village of Boscawen Plain. The remainder was pasture and woodland. A few years previous to his purchase most of the wood and timber had been removed. For more than thirty years a widow had held a life-estate in the farm, and during this period it had been rented and largely cropped with corn and oats, which, with a portion of the hay, were annually sold, and no manure purchased. By this skinning process the farm had become badly worn; the buildings and fences were in a most dilapidated condition, and a large portion of this once fertile intervale had been turned out as pasture. To renovate the tillable fields, large quantities of muck and lime were composted. Muck and a clay marl, of which there are inexhaustible quantities on the farm, were used in the barn-yards, cattle and sheep hovels, and hog-yards. Fences were rebuilt with good boards and chestnut posts. The large, old farm-house was completely remodeled and renovated, both inside and outside, and additions made to it, and old barns were removed and splendid new ones erected. When Colonel Clough came into possession of the farm there were about twelve tons of English and about the same quantity of natural or low-ground hay cut upon the farm, sufficient with some green feed, to winter twelve head of cattle, thirty sheep and two horses. He now winters upon an average ninety head of cattle, six horses, old and young, and one hundred and fifty sheep. He had at the time I was there sixteen hogs, about eighteen months old, and a large number of last spring's shoats. The old hogs will average not far from four hundred pounds each. For several years past the average sales have been about $1,500 for beef cattle; $500 for pork; sheep, lambs and wool, $400. A few years since he sold for slaughter two hundred sheep at seven dollars a head, aggregating $1,400. The proceeds of the farm this year are one hundred and fifty tons of hay, eight hundred bushels of corn, eight hundred bushels of oats, and fifty bushels of wheat. The whole of the hay, most of the corn, and a large portion of the oats are fed to his farm stock and to horses from the cities to be wintered. Having lost several acres of his intervale land by the washing away of the soil, which is twenty feet deep at that place, he has, by the expenditure of over $600, prevented future inroads by sloping the banks and cobbling them with stone, drawn two miles. He has, during the fourteen years of his occupancy of the farm, expended over $4,000 in repairing the old and erecting new farm buildings. The results of his farming in a pecuniary point of view are satisfactory, he having now a larger surplus of cash on hand than the farm originally cost him. Colonel Clough plows his land deep, manures high, and cultivates thoroughly, sows liberally of grass seeds and harvests corresponding crops. About thirty years ago Mr. W. H. Gage purchased the Colonel Chandler farm, situated in the southern part of Boscawen. The farm contained about four hundred acres, one hundred acres of which were tillable interval, and about forty of low intervale, which yielded fair crops of hay of various qualities, from good to very poor. The remainder of the land was forest and pasture. He gave $6,000 for the farm, one-third cash, about all the available funds he possessed. The farm had been rented for a number of years, and was badly run down. The course of farming he has pursued for a number of years has been to feed the hay and grain raised upon the farm to his cattle, sheep and swine. The rearing of fine stock has been a specialty with him, especially oxen. the past twenty-five years he has received more premiums for oxen, at our state and county fairs, than any other farmer in the county. In March, 1869, he sold two yoke of oxen for $800. In March, 1870, two yoke for $750. It has been a maxim with him to increase the fertility of his farm, and consequently his crops. "This he has accomplished by selling most of the products of his farm in the form of beef, pork, mutton and wool, butter and cheese. For For many years past he has kept four to six hogs. When eighteen to twenty months old they have averaged, when dressed for market, about five hundred pounds each. The clear pork is salted and sold during the succeeding summer at the large manufacturing village of Fisherville, at an average of twenty-two cents 'per pound. Lard and hams from twenty to twenty-two cents. There are kept about thirty head of cattle, seventy-five to one hundred sheep, and two horses. Corn annually grown from six to eight acres; yield per acre fifty-five bushels. Oats follow the corn; yield sixty bushels per acre, about one-half of which are sold at an average of seventy cents per bushel. The farm is now valued at $40,000, and other assets would bring his property well up to $50,000-the accumulations of a little over thirty years. The third and last farm I shall refer to is that now owned by Joseph B. Walker, Concord. This farm has been under cultiva tion about one hundred and forty years. Its original owner was the late Rev. Timothy Walker, the first settler and only minister of that town for fifty-two years. The farm came into the possession of his son, the late Judge Timothy Walker. Upon his death it became the property of his son, the late Captain Joseph Walker, whose son, Joseph B. Walker, the present owner of the farm, inherited it when only ten years old, he being the only surviviug member of the family. His guardian rented out the farm, which was thus managed for twenty years. In the mean time Joseph B. graduated at Yale College, studied law, and opened an office in Concord. He undertook to carry on the farm and his law business at the same time. After two years' trial of farming and law, he found one or the other must be given up. He had the good sense to quit law and become a farmer. During the twenty years the farm had been leased, the buildings and fences were sadly out of repair, large portions of the fields were overrun with bushes, and there was a large decrease of hay and other crops during the period. The farm consisted of about three hundred and fifty acres, one hundred of which were Merrimack river intervale, a large portion of which could be plowed, and with manuring would yield fair crops of corn and grain. About thirty acres were either covered by the waters of Horseshoe Pond, or were too wet for the production of hay. To drain the pond as far as practicable, he, fourteen years ago, cut a large and deep ditch from the east end of the pond across the intervale, nearly half a mile, to the river. The intervale is bounded on the north by the Merrimack river. The surface of the land on the river bank is about fourteen feet above the usual summer low-water mark. From the river the land gradually slopes southward to Horseshoe Pond. Forty-five rods south of the river Mr. Walker commenced excavating the soil, for the purpose of putting in a plank drain from that point to the river. The south end of the ditch was eight feet deep, but, as the ground rose gradually, before the bank of the Merrimack was reached, it was fourteen feet deep. Sound white pine plank were used for making a box or pipe-inside eight by twelve inches, ninety-six square inches for the passage of the water from the open ditch to the river. This box drain has done so well during the fourteen years it has been in operation that forty-five rods more of similar drain have been put down during the past autumn, permitting the filling up of that length of open drain. From the covered |