THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. quarts to the ton, it matters but little which method is pursued. Speaking of salt reminds us that cattle and sheep running in fresh grass, stand in particular need of salt in the fore part of summer; and no good husbandman will neglect to deal this condiment out to them occasionally. There can be no doubt that it is highly advantageous to them. Look to the garden; keep it free from weeds and stir well the soil about the plants. See to Don't let too many plants reyour vines. main in a hill. Plant cucumbers up to July; if you like them for your own table; or would raise them for the market; or would have a plenty for pickles. Cucumbers and melons should not be nearer in the hill, than four or five feet; two plants and three at farthest are enough in a hill. Some gardeners say less even, and that they should be father apar.. But this of course must be when there is plenty of ground. Soap suds sprinkled or forced upon your vines with a syringe, besides making them grow, will preserve them from insects. Strong soap suds are most excellent, applied to trees; they keep the barkclean, and kills the insects that infest them. MANURE-ASHES. By leaching, ashes are divided into two parts soluble and insoluble. Hard wood ashes, in every one hundred parts, by leaching, give 13.57 of soluble parts and 86.43 of insoluble parts. According to Prof. Dana 100 parts of the soluble contain Carbonic acid,. Potash and Soda,. 22.70 6.43 1.82 95 67.96 99.86 "A bushel of good ashes contains 54 lbs of real potash. In leaching ashes, generally about one peck of lime is added to each bushel of ashes, and as it loses no bulk during the operation, a cord of leached ashes contains about the following propor tions, allowing the usual proportion to be Oxide of iron,.. Carbonate of lime with that 117 lbs. 146 17 66 added in leaching,...... 3072 " Potash combined with silica, 50 Berthier gives the constituents of the ash of According to his tavarious kinds of wood. bles, the constituents of Oak, Birch, Beech and Pine, are as follows in every 100 parts of Pitch each. ASHES, leached or unleached are a most valWhile one writer says, they uable manure. are "best for low, mossy lands," and another, "that ashes are found to succeed best on dry, loamy lands,"-all agree that they are a valuable manure. At the present time; the opinion generally prevails, that ashes have the most beneficial effect upon sand and dry loamy soils. This may be true to a certain extent,but we know that ashes are an excellent manure on moist, swamp y land-as we have in mind now, two fields, one a light cold muddy soil upon a substratum of sand, and the other a peat bog, that have been reclaimed by the use of ashes. In fact, reason shows, that any moist land, containing acids and hence cold and sour," would be greatly benefited by the use of ashes, as they would neutralize the acids and furnish earthy and Silica, Thus in certain saline matter to the soil. peat bogs, there are often acids, sulphates of iron and alumine, or copperas and lime. Now a supply of ashes to such bogs, will make them productive, the ashes neutralizing the acids. In this manner swamps and low meadows are often reclaimed in the neighborhood of old Potash Works. The reclaiming being the result of accident at first; the ashes having been thrown as worthless into the most worthless spots; but afterwards the result of experience; as it was discovered that those worthless spots, soon became productive from the application of "spent ashes." But the real value of ashes depends upon their being a combination of salts derived from plants, all of which have a most decided beneficial effect on the re-production of plants. Lime, Carbonic acid Oak. Birch. Pine. Beech. 3.8 5.8 5.5 13.0 54.8 52.2 27.2 42.6 0.6 3.0 8.7 7.0 0.5 22.3 1.5 Sprengel gives the following table as the result of the analysis of the Red Beech, Oak and Scotch Fir. Red Beeca. Oak. Sc'h Fir. 5.52 29.95 6.59 2.33 8.14 17.03 25.00 17.38 23.18 5.00 1.44 5.02 2.20 22.11 16.20 Soda Sulphuric acid Phosphoric acid Chlorine Carbonic acid 3.32 6.73 2.22 7.64 3.36 2.23 5.62 1.92 2.75 1.84 2.41 2.30 14.00 12.87 36.48 100. 100. 100. ly appreciates their value or his own interests, will ever dispose of his unleached ashes at less than seventy-five cents per bushel. Whatever may be the geological formation, or constitutional texture of his farm, it is scarcely within the limits of probability, but there are sections or ** spots," at least, on which the ap The same author gives the analysis of the plication of ashes, either as a top-dressing, or ash of various grains thus: Potash Soda Lime Magnesia Silica Alumina Oxide of iron Phosphoric acid Sulphuric acid Chlorine Carbonic acid in compost, would not be highly salutary to the soil, and beneficial to the crop." And still another says, that by actual experiment he has "found that for every bushel of ashes he has applied to his corn crop, for the last ten years, he has received an additional bushel of corn as the result!" So save your ashes and apply them to your lands. Oxide of Manganese trace. 0.2 3.5 4.8 1.8 100. 100. 100. 100. WHO BEATS THEM? Mr. Joseph Prescott, of Amoskeag, has chickens of last April and May hatch, that weigh Seventeen pounds per pair! They are Chittagongs. Mr. Prescott received a diploma for them, at the late State Fair. We doubt Letellier gives the analysis of the ash of In- very much whether these chickens can be beat Now upon examining the constituents of the ash of the various kinds of wood as given seph Prescott, of Amoskeag" to send along in the above tables and comparing them with this way a pair of his "Chittagongs" we asthe ash of various kinds of grains, it is easy to perceive why wood ashes are a most excel- sure him they shall be beaten all but the "b" lent manure for raising the grains and other or we will acknowledge ourselves "beaten." vegetables. Ashes furnish to the soil the appropriate food of those plants. Ashes contain all the inorganic constituents which form the inorganic parts of plants--hence their great value as fertilizers, not only upon "dry loamy soils," but upon all soils exhausted of those inorganic substances by cultivation, or deprived of them by nature. Well now, what an appetite, friend Gibbs has. We always knew he was some, but had no idea that he could'nt hear of a brace of Chittagongs, without his "mouth's watering for 'em!" Out upon the man, we had thoughts of sending him some Chittagong eggs, but if he would'nt spare a pair of fowls, their eggs But ashes are valuable as an exterminator.—would most surely be "beaten" all but the A gill cup of unleached ashes put upon a hill "b." Now man see what you have lost by of corn, is sure to exterminate worms and bugs; having such an appetite ! and are equally valuable upon other vegetables troubled with such vermin. They not IMPROVEMENT IN AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. only exterminate them upon the surface of It is surprising to witness the great improvethe ground, but about the roots of the veget-ment which has been made in the implements ables, and are sure to prevent the visits of these of husbandry within the last half century.troublesome animals. We were reminded of this fact a few days Strown broadcast upon the land and plowed since while passing through the extensive Agin, leached or unleached ashes will extermi-ricultural Implement and Seed Ware House of nate sorrel, as they destroy the food of this noxious vegetable, when they neutralize the acids of the soil. Messrs Dennis & Varick, No. 94, Granite Block, Elm St. one of the most enterprising and prompt business firms in the city-who Thus no more valuable manure can be used keep constantly on hand a full assortment of than ashes. In speaking of their virtues for all the approved patterns of farming tools.— a particular crop, one writer says, "The use Also field and garden seeds of the best qualiof wood ashes, when applied on a warm light ty and such as our farmers may depend upon. loam, will repay the first year, three times Messrs D. and V. also keep the largest astheir cost, in raising a crop of parsnips." An-sortment of Hard Ware and House Trimming other says "No farmer or gardener, who right-articles to be found in the state. Try them. THE name thus given to the imported French Merino Buck, by S. W. Jewett, Esq. of Weybridge, Vt. imports, we presume, that "he is death" on all other imported bucks. Mr. Jewett has kindly furnished us with the above cut and we present it to our readers, to impress more fully upon the minds of those who are engaged in wool-growing, the importance of breeding good sheep, and that they may see what is going on in the sheep-folds of our sister state, Vermont. Mr. Jewett made his selections out of the best stock in France; and the buck of which the above cut is a portrait, was selected from the flock of Mons. Cugnot, a year last April. In a note to the editor of the N. E. Cultivator of February, 1852, Mr. Jewett thus speaks: "There is no estimating the value of this sheep, for we have now quite a number of his stock, which will sell for at least, fifty dollars per head more than the lambs we have now dropped, got by the stock raisers in France. He is now fourteen months old, weighs 196 pounds, and has served during the season, since June last, over two hundred ewes. His stock stands low, with large limbs, great breadth of chest, standing well forward of the fore legs, quite wide across the shoulders and hips, and are round and full in the ham; qualities which the Merino sheep are too apt to be deficient in. As for their wool, it stands long and very thick all over the body, and even down to the hoofs, of a fine beautiful quality, running very even, free from show of course hairs, and estimated to shear over twenty-five pounds of clean, washed wool, in June next. We have this buck now insured for $300, this sum being the highest limit the company could insure on one sheep. And when we say no value can be put upon him, so as to be comprehended by the public generally, we will give it as our opinion, provided he should sustain his present promising condition for eight years to come, the stock he will get will sell for over one hundred thousand dollars. Many predict that the prices these sheep are now selling for will soon go down. I am decidedly of the contrary opinion, for there are but very few of this large race of pure Merinos in the world. At the present time, all the males fit for service in this country, would not furnish over ten to each state. This, (Addison,) County, Vt. will alone use over two hundred males, within less than ten years, if they can be had. In France, there are but five flocks of any considerable number, of the pure Merinoes, of this very large size; and but few Merinoes there including the smaller sized animals.The demand, at present, is far beyond the supply; and the price has more than doubled in France since I first visited that country. Sixty-five sheep alone cost me $8,450. Many stock sheep sell there, as high as at $500 each. People from all parts of the world, attracted by the late Exhibition at London, visited these flocks, and made purchases of what could then be spared. At that time I secured 175 ewes, mauke, which may have been the same word, to be shipped from Havre to N. Y. this coming as the southern Indians used n to express the spring and summer, from M. Gilbert and M. same sound, for which the Merrimack, or PenCugnot's flocks, and from my early applica-nacook Indians used 1, and the northern or tion, I was fortunate in getting my choice." Since that date, Mr. Jewett has visited France, and arrived home with his ewes. Under date of May 4, 1852, Mr. Jewett informs us that he has "Just imported 150 ewes at an expense of $13,000, selected from the best flocks in France, of the pure Merino breed." Such enterprize deserves success,-and we have no doubt will receive its reward, in ready sales and good prices, for the stock,which of necessity must be of great value as an addition to, or crossed with the present valuable sheep of the north. Canadian Indians used r. For example this word, if one and the same, would be called by the Indains thus: Merruhmauke by the Canada Indians. 66 Pennacooks. Melmauke Massachusetts. But we are inclined to the opinion, that Monamauke, written Monamack in the grant of the Council of Plymouth, is a different word from Merruhmauke, and that it was applied to this beautiful river by the Massachusetts Indians, to express one of its well known natural features. We would make Monamack from Mona (an island) and Auke (a place) thus :— Mona-m-auke, literally, "The Island Place," so named, from the many beautiful Islands in this river and which were the royal residences of their Sagamons. THE MERRIMACK VALLEY.-No. I. "THE beautiful Merrimack, studded with islands, broken with waterfalls and intersected with branches; here pent up to a narrow The Merrimack was first discovered in 1605, strait by steep bluffs, and anon its borders by the Sieur de Champlain. Champlain is widening into an extended expanse of mead- the first white man, doubtless, who ever placed ows,-its banks interspersed with villages, dot-foot upon land in New Hampshire. On the ted with farm-houses; and its margin travers- 16th day of July 1605, having passed the ed by a well-appointed rail-road, connecting point of land, south of the Piscataqua, now two great and growing inland cities, teeming called Odiorne's Point, but by him "Cap aux with no sluggish population, with the Capital Isles" his attentionwas attracted by Indians of our State and with the Capital of New- dancing upon the sandy beach, and going on England;-is now scarcely more beautiful or shore he soon won their confidence by presinteresting, and certainly less grand and sub-ents and kind treatment. The place landed lime, than when first explored by the white man in the earlier part of the seventeenth century. Then its islands, its water falls, its banks and their forests, were, as from the hand of Nature. Man had not dared to mar her handiwork, and it remained in all its pristine grandeur and sublimity. Then too villages were upon its banks, peopled by a race of men, with minds in unison with this natural grandeur, and whose whole character has been as much altered, aye, marred, by contact with civilized life, as have the many islands, the leaping water-falls, and the noble forests, of their own well beloved Merrimack. at by Champlain, was doubtless what is now called "Wallace's Sands" in the town of Rye. They gave him information by signs, as to the coast and with a coal drew a diagram of it.Upon this diagram or map, they drew a river and represented it as barred with sand at its mouth! Champlain sailed down the coast on the 17th day of July; found the river, and barred at its mouth as described by the Indian with his 'rude crayon of coal! Champlain called it " The River DuGas." Afterwards it was found by DeLaet, and called "The Sand River." Thus was the Merrimack first discovered; and it is not a little singular, that it should have retained an original Indian name, since its original discoverers, took particular pains to appropriate to it a name. swift river, rising in the White Mountains at an altitude of nearly 7000 feet, and mingling with the waters of the ocean in less than two hundred miles; its course must of necessity be rough and turbulent. And when the Indian in his bark canoe, stemmed its impetuous current, no wonder that he should exclaim Merruhmauke! For indeed it was, and is, the "Swift Place." The Indians, the children of nature, were lovers of nature, and were close observers of natural objects. Hence there is a peculiar fit- And the Merrimack still retains the characness or appropriateness in their names of nat-ter given to it by the Indians. It is still the ural objects. MERRIMACK is an example. It is derived from the two Indian words merruh (swift) and auke (a place) and means literally;-THE SWIFT PLACE. And as they had great regard for the harmony of language, it will be seen in this example, that an m is thrown into the composition of the word,thus;-MERRUH-m-AUKE. The word Merrimack first occurs in the writings of our discoverers, as written by DeMontz, a French calvinist, who, writing from the banks of St. Lawrence, in 1604, says, "The Indians tell us of a beautiful river far to the south, which they call "Merrimack." The Indians at the South called it Mona But we can have no idea of the Merrimack of ancient time, only in time of a Freshet.There can be little doubt, when its banks were covered with dense forests, but, what at the dryest season of the year, a much larger volume of water rolled along its channel than at the present time. In fact there are abundant proofs to show, that in ancient time, it must have continually overflowed its present hanks. Then were channelled those projecting bluffs that frown upon its present banks, through most of its length. And then too were worn those curious holes in the ledges of its falls, that are now entirely out of water except in the highest freshets, and which must have been continually submerged in a whirlpool of waters for ages, to have been thus formed! So swift and impetuous, the Merrimack, in the very nature of things, is not skirted by a margin of extensive "Intervales" or "Bottom-lands," so noted and so valuable upon more sluggish waters; but its early history is full of stirring incidents, and its banks have ever been inhabited by such stirring men, that no river in our country possesses a more local historical interest. But of the incidents of the Merrimack valley hereafter. POST OFFICE ESTABLISHMENT. POSTAL Communication was first established stage line ever established in America, the mail previous to this time having been carried by Post Riders, upon horse back. Mr. Stavers stage consisted of an open curricle, drawn by a span of horses, and was of sufficient capacity to carry three passengers. It left Portsmouth Monday morning and the first day went as far as Ipswich, arriving at Charlestown ferry, the second day. Returning, it left Charlestown on Thursday stopping at Ipswich over night, and arriving at Portsmouth on Friday. On Saturday the mail started eastward for Falmouth, by a Post Rider. March 8, 1777, the following paragraph appeared in the N. H. Gazette: The Boston Post leaves the Post Office Falmouth Post every Saturday morning: and every Tuesday Morning at nine o'clock. The both return on Fridays. Office hours Fridays in the Afternoon, and Saturdays in the Fore noon. The Post office was open for business, it would seem, only two half days in the week! But now our go-ahead-ativeness is hardly satisfied with three mails a day, betwixt Boston and the important towns of New Hampshire, and grumbles loudly if a Post office is not open for the delivery of letters on Sunday! Post Offices! Then there was but a single in America, in 1672, by Governor Lovelace of New York, who in that year, established it to run betwixt New York and Boston monthly. The first Post Office seems to have been established in Boston in 1677 and John Hayward was appointed P. M. As early as 1711 As late as 1790, there was still but a single a post was established from Boston to Fal- Post office in New Hampshire, while sixty mouth, (now Portland) once a week, stop-years later there are in New Hampshire, 360 ping at the intermediate places, Salem, Ipswich, Newburyport and Portsmouth and perhaps some others. As late as 1777 there was but one Post Office in New Hampshire, that at Portsmouth. Letters directed to any part of New Hampshire through the public mail, were left in the office at Portsmouth. The amount of business done was somewhat small, if we are to judge of it from the advertisement of the Letter List, published in the New Hampshire Gazette, July 10, 1776, for the State of New Hampshire. K. Kinsman Aaron, Bow. N. Nute Jonathan, Dover. P. Page John, Haverhill, Cohass. S. Sewall Jonathan N. Esq. Greenland. W. Wentworth John, Esq. Dover. Willard Josiah Major, Keen. are 360 Post Masters in the State! What a change has sixty years brought about! In 1790, the entire length of Post Routes in the whole Union was but about one thousand miles, while in 1852, the length of Post routes in the United States, is more than One Hundred and Ninety-six Thousand Miles! and the number of officers connected with the Postal establishment is within a fraction of twenty thousand. Of a surety this is an age of progress! CROPS. The Worcester Spy says the prospects of an abundant fruit crop were never Mr. John Stavers carried the mail betwixt fairer than at this time. Trees of all descripPortsmouth and Boston. He commenced run-tions have "wintered" unusually well, and as ning a stage, April 20, 1761, betwixt Ports- the present is the "bearing year," we may inmouth and Boston. It is said this was the first dulge the hope of a bountiful harvest. |