellaneous, 
82.75. The valuation is considered as 
low rather than high, and is probably in 
most cases well inside the forced selling 
value of the property. No separate poll 
tax- is levied in New Hampshire, but each 
citizen voter between the ages of 21 and 
<0 is assessed at 8100. and this is added 
to the valuation of his other property, 
lhere has been an increase in our tax rate 
of about 40 per cent during the past six 
years, owing to a great increase in the 
fetate tax and a number of unusual local 
expenses, among them the building of a 
8o,000 library, the payment for which was 
wholly met by taxation. Our town is free 
from debt and has practically no paupers 
to support. 
I have noticed in your paper figures as 
to the value of real estate in different 
localities. With us, arable land in good i 
condition is worth from 860 to $100 per 
acre; woodland from $100 to $200 if cov¬ 
ered with good-sized growth, although I 
know of one lot of 48 acres sold for 
$500 per acre. This was the farm in a 
neighboring town which I have mentioned 
before. Good pasture land is considered 
worth $25 to $30 per acre, but old and 
run-out pastures are sometimes sold as low 
as $10. Most of our farms are well pro¬ 
vided with buildings, and they usually rep¬ 
resent an investment of four to six thou¬ 
sand dollars if the building site be in¬ 
cluded. In some cases the replacement 
value would be more than this; say eight 
to ten thousand. Men who have done much 
traveling about the country have told me 
that it is very rare to find a locality where 
the average farm is so well provided with 
comfortable and substantial buildings. 
It is a general opinion that this is a 
very good place for a farmer to live, pro¬ 
vided he owns his farm unincumbered and 
has a few thousand dollars in available 
capital besides. It is considered a risky 
proceeding for a man to run in debt for 
his farm. That is to say, a man may ex¬ 
pect a living from his farm, but must not 
hope for much returns on invested capital. 
I think more intensive agriculture would 
result in greater returns, but this is often 
impracticable on account of the scarcity 
of labor. If a man is so fortunate as to 
have one or two sons old enough to work 
on the farm and willing to do so he has 
a good chance to make good in the busi¬ 
ness. One of my neighbors who milks 
about 30 cows reports that a keeping of 
individual milk and feed records has 
greatly increased the efficiency of his plant. 
It is very easy to suggest changes which 
in theory should make a generous in¬ 
crease in the farmer’s income, but the prac¬ 
tical end of the problem is a much more 
complicated matter. e. m. s. 
FERTILIZING FOR POTATOES. 
I would like to plant potatoes in the 
Spring iu an old field that has not been 
farmed for at least seven years; still it is 
not a field that was previously farmed to 
death, being practically new ground. It is 
not very rough, or grown up to anv ex¬ 
tent. I intend to clean it off and give it 
a good plowing and harrowing with a 
spring-tooth harrow. After digging pota¬ 
toes I wish to seed down to rye or wheat 
(it is level ground) for a grass crop. What 
fertilizer would you advise, and what should 
it contain? l. l. r. 
Stroudsburg, Pa. 
In such a case unless we had had ex¬ 
perience in using the separate chemicals 
we would use* 900 pounds or more per 
acre of one of the high grade potato fer¬ 
tilizers with about 3% per cent nitrogen, 
eight per cent phosphoric acid and six per 
cent potash. 
Killing Out Dodder. 
There are some farmers who have dod¬ 
der or “daughter,” as they call it, in their 
clover and would like to find out how to 
get rid of it. t e. e. l. 
This dodder question comes in every day. 
The dodder is a parasi.te which "grows 
around , the stems of clover and Alfalfa and 
strangles them. The seed usually comes 
as an adulteration of clover or Alfalfa 
seed. If left alone it will spread through 
the field. Plowing and growing a culti¬ 
vated crop for several years will kill out 
the dodder, but if you want to keep on 
cutting the clover crop you must kill off 
the dodder spots. This is done by mowing 
off everything where the dodder is found 
several feet outside of the dodder plants. 
Let this hay dry, then pour kerosene all 
over and burn the spot over. Do not buy 
any clover or Alfalfa seed unless guaran¬ 
teed free from dodder. 
Hucksters and storekeepers here, 25 
miles w'est of Indianapolis, pay seven cents 
each for rabbits. They are retailed in In¬ 
dianapolis for 25 cents each. We have di¬ 
rect shipping facilities to Indianapolis via 
Big Four It. R. and ,J. C. T. U. Traction 
Line. j. h. 
Danville, Ind. 
As a plain proposition, when a man re¬ 
ceives seven .cents for a rabbit which later 
retails for 25 cents he receives 28 cents of 
the consumer’s dollar., He is doing a little 
better than some growers of fruit and po¬ 
tatoes who have sent us records. 
Producer’s Share of ’ Hats.- r-Consul 
Cheney of Curacao, gives some .notes on the 
straw hat industry in the Dutch West Indies. 
How much does the hat cost you? ‘Since 
the failure of the phosphate and salt busi¬ 
ness more than half the exports from 
Curacao consist of straw hats, the making 
of which gives employment to thousands 
of, women, who earn from three to six 
cents a day, according to their skill. The 
straw;is jipijapa, from Venezuela, and the 
material for a hat that sells for eight cents 
costs about three cents. A skilled woman 
can make one hat a day. The government 
furnishes straw for manv of the very poor. 
Syrians buy most,of the hats and sell them 
to exporters at a uniform profit of two 
cents a dozen. They go to New York, 
where they receive a finish, and are sent 
south and west. The invoice value lately 
has been about $1.08 per dozen. Made by 
hand, they have to compete with cheap 
machine-made hats. A better grade is made 
to a small extent, and the amount is in¬ 
creasing, as the government has estab¬ 
lished a school to teach fine hat braiding. 
Almost all of these hats go to Europe. 
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