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American Agriculturist 
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THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
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Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man .” — Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. 
Established 1842 
Volume 114 
For the Week Ending July 5, 1924 
Number 1 
Farmers on the Broad Highway 
Adventures of the Sanders Family Through New England and Lower Canada 
B ACK in August our family got the “camping 
out” fever. As many of you know, it is right 
in style. It has a great lure. A breakfast of 
bacon and eggs cooked in the open with the 
tang of the woods mixed in, and the smoke of the camp 
file in your eyes while you eat it, can’t be beat. I 
decided so one morning after moving our folding table 
for the third time, and we all decided gas masks should 
be added to next year’s equipment. 
City folks say “you’re only camping out when you 
leave old Broadway,” but even as farmers we felt we 
wanted to get back to nature a bit. 
For such a trip there was much talk and deliberation 
as to what should go and what should not. A bit of 
'are had to be taken here, as a car is soon loaded, 
especially when there are five in the family. 
Mrs. S. busied herself in packing the 
many suit-cases. Some were clothing, others 
dishes, and still others food stuffs. Helen, 
our 16-year-old “girl scout,” made the 
blanket rolls, while Walter, who is thirteen, 
packed our twenty gauge shot-gun to keep 
the “bears” away. Mildred, who is seven, 
pondered oVer the doll family, as only one 
ibember was invited, while it was my job to 
give the “Franklin touring” the once over 
to see that all grease cups were full. 
When finally loaded, I am sure we had 
any band of gipsies beaten for luggage. Our 
running boards were covered with suit¬ 
cases, bags, blanket rolls, and tent poles. 
One of our neighbors asked how long we 
were going to camp out. I said in a joke, 
“Maybe one night will reduce the camping 
fever.” I little realized how nearly this was 
going to come true. 
We made our start on August 21st and 
from Westchester County, New York, made 
directly for the New England States, enter- 
By W. H. SANDERS 
spend the night in the car. Mildred, our youngster, 
began to cry when she woke up, saying, “Let’s go home, 
I don’t like camping out anyway.” She had sym¬ 
pathizers. All night the wind rose and the thermometer 
fell. In the morning Whitcomb’s Summit was a sorry 
place,—everybody nearly frozen and mo*e or less wet. 
Some tents were torn to shreds. Ours had stood for a 
wonder. The rain had stopped, but the “low-minded” 
clouds were scudding over our heads. We picked up 
our belongings, rolled up the wet blankets and wetter 
tent, helped our neighbors as much as we could, and 
followed the trail down off the mountains to Greenfield 
where a hot breakfast could be bought. In descending 
At Franklin we stopped two miles off the main road to see the Daniel Webster 
birthplace . . 
ing them at Danbury, Connecticut, the hat city. 
From Danbury we passed through the village of 
Brookfield. This town has many old-fashioned houses 
that once sheltered Connecticut’s early settlers, and 
was on the stage-coach line between Peekskill, New 
York, and Hartford, Connecticut. Here we began 
seeing tobacco fields. Much land in the Connecticut 
River valley is given to tobacco growing, and the crop 
now extends into lower Vermont. The cutting had 
begun and the long-leafed plants were being drawn 
from the fields to be hung bottom up in especially 
ventilated barns. 
Our next town was New Milford, and from here we 
bore to the left or west on a brand new cement road. 
We followed this for some ten miles, and were marveling 
at such a fine road in a wild wooded country when all 
at once the concrete stopped. We now had twenty 
milesjff dirt road to get to Lakeville where roads were 
roadsmgain. We had been misled. In other words, 
look before you leap. Of course, they told us the road 
would be finished all the way “some time,” but we 
could not wait. 
From Lakeville we soon hit the Massachusetts line. 
Now came Great Barrington, Pittsfield, and North 
Adams. Here we came upon the Mohawk Trail, and 
were in the heart of the Berkshire Mountains. We 
climbed the mountain trail and gained the highest 
point, Whitcomb’s Summit. At this place we decided 
to camp where the exalted bronze elk stands with head 
so high overlooking the valley to the east. This elk 
statue is a war memorial to fallen heroes of that 
order. 
The wind was high and gray clouds were settling. 
I was a bit worried, but as five other parties had tents 
up, we risked it. We dared not build a fire, so ate left¬ 
overs from our noon lunch. When blankets had been 
spread and we had had possibly an hour’s sleep, the 
rain started. The wind increased and so did the rain. 
Now the tent fairly jumped up and down. Soon water 
ame through, and there was just one thing to do— 
// 
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we passed a sign at the roadside which read, “1,060 
feet below this spot is the Hoosac Tunnel.” The 
Hoosac Tunnel is a two-track railroad running four and 
three-quarter miles under the mountains. It is the 
longest in the United States. 
A few miles out of Greenfield we stopped to dry out 
tent and blankets as the sun had now come out, and 
life seemed worth living again. I lay down to try a 
bit of sleep. This was short-lived, however. Mildred 
had been attracted to the woodside by golden rod and 
wild asters. Yellow jacket hornets claimed that part 
of Massachusetts and drove her out, but the poor kid 
got eight, stings about her bare knees. We packed up 
again, and went on to the next tovJn. Here we got 
camphor for the stings, and ice cream for the mind 
Now we set sail once again, and in this country we 
saw many more tobacco fields with their long ventilating 
barns. At Winchendon and Gardner they have a novel 
way of advertising their wares. Winchendon is the 
toy town of the United States and has a large rocking- 
horse in the town square. Gardner claims to have the 
largest chair factories in the world, so in their town 
square is a high wooden chair some fifteen feet high, 
awaiting “Jack the Giant Killer.” The story goes that 
once a drummer came to Winchendon and upon seeing 
the mammoth wooden horse asked if it was a one-horse 
town. It is safe to say his line of goods had a poor sale 
in that town. 
From Ayer Junction we cut across country to Nashua, 
New Hampshire, and at Manchester, New Hampshire’s 
largest city, we decided to spend the night. At Man¬ 
chester are some of the country’s largest cotton mills. 
The Amoskeag mills employ several thousand hands 
and make the famous “Amoskeag Ginghams.” The 
Merrimac River, where water power is available for 
miles up and down, has many mills. Cotton, woolens, 
pulp and paper are the foremost industries. 
We had run only one hundred and twenty-five miles 
for the day, but with hanging out our wash, fighting 
bees, and the like, I had become tired. We 
scheduled to reach Laconia, my home land, that night. 
That would have been sixty miles more. 
We found a smooth little field beside a pine grove 
just out of the city. A brook was near by, and no wind 
was blowing—what more could we ask? Up went the 
tent, our girl scout member laid a camp fire, and Mrs. 
S. began boiling sweet corn that we had purchased at a 
farmstead on our way; and after a supper of hot 
frankfurters and boiled sweet corn, we watched the 
embers of the camp fire glow in the twilight, and the 
second day of our pleasure “exertion” was ended. 
Furthermore, let it be said that none of our party had 
to be sung to sleep that night. 
In the morning when the bacon and eggs had become 
history we broke camp and rolled to the north. Just 
above Concord, New Hampshire’s capitol, we 
passed a little island in the Merrimac River. 
On this island is a monument to the memory 
of Hannah Dustin. History tells a thrilling 
story of how Indians in 1698 captured 
Mrs. Dustin, her babe, and a nurse girl at 
Haverhill, Massachusetts, and paddled them 
seventy miles up the river to this island. 
During the night, while the Indians slept 
heavily after their up-stream canoeing, with 
the help of her nurse girl, Mrs. Dustin 
tomahawked the Indians, ten in number, 
thus escaping with other white captives back 
to Haverhill. 
At Franklin we stopped two miles off the 
main road to see the Daniel Webster birth¬ 
place—a little two-room house with some of the 
original furniture. This little house is known 
the country over. It has many visitors, 
as the register shows. While we were there 
a car pulled in from the State of Illinois. 
Laconia came next. Here we stopped off 
on our trip for two days with an uncle of 
mine and some cousins. Our tent needed 
a rest, and some good beds were as welcome as the 
flowers in May to our party. We had a fine time swap¬ 
ping stories with old friends and neighbors, also drink¬ 
ing in the fine lake and mountain scenery of this country. 
Laconia is known as the City of the Lakes. There are 
two large lakes, Winnepesaukee and Winniesquam. 
also a smaller one, Opeechie. These are Indian names, 
as is the nearby river, Pemigewasset. They all have a 
meaning. Winnepesaukee is the “Smile of the Great 
Spirit.” It is twenty miles long and has three hundred 
islands in its crystal waters. One island is inhabited 
only by rattlesnakes. They are supposed to have been 
brought there by the Indians to poison their arrows. 
T guess it is so, as the rattlers are still there, and there 
are scarcely any others in New Hampshire. This region 
was undoubt¬ 
edly a great 
hunting 
ground of the 
Indians as 
many relics 
have been 
found — ar¬ 
rowheads, 
tomahawks, 
and the like. 
Pine trees 
grow as if by 
instinct here, 
and from one 
grove on the 
south shore of 
Our party near the top of Mt. Washing¬ 
ton. Note the absence of roadside shrub 
bery at this high altitude. 
were 
Winnepesaukee the White Mountains, sixty miles to 
the north, can be seen. Around in view of this lake 
one can also see the Ossipee Mountains, and some of 
the nearer peaks are Sandwich, Chocorua and Belknap. 
The White Mountains were our next point of inter¬ 
est. There we pitched our tent in the orchard of a 
friend farmer who has a fine farm of intervale land in 
(Continued on page 6) 
