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i The Companion Library. 
 
 Number 17 
 
 PERRY MASON & COMPANY, 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
THE COMPANION LIBRARY 
 
 Is a collection of stories, travel-sketches and descriptive articles, complete, 
 exact, and so interesting as to meet the need of all who want "a book 
 for the leisure hour." It is made up from the works of some of the best 
 writers for The Youth's Companion. 
 
 The Library comprises the following volumes, each containing sixty- 
 four pages, illustrated and bound uniform with this book : 
 
 No. I. A Book of Stories: Patriotism, Bravery and Kindness. 
 No. 2. Glimpses of !Europe: Travel and Description. 
 
 No. 3. The American Tropics: Mexico to the Equator. 
 No. 4. Sketches of the Orient: Scenes in Asia. 
 No. 5. Old Ocean : Winds, Currents and Perils. 
 No. 6. l/ife in the Sea: Fish and Fishing. 
 
 No. 7. Bits of Bird I/ife : Habits, Nests and Eggs. 
 
 No. 8. Our I/ittle Neighbors: Insects, Small Animals. 
 No. 9. At Home in the Forest: Wild Animals. 
 
 No. 10. In Alaska: Animals and Resources. 
 
 No. II. Among the Rockies : Scenery and Travel. 
 
 No. 12. In the Southwest: Semi-Tropical Regions. 
 No. 13. On the Plains : Pioneers and Ranchmen. 
 
 No. 14. The Great I^ake Country : A Land of Progress. 
 No. 15. On the Gulf: Attractive Regions of Contrasts. 
 No. 16. Along the Atlantic: New York to Georgia. 
 No. 17. In New ^England: The Home of the Puritans. 
 
 Price 10 Cents Each, Postpaid. 
 
 PERRY MASON & COMPANY, Publishers, 
 201 Columbus Avenue. BOSTON, MASS. 
 
IN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 The Companion Library. 
 
 Number Seventeen. 
 
 SELECTIONS 
 From The Youth's Companion. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PLYMOUTH ROCK . J. E. CHAMBERLIN. 3 
 
 PROVINCETOWN WILLIAM W. NOLEN. 8 
 
 CAPE COD CRANBERRIES ALICE BROWN. 13 
 
 NEWPORT MAX OWEN. 19 
 
 A GREAT ARBORETUM J. E. CHAMBERLIN. 22 
 
 A BOSTON MARKET ALICE BROWN. 27 
 
 A MAPLE-SUGAR CAMP RUTH RUSS. 33 
 
 A NEW HAMPSHIRE FISH-FARM M. HAWKS. 37 
 
 AMONG THE PINES MRS. H. G. ROWE. 41 
 
 A WINTER HARVEST J. E. CHAMBERLIN. 46 
 
 MOOSE-CALLING WILLIAM J. LONG. 52 
 
 FOX-HUNTING IN NEW ENGLAND . . . LOUIS B. CLEVELAND. 59 
 
 Copyright, 1898. 
 PERRY MASON & COMPANY, 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
National Monument to the Forefathers. 
 
Plymouth Rock. 
 
 Every summer thousands of people from the country outside 
 New England visit the neighborhood of Boston. While there, 
 they generally show no small amount of interest in historic 
 sites. Many embark on the little steamer that plies daily 
 between Boston and Plymouth, and make thus a pious pilgrim- 
 age to the celebrated Rock, which is coming to mean to 
 Americans somewhat the same thing that the famous stone at 
 Mecca means to the Moslems. 
 
 It is a pleasant trip by water to Plymouth. The visitor 
 from a distant part of the country generally remains on the 
 forward deck, watching the sandy shores, golden in the morn- 
 ing sun ; he gazes interestedly at Minot's Ledge Lighthouse, 
 of which there was a picture in the geography which he studied 
 at school, and muses over the wooded shore of Marshfield. 
 where Daniel Webster lived and died. 
 
 But long before Plymouth is reached, the pilgrim's attention 
 is likely to be diverted from the great beauty of the bay and its 
 hilly, monument-crowned shores by his extreme desire to get 
 an early glimpse of the Rock. 
 
 All the strangers are simply straining their eyes to see the 
 Rock ; and when the landing is made on the long wharf, the 
 procession of people from distant parts takes up a steady and 
 rapid march toward a curious canopied structure in the 
 distance, which has been pointed out to them. 
 
 The first thought which all of them have is this : " Why is 
 the rock so far from the water ? " It seems to be distinctly 
 inland, and is really at several rods' distance from the present 
 shore. And yet there is no doubt that it was formerly by the 
 water's edge. The building of wharves and the dumping of 
 earth for nearly three hundred years has carried the shore line 
 out into the harbor. 
 
 When these modern pilgrims come flocking up, they behold 
 
 Op 
 
 r 
 
4 
 
 ri.VJVIOllTlI KOCK. 
 
 a structure of carved granite, which looks very tall in proportion 
 to its diameter, with a round column at each corner. This 
 structure is The Canopy. It is designed to mark the site 
 of the Rock, and protect it from desecration. 
 
 Within this structure an iron fence surrounds the Rock 
 itself. This fence tends to increase the reverential feeling that a 
 visitor has for the Rock, for it seems to 
 ^ set it apart forever as a thing not to be 
 touched. But at each end of the en- 
 closure there is a gate ; and these two 
 gates are unlocked for visitors, and 
 actual access to the Rock itself is 
 permitted. 
 
 This permission in its turn adds to 
 the spirit of veneration, for one feels 
 that, as the barrier of iron has been 
 hospitably broken for his benefit, he 
 must not fail to estimate the privilege at 
 its highest valuation. 
 
 Then the crowd from the boat begin 
 to file through, past the Rock, or upon 
 it. In looking at them, one is made aware how false is the 
 assumption that Americans are an unemotional people. They 
 often behave in a most extraordinary way here. 
 
 Nearly all bend down and press the palms of their hands 
 upon the Rock, and especially upon the figures 1620, which 
 are sunk into its surface, as if the Pilgrims from the Mayflower 
 had carved them there. Now and then a woman bends down 
 and kisses the Rock, or makes a child do so. It is no un- 
 common thing for two people to stand on the stone and 
 embrace each other. Many stand on the Rock long enough to 
 make good resolutions, and imagine that they will keep them 
 the more sacredly for their being made at such a place. 
 
 They are not deterred from making these demonstrations by 
 the bearing of the crowd about them. There is no laughter 
 and merrymaking about it ; all is done with solemnity. 
 
 The Canopy. 
 
PIvYMOUTH ROCK. 
 
 5 
 
 The hill which overlooks the Rock is indubitably sacred 
 ground, for upon it the Mayflowet- Pilgrims -who died during 
 that first terrible winter in the new colony were buried in 
 unmarked graves, that they might not be counted by the 
 Indians. 
 
 After visiting the Rock, excursionists scatter through the 
 beautiful old town to admire its dainty white houses of ancient 
 architecture, and its narrow streets deeply shaded with great 
 linden and elm trees ; or to visit the old Burial-Ground, the 
 Museum and the Monument. 
 
 Visitors arriving in Plymouth by cars will naturally visit 
 these places in reverse order. They will see on the hill, not 
 far from the station, the National Monument to the Forefathers, 
 a marble statue forty-five feet high, standing on a lofty pedestal 
 
 Plymouth from the Harbor. 
 
 which bears at the four corners symbolic figures. Freedom, 
 Morality, Education and lyaw, and historic panels on its sides. 
 
 In Pilgrim Hall one is surprised to find so large a collection 
 of articles brought over in the Mayflower and other relics of the 
 earliest Colonial days. On Burial Hill it is interesting to see 
 the earliest marked graves, and the site of the first church of 
 Plymouth, which with cannon mounted on its roof was also 
 the first fort. But after all, the most interesting object is the 
 Rock. 
 
 To very few of these excursionists does it ever occur to 
 
6 
 
 PIA'MOUTH ROCK. 
 
 doubt the authenticity of the Rock, or to ask how it is known 
 that the passengers of the Mayflower landed on it. Most people 
 suppose that the Rock is mentioned in the early accounts of 
 the landing ; but such is not the case. 
 
 There is but one original account of this first landing, and 
 it relates that, after the people of the Mayflower had left Clark's 
 Island, " they sounded ye harbour & found it fitt for shipping, 
 and marched into ye land & found diverse corn-fields & little 
 running brooks, a place fitt for situation ; at least it is ye best 
 they could find." Nothing whatever is there about landing on 
 
 persons to build a wharf on the shore ; and these persons 
 proceeded then to cover up with their wharf a rock which lay 
 there. 
 
 And then appeared Thomas Faunce, a man ninety-four 
 years old, who lived in the farming country back of Plymouth. 
 He told the wharf-builders that they ought not to cover up this 
 rock. When he was a boy, he said, his father had assured 
 him that the passengers of the Mayflower landed upon it. 
 
 It does not appear that any other Plymouth people came 
 forward and supported this tradition. At any rate the wharf 
 was built, and though the stone was not covered up, it became 
 the door- step of a warehouse. 
 
 When people began to investigate the story of Thomas 
 Faunce's warning, they looked in the records to see if his 
 
 a rock ; nor does any 
 early account of pro- 
 ceedings at Plymouth 
 even mention a rock. 
 
 Plymouth Rock. 
 
 But in the year 
 1 74 1, nearly one hun- 
 dre(J and twenty-one 
 years after the land- 
 ing of the Pilgrims, 
 permission was grant- 
 ed by the town of 
 Plymouth to certain 
 
PIvYMOUTH ROCK. 
 
 7 
 
 father had been a passenger on the Mayflo7ver^ and they found 
 that he had not. But they did find that Thomas Faunce was 
 born in the year 1647, and that in his early life in Plymouth he 
 must have known some of the Mayflower' s passengers. 
 
 Therefore his story was entitled to some credit. Faunce 
 was talking of a thing that was almost within his own recollec- 
 tion, and completely in the recollection of the generation before 
 him. 
 
 Moreover, there are no other rocks along the shore in that 
 neighborhood. This one, at the time of the landing, must 
 have stood out, solitary and alone, on a shore which, according 
 to the Pilgrims' relation, "was compassed about to the very 
 sea with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras and other sweet wood." 
 In the midst of such a wilderness, a rock projecting boldly 
 from the shallow shore would have provided a natural landing- 
 place. 
 
 Farther down the bay, in the adjoining town of Kingston, 
 there is at this day such another rock, not carried inland by 
 the filling up of the shallow waters. One has but to approach 
 this Kingston rock in a boat from the bay to see how its 
 brother of Plymouth must have beckoned a welcome to the 
 passengers of the Mayfloiver. 
 
 The Plymouth tradition of the Rock therefore seems to 
 have a good basis in reason and probability. At any rate, it 
 has grown steadfastly with time. And now the legend is fixed, 
 and rendered sacred by time and common acceptance. The 
 American who loves his country can hardly look without 
 genuine emotion on this Rock of Plymouth, where the 
 American experiment of local self-government was reall}^ 
 begun under the most thrilling circumstances. 
 
 J. E. Chamberlin. 
 
Provincetown 
 
 There is no quainter place on the stretch of coast from Cape 
 Cod to Cape Ann, than the curious fishing town of which 
 Thoreau has said, "A man may stand there and put all 
 America behind him." Provincetown is not only a quaint 
 town, pleasant to live in, but it is also an excellent place 
 for shore work in natural history. That is the reason why 
 a small party of people interested in science chose it for a 
 collecting trip. 
 
 Provincetown has one main street. Therefore, when the 
 night train comes in, the traveller is not puzzled about the way 
 to turn. He soon reaches his hotel, where he is sure to get a 
 cordial welcome, especially if he comes in the spring when 
 guests are not numerous. At the time of year we went 
 any stranger was a curiosity, and especially scientific strangers. 
 
 Crowds of youthful admirers followed our party about from 
 place to place, rather more eager to have a finger in our pie 
 than was convenient or desirable. 
 
 Cloudy days are rather more pleasant for work on the shore 
 than on the water, and the first morning we spent in wandering 
 along the uneven, sandy shore, where the wind has made 
 many hills and hollows. There is not much vegetation to bind 
 down the sands, and they continually tend to drift. 
 
 The Cape people erect in the most exposed places pyramids 
 and hedges of staves, making them firm with stones so as to 
 prevent the sand moving in an undesired direction. In a good 
 many places a rough beach-grass grows, which forms the 
 anchor of the Cape, since the woods which previously existed 
 there have been buried by the sands. 
 
 At some places on the Cape the government erects stone 
 embankments along the edge of the beach to prevent serious 
 changes in the coast-line. The changes in the position of the 
 sand were well shown a few years ago, when its shifting 
 
PROVINCETOWN. 
 
 9 
 
 i 
 
 exposed the wreck of a British vessel of the old colonial times, 
 the existence of which had been unsuspected by the present 
 generation. Farther down the Cape, at Orleans, there was 
 uncovered in 1863 the hull of an ancient ship, a quarter of a 
 mile from any water. The hull was supposed to be that of the 
 Sparrow-hawk^ stranded in 1626. 
 
 The windows on the sea-side of the Cape houses show the 
 effects of the blowing sand, which grinds them until they 
 become opaque. Be- 
 tween the hills of 
 sand lying back of 
 the beach are many 
 cranberry bogs, cov- 
 ered in May with 
 beautiful white flow- 
 ers. Cranberries, 
 next to fish, are the 
 most important prod- 
 uct of the Cape. 
 
 On the sand could 
 be picked up many of 
 the black, leathery, 
 purse-shaped eggs of 
 the skate, with their 
 two prong-like ex- 
 tensions on each side. 
 The eggs are among 
 the common objects 
 on the shore, and 
 look very pretty when 
 covered with the delicate little sea-animals that grow over them. 
 As we wandered we also found many bits of rockweed covered 
 with the neatly-formed spiral tubes of some annelid worms. 
 
 We took a share in clam-digging, and turned up many of 
 the soft or long clams used in every bake. This fellow is easy 
 to get, as he lives just below the surface of the sand, and keeps 
 
 Main Street. 
 
lO 
 
 PROVINCKTOWN. 
 
 connection with the water by a long, black tube commonly 
 called the head. His mouth is really at the opposite end from 
 the tube, and the water containing the food has to run round the 
 body of the clam before reaching it. 
 
 Another clam, not nearly so easy to capture, because it 
 burrows as fast as a man can dig, is the razor clam, long and 
 narrow, with a black shell. He must be got with one quick 
 thrust of the spade, and may be enticed from his sandy burrow 
 by sprinkling salt on the sand. 
 
 Shells are quite plenty along the beach. One of the most 
 common is the whitish Purpura. This snail gets its food by 
 boring through the shells of barnacles and various shell-fish. 
 From cousins of the Purpura the famous ancient dye, Tyrian 
 purple, was obtained. On puncturing the animal a greenish 
 fluid exudes, which changes to purple in the sunshine. 
 
 It takes five snails to dye a square inch of cloth, and the 
 ancients obtained the dye by the tedious process of putting 
 the shells into a mortar, crushing them, and mixing the product 
 with water and salt or nitre. So great was the labor of 
 preparing the dye, that in the reign of Augustus one pound 
 of the dyed wool sold for one hundred and seventy-five dollars. 
 
 Another snail, Lunatia, found along the shore, drills holes 
 in shell-fish by using the small, flinty teeth on its ribbon-like 
 tongue. It is perfectly indifferent as to the object it attacks, 
 not even sparing its own young. 
 
 After the snail has died, and its shell lies abandoned on the 
 beach, the hermit-crab, in order to protect its soft body, often 
 takes possession, and carries the shell around on its back. 
 These little crabs are very active and ready to fight one 
 another, but they are also great cowards, and after a prelimi- 
 nary skirmish each combatant is likely to retreat into his shell, 
 and close its opening with his big claws. 
 
 There is often quite an active demand for empty shells, 
 when several crabs, which have grown too large for their 
 rented quarters, have to change their houses. Then if two 
 crabs come to the same empty shell, a fight for its possession 
 
PROVINCETOWN. 
 
 II 
 
 often ensuCvS. The house does not vServe to protect the little 
 fellow from the hungry fishes, for they swallow Mr. Crab, 
 house and all. 
 
 The most interesting things on the Provincetown shore are 
 some whale skeletons, well bleached by the winds and waves. 
 The whale fishery of New England had its beginning at this 
 town, and even though the finback grows less plenty and 
 more shy each year, the chase has not been entirely given up. 
 
 The animals were formerly hunted with sailboat and 
 harpoon, but as they became fewer the sailboat got to be too 
 slow, and a few years ago the steamer was substituted. The 
 boat steams up as close as possible to the whale, a bridge is 
 
 Provincetown. 
 
 thrown out at the bow, and from the end of this two men make 
 the attack. They fire a bomb-lance from a gun and the bomb 
 explodes in the body of the animal and kills it. 
 
 Sometimes the whale gets away, oftener still he is not 
 present at all. When shot, the animal sinks, and then the 
 whaler has to watch for him to rise again. This happens 
 when decomposition has generated gases in the body. The 
 carcass is then towed ashore and cut up, and the part not used 
 carried out to sea and abandoned. 
 
 In former times larger whales must have come into Prov- 
 incetown harbor and thereabouts than now appear, for in 1755 
 Doctor Burchsted rode in his horse and chaise into the mouth 
 of one landed on King's Beach. He afterward had two of its 
 bones used for gate-posts at his house in Lynn. 
 
12 
 
 PROVINCETOWN. 
 
 The custom of decorating front yards with whales' jaws 
 continues in Provincetown. They afford a quaint and 
 inexpensive substitute for flowers in a place where all but the 
 hardiest vegetation has a short and troubled life. Finback 
 bones are plenty at the Cape. At the old, abandoned blubber 
 works at Long Point, there is a ship-load of them waiting to be 
 carried away by curiosity-hunters. A little upholstering will 
 convert a big vertebra into a comfortable stool. 
 
 Main Street, Provincetown, follows the sand up the hills 
 and down the hollows, having on one side a narrow plank 
 walk, on the other side often separated from the ocean by a 
 stretch of beach. It is not a paved street ; but tramping and 
 liberal use of shells has made it tolerably hard, and smooth 
 enough for the slow driving of the town. Quite a number of 
 shops are scattered along the streets. Those which are not 
 connected with the fishing industries are often general in 
 character, and keep everything from crib to coffin in stock. 
 
 Many of the yards of the houses contain flakes, which are 
 long, rough frames on which the salt-fish are spread by the 
 older men every sunny morning to dry. Between these are 
 other yards with boats hauled up in them, and fishing-nets 
 spread out to be mended. 
 
 Low carts, with the body hung below the axles of the 
 wheels, are drawn by sober horses through the street ; and on 
 the sidewalk the town crier, like the famed one of Nantucket, 
 except that he has a bell, walks slowly along, now and then 
 halting to cry a piece of news or notice of some meeting. 
 
 Near the railroad and at other points long wharves stretch 
 seaward ; for since, on account of the shallow water, shipping 
 could not get to the town, the town has gone to it. 
 
 Sea yarns have a flavor on the coast which they lack farther 
 inland, and the conscience of an old sailor is so elastic when a 
 yarn is being spun that he can make his story exciting and 
 wonderful enough to satisfy the most exacting. 
 
 WiLUAM W. N01.EN. 
 
Cape Cod Cranberries. 
 
 ' ' Three years ago that land was fit for nothing but to hold 
 the world together," said a prosperous Cape Cod owner, 
 surveying his cranberry marsh with pride, "and now it's 
 worth a thousand dollars an acre." 
 
 It does seem as if fairy tales had come true, when unsightly 
 bogs can thus be turned into gold, until one remembers 
 that the means employed are the prosaic ones of time, labor 
 and capital. A marsh is selected in the neighborhood of 
 running water, its tangle of bushes is burned, stumps and 
 roots are removed, and the sods cut and . turned over to 
 give a uniform bottom of the rich underlying loam, which is 
 afterward covered with sand from two to six inches deep. 
 
 Bach bog is then encircled by a low dike of earth, inside 
 which is a ditch, and ditches are cut across it at distances 
 governed by the character of the soil and its consequent 
 demand for a greater or less amount of moisture. Then the 
 ground is ready for planting, and so hardy is the cranberry 
 that this operation can be successfully performed in an 
 apparently reckless manner. 
 
 A mass of plants is sometimes run through a hay-cutter, 
 which chops them into bits an inch long, and these are sown 
 broadcast and harrowed into the soil like oats, 3^et, after such 
 heroic treatment, they live and spread undauntedly. 
 
 The most approved method of planting, however, is that of 
 marking off the ground into squares of eighteen inches, ,by 
 drawing across it a sled having several runners. The cuttings 
 are then dropped at the intersection of these lines, and pressed 
 into the earth with a forked stick. 
 
 All winter, and until the early spring, the cranberry 
 meadows are flooded with water, not only to guard the plants 
 against frost, but that insect eggs may be killed, and the 
 fertilizing agencies deposited which are brought by the stream. 
 
 / 
 
14 
 
 CAPE COD CRANBERRIES. 
 
 Simply constructed gates of wood separate each diked 
 enclosure from its neighbor, and by these the water-supply can 
 be exactly regulated. It is often necessary to raise the water 
 in a meadow while the berries are ripening, for the cranberr}^ 
 is only happy when its roots, imbedded in the rich, peaty soil, 
 are kept moist, while the sand above is dry. 
 
 In its third year of growth a cranberry marsh is ready to 
 begin paying for itself, and the picking season usually lasts 
 from the middle of September for about six weeks. 
 
 This brings about an odd division of the school year in the 
 cranberry districts. Their summer term is lengthened and 
 the spring vacation cut short, to enable the fall term to begin 
 near the first of November. This is really a matter of necessity 
 rather than of choice with the committee, for should the schools 
 open, not a single pupil would appear except the smallest 
 toddlers, whom the mother would gladly send out of the 
 way, that she might devote herself to cranberry-picking. 
 
 Picking time is the carnival season of the Cape. The 
 ordinary business of life is suspended. Houses are closed from 
 early morning till night. Cooking is done in the evening or 
 on rainy days, and beds are merel}^ spread up in time for the 
 tired workers to tumble into them. Flocks of pickers of all 
 ages and sizes settle upon the large cranberry marshes like 
 swarms of locusts. 
 
 Even grandfather comes eagerly quavering along, prepared 
 to earn a little money to provide for his daily smoke in the 
 chimney-corner. Fathers and mothers of families depend on 
 the season for supplying many of their every-day needs ; and 
 many a pretty girl who would scorn going out to work at any 
 other time, gladly undertakes this back-breaking occupation 
 for the sake of the pin-money it brings. 
 
 Every picker dons his or her worst and sometimes most 
 picturesque clothes for the occasion. Old hats and cape 
 bonnets that have, perhaps, hung in the shed or garret the 
 year round, are seized upon as exactly the thing. Stocking- 
 . legs are drawn over feminine arms as a defensive armor against ' 
 
CAPK COD CKANBKKRiKvS. 
 
 15 
 
 sun and briers. Each picker is furnished with a measure 
 holding six quarts, and the ground is marked off in rows, 
 usually about four feet wide, by cords stretched from pegs. 
 
 Often these spaces are varied, as some of the best pickers 
 prefer to work in a division alone ; or a party of three girls, or 
 mother and children, wish to pick together. 
 
 A veteran picker is the old lady who appears in the 
 accompanying illustration, and who has allowed her portrait to 
 be used on condition that no lies and nothing scandalous 
 shall be told about her. She is one 
 who has "picked a heap o' berries, 
 one sort or another, got together a 
 good deal o' property, and always 
 paid her minister regular." 
 
 Cranberries are not picked like 
 strawberries, daintily and one by 
 one. Experienced workers plunge 
 both hands under the vines, palms 
 upward and fingers curved, and 
 literally scoop up the fruit by hand- 
 fuls. A rake, which allows the vines 
 to pass through its teeth and retains 
 the berries, is also used, but is far 
 
 ' ' A Veteran. 
 
 less satisfactory than hand labor. 
 
 When a measure is filled and emptied, the bookkeeper, 
 standing near, gives the picker credit in his account, though 
 tally is sometimes kept by means of tickets, each of which 
 represents a measure, and may be exchanged at the store for 
 tea, sugar or other commodities. 
 
 The usual price paid is ten cents a measure, and the 
 laborers, like those in other occupations, have their streaks of 
 discontent. 
 
 A few years ago a strike for higher wages occurred on a 
 large marsh where there were five hundred pickers. Fifty of 
 these, preferring a half-loaf to no bread, kept meekly on with 
 their work at the old price, and, sad to relate, the malcontents. 
 
i6 
 
 CAPE COD CRANBERRIES. 
 
 perched comfortably on the dikes as a vantage-ground, pelted 
 them with a shower of sticks and stones. Harmony was finally 
 restored and the strikers went back to work, but, as one old 
 lady among them declared, they looked thereafter upon the 
 fifty righteous as poor-spirited creatures. 
 
 " Of course, as they work by the job, there is no chance of 
 cheating," said a visitor to a shrewd proprietor. 
 
 " Aint there, though?" he replied, skeptically. "I tell 
 
 Picking Cranberries. 
 
 you, cranberry-pickers are just like all the rest of the world. 
 Some wouldn't take a berry to save their lives, and others lay 
 awake nights to think how to fill up their measures. 
 
 ' ' Some will slyly take a new measure and dent in the 
 bottom, and others have got a way of giving the measures a 
 shake so as to toss the berries up and make five quarts look 
 like six. Human nature is mighty human on a cranberry 
 bog ! " 
 
CAPE COD cranbe:rries. 
 
 17 
 
 Berry-picking has its champion workers, some of whom 
 average over two hundred quarts a day, and there is a well- 
 supported tradition that one nimble-fingered individual once 
 distinguished himself by picking three hundred and fifty quarts 
 in that length of time. 
 
 Such workers show the concentration common to all 
 champions. They seldom speak, but bend over the vines, 
 giving their entire attention to the matter in hand. Kven at 
 noon, when the pickers sit about on the grass, eating their 
 dinners from baskets and pails, these more zealous members of 
 the band are unwilling to spare the half or three-quarters of an 
 hour allotted to the meal, but seize a hasty bite and run back 
 to work. 
 
 There are certain points of honor to be observed on the 
 meadow, one of which relates to that operation known as 
 picking under the lines. A crafty and overreaching worker 
 may see and covet a goodly growth of berries on his neighbor's 
 preserves ; but though it be side by side with his own, he may 
 not, under penalt}' of remonstrance more forcible than pleasant, 
 reach under for a sly handful. One such offence might be 
 punished and forgiven, but a repetition of it would cause him 
 to be ostracized by his fellows, who would ever after refuse to 
 pick in his neighborhood. 
 
 The berries are screened, or separated from leaves and 
 foreign substances, by means of a simple, box-shaped arrange- 
 ment, presided over by women, or, with the more enterprising 
 owners, by a clumsy-looking but most ingenious machine 
 turned by a crank. 
 
 The berries, poured in at the top, are winnowed by a blast 
 of air, and as they fall on a glass surface below, the sound ones 
 are separated from those which are imperfect. The good 
 berries rebound, and hop, of their own accord, upon a revolv- 
 ing belt, which carries them out of the machine, while the 
 imperfect ones drop down into a receptacle prepared for 
 them. 
 
 The perfect fruit is then placed in barrels of standard size, 
 
i8 
 
 CAPE COD CRANBERRIES. 
 
 containing one hundred quarts, or in smaller crates, and sent 
 away to market. 
 
 Frost-bitten berries have always been utilized for the 
 making of marmalade, but it is only of late that they have also 
 been used for dyeing. Even one who has not seen the color 
 produced can imagine how royally red it would be. 
 
 When cranberries are exported, it would be interesting to 
 know if they are often given a reception similar to that accorded 
 by an English gentleman to a barrel sent him by a friend. 
 
 " The berries arrived safely," he wrote in return, "but they 
 soured on the passage." The natural inference is that he had 
 attempted to eat them with cream and sugar. 
 
 When we are told that a fair yield of cranberries consists of 
 a hundred barrels to the acre, and realize that a fine quality 
 of fruit always finds a ready market, it is easy to understand a 
 farmer's sinking all his capital in a marsh, or embarking with 
 others in a large venture. Of a stock company recently formed 
 for cranberry culture, a shrewd citizen embodies the opinion of 
 his neighbors in declaring, dryly: "Pretty good stock that; 
 'twon't hurt it any to water it." 
 
 Alice Brown. 
 
Newport. 
 
 It is a curious fact that the smallest state in the Union 
 bears the longest official title, State of Rhode Island and 
 Providence Plantations, and that the same state is the only 
 one of the forty-five to possess two capitals. 
 
 In bustling, progressive Providence, conveniently located 
 for the gatherings of the legislators, all the laws are made for 
 the little state, and the executive offices are there. In the 
 antique and also most' modern city of Newport, at the lower 
 end of the long island of Rhodes, the government of the state 
 is annually installed. 
 
 The dignified old State-house is well worthy of the honor of 
 the new governor's inauguration. Standing in puritanic 
 plainness, it has witnessed the coming and going of governors 
 since 1741, and its history gives a venerating touch to the 
 impressive ceremonies of Inauguration day. 
 
 There are several colonial mansions in Newport that, like 
 the State-house, suggest the sober grandeur of the eighteenth 
 century. From these old homes went forth men who gained 
 distinction in letters and in deeds. 
 
 In the prim little Touro Park stands a plain granite shaft 
 to the memory of a native of Newport, who in his young 
 manhood won the brilliant victory on lyake Erie that placed 
 the name of Oliver Perry high on the list of American naval 
 heroes. 
 
 Another monument of unknown antiquity commands 
 attention in that same Touro Park. It is the Old Stone Mill, 
 the subject of unsatisfactory discussion for many years. Some 
 claim that it is a relic of the eleventh century, erected by 
 the wandering Norseman who attempted a settlement on the 
 Island of Peace. 
 
 Yet such a strange structure would, it seems, have attracted 
 the attention of the English settlers, and been named in early 
 
20 
 
 NEWPORT, 
 
 records and letters ; but the earliest mention is in the will of 
 Governor Arnold, who died in 1678, and bequeathed his 
 " Stone-built Windmill." 
 
 It is a circular tower, made of rather small, unhewn stones, 
 supported by round arches on stone pillars. On moonlight 
 
 The Old Stone Mill. 
 
 nights in summer, when the band plays in the park, this 
 unique old vStructure fascinates the beholder, and suggests to 
 the imagination dreams of the past that fancy weaves into 
 poetic visions indescribable. But it is modern Newport that 
 attracts the American princes and the Europeaip ambassadors, 
 the Newport of the last half century, the city of summer-time, 
 of luxury and beauty. 
 
NKWPOKT. 
 
 21 
 
 The architect and the engineer have built the palatial villas 
 and constructed the magnificent avenues ; the landscape- 
 gardener has beautified the lawns and planted the flowers : 
 but Nature long ago placed there the soft and balmy air, 
 soothing to tired nerves, never harsh with chill or wearying 
 with heat ; the most romantic of cliff scenery, with its Paradise 
 and Purgatory, its Spouting Rock and Bathing Beach, its 
 endless view over the ocean's boundless horizon and its 
 charming picture of ba}^ and islands, and the miles of pathway 
 in which no hint of the ocean's proximity is possible. 
 
 The tourist, on his first visit to Newport, is always 
 disappointed. He expects to see the magnificent hotels of 
 Saratoga ; he finds one modest inn, located so far from the 
 beach that in it there is no suggestion of a watering-place. 
 
 He expects to find the beach crowded at the bathing hour ; 
 he finds there is no bathing hour, and only a few people are on 
 the beach, except on excursion days. He expects to find 
 innumerable cottages nestling side by side, as at Cottage City ; 
 he sees big buildings of varied schools of architecture, some 
 without symmetry or style, buried in the surrounding trees and 
 scattered along the great avenues. 
 
 He hopes to see showy crowds of women and men on beach 
 or cliff or park ; he sees a few quiet people on street or lawn, 
 till the time for the afternoon drive on the avenue. There, or 
 on the Long Drive to Fort Adams, on band days, he is simply 
 bewildered by the magnificence of the turnouts and the display 
 in the carriages. 
 
 If he is so fortunate as to receive an invitation to one of the 
 spreading villas, he finds within the most elaborate furnishings 
 and decorations that perfect taste and unlimited means 
 command. He meets the most graceful ladies and polished 
 gentlemen, and in their presence he realizes the meaning of 
 Newport's high repute. It is the inner life of modern Newport 
 that holds the potent charm over every one who gains an 
 entrance to its society. 
 
 Max Owen. 
 
A Great Arboretum. 
 
 American tree-planting has passed through several vStages, 
 each of which has had its practical and its poetic side. When 
 our ancestors came to the eastern coast of North America, they 
 found many more trees than they had use for. They cleared 
 away the forests by axe and fire that they might have the use 
 of the ground ; and their inherited fondness for trees, dulled 
 for the time being by the fact that the woods were in their way 
 and sheltered all sorts of enemies, did not lead them to spare 
 many of the forest trees about their dwellings. 
 
 They planted a certain number of fruit-trees, which in 
 almost every instance came from the seed of some bit of fruit 
 carefully brought from the old home. The cherishing of these 
 seedlings from the mother country was an interesting and 
 romantic thing ; but the trees that grew from them were 
 generally of poor quality. 
 
 But when the great forests had ceased to be so terrible, the 
 ineradicable tree-love in the hearts of the descendants of 
 tree- worshipping Gauls and Britons began to assert itself. 
 They planted a few English shade-trees in their dooryards and 
 on the streets ; but as a rule, the European trees, adapted to a 
 climate radically unlike ours, languished and died, or made 
 but sorry specimens in maturity. 
 
 Then, after our ancestors had been more than a hundred 
 years established upon the continent, they began to feel a love 
 for the native vegetation. In the North they planted many 
 elms and maples, which have grown to great proportions. In 
 the South the live-oak was planted, or was cherished where it 
 had survived or had sprung up. At the same time the useful 
 qualities of our native trees began to be recognized, and people 
 began to cultivate and transplant them. Finally, acquaintance 
 with the vegetation of foreign countries in climate like our 
 own, and the introduction of foreign plants of beauty or value 
 
A GREAT ARBORKTITM. 
 
 23 
 
 which will thrive in our soil, have given variety to the shade- 
 trees and shrubbery that now thrive in our parks and lawns. 
 
 It is in its relation to the question of the fitness of trees and 
 shrubs for cultivation that the Arnold Arboretum, in Boston, is 
 most useful. This institution, which may be called a living, 
 growing manual of trees and shrubs of the North Temperate 
 Zone, was established chiefly through the bounty of James 
 Arnold, of New Bedford, who, in 1872, bequeathed to Harvard 
 
 Arboretum Driveway. 
 
 College one hundred thousand dollars to establish an Arboretum, 
 or scientific tree-garden. 
 
 The bequest enabled the universit}' to add to the Bussey 
 Institution, a school of agriculture with w^hich it had already 
 been endowed, at Jamaica Plain, within the limits of Boston, 
 such an amount of land that the Arboretum now comprises 
 about one hundred and sixty-four acres. 
 
 The Arboretum is far from being a mere nursery, where 
 
24 
 
 A GREAT ARBORETUM. 
 
 trees and shrubs are found growing in rows. There is within 
 its grounds, indeed, a nursery, where labelled plants and trees 
 of every species are cultivated, and where the student may 
 always find, in a little space, every woody plant which will 
 grow out-of-doors in the latitude of southern New England ; 
 but this nursery occupies but a corner of the Arboretum. 
 
 The object of the place is to cultivate these trees and plants 
 
 under such conditions that they 
 will all assume their characteristic 
 and perfect form, both when the}' 
 stand alone and when they grow 
 in clumps or thickets. This in- 
 volves a vastly greater amount of 
 room than nursery cultivation 
 would require. 
 
 The surface of the Arboretum 
 is so varied as to provide ever}^ 
 sort of tree with the kind of soil 
 and situation that it prefers. The 
 lay of the land has been regarded 
 in selecting the ground for the different families of trees, subject 
 to their arrangement according to botanical sequence. Here 
 and there noble trees, already standing, have been spared, 
 though they may be out of their proper relation. 
 
 Inasmuch as certain large trees thrive best when they have 
 an undergrowth of bushes, they have been accommodated with 
 the thickets which they like best. The thickets give chance 
 for introducing almost everywhere the native flowering shrubs 
 in which the eastern half of North America is so rich. The 
 excellent roads and paths which run through the Arboretum 
 have been lined with these beautiful shrubs, which make the 
 roads appear as if they ran through the margin of a particularly 
 luxuriant forest. 
 
 In walking through the tract where the oaks grow, one natu- 
 rally begins with the big native white oaks of Massachusetts, 
 which are found here in the largest size, because they happened 
 
 The Nursery. 
 
A GREAT ARHORKTUM. 
 
 25 
 
 to be standing here when the Arboretum was started. The 
 white oak does not need an introduction to observant people 
 who live in the United States east of the one - hundredth 
 meridian ; but Boston folks have to be introduced to a very 
 familiar friend in the central West, the bur-oak, whose acorns 
 are exceedingly good to eat. They are as sweet in the 
 Arboretum as they are in the marly openings of southern 
 Wisconsin ; but the trees have not yet reached that mature and 
 broadly and gnarly spreading stage which makes the bur-oak 
 one of the most eminently climbable trees in the world. 
 
 It is a favorite tree wherever it grows, and the people 
 bestow upon it, in certain sections, such pleasant names as the 
 overcup and mossycup oak, on account of the curious burry 
 cup in which its edible acorns grow. 
 
 Here one finds European and Asiatic oaks ; and the mention 
 of these last brings us by a short cut to a very interesting 
 feature of the Arboretum, the propagating-ground, where the 
 director is cultivating the young trees whose seeds he has 
 brought from Japan. 
 
 The northeastern part of Asia has a climate which so much 
 resembles that of eastern North America that its plants and 
 shrubs are usually more hardy here than are those of Europe. 
 To introduce them all to the Arnold Arboretum, and thence to 
 general cultivation as many of them as are beautiful and 
 interesting, the professor made a journey to northern Japan. 
 There he obtained the seeds of a great many trees and shrubs 
 which are scarcely or not at all known in America. 
 
 These seeds he brought to the Arboretum and planted 
 them in boxes. The plants are put out as soon as they are 
 large enough and the weather is warm enough. In open 
 frames on the grounds we may see hundreds of little Japanese 
 oaks, birches, hornbeams, maples, alders and magnolias grow- 
 ing, for the professor found in the northern island of Japan a 
 large magnolia which may grow on the frozen hills of New 
 England or the wind-swept plains of the Northwest as thriftily 
 as maples or cottonwoods. 
 
26 A GREAT ARBORETUM. 
 
 Here is a garden where foreign trees of a little larger size 
 are growing in rows with cabbages and lettuce. They seem 
 entirely at home in this humble company, and benefit by the 
 cultivation which these familiar vegetables get. 
 
 They have still another stage of growth to complete before 
 they can be planted out in their proper place in the Arboretum ; 
 and this last stage of growth in the propagating-grounds, 
 
 where the young trees from all 
 parts of the world stand in rows, is 
 decidedly interesting. 
 
 Every one of these young trees 
 when it goes into its permanent 
 place, has its location definitely 
 marked upon a map of the Arbore- 
 tum. It has its number, and its 
 history is recorded, the time and 
 manner of its planting, the origin 
 of its seed, and every fact that a 
 botanist, a woodcraftsman or a 
 student would ever want to know. 
 
 When the Arboretum is fully 
 planted, it will be not only a com- 
 plete collection of all the trees and 
 shrubs which will grow in the climate of northeastern America, 
 but a systematized record of the characteristics and capabilities, 
 the strength and the weakness, of each plant for every sort of 
 cultivation. 
 
 Add to this the museum of woods and the great tree library 
 on the grounds, which is, no doubt, the best in the world, and 
 we have an idea what a great arboretum may be. It was 
 certainly a noble thought to endow and put into operation such 
 an institution. It looks toward a future of such gardening, 
 park-making and foresting as will not only express the 
 instinctive love of Americans for trees, but realize the magnifi- 
 cent capabilities of our soil and climate. 
 
 J. K. Chamberlin. 
 
A Boston Market. 
 
 When the first of the sleepy milkmen are going their rounds, 
 and the luxurious man lies fathoms deep in one of his half- 
 dozen morning naps, then the markets which feed great cities 
 are teaming with bustle and interest. If the citizen of Boston 
 who finds a comfortable breakfast on his table is curious to 
 trace its source beyond the kitchen, he may rise at cockcrow, 
 in places where crowing is a daily fashion, and visit the old 
 historic Faneuil Hall Market owned by his city. 
 
 He will hardly be among the earliest comers, however, for 
 the wagons of the market-gardeners, laden with fruit and 
 vegetables, often start at nightfall, and sometimes at four 
 o'clock in the afternoon, that they may be at the market 
 betimes next morning. 
 
 Many of these men drive in from towns immediately 
 adjoining the city ; but some of them come from places thirty- 
 five miles away, seeking short cuts that they may be first at 
 the ferries, and first in reaching their destination and securing 
 standing-ground there. 
 
 Arrived at the market, whether at midnight or in the 
 morning darkness, the men arrange their wagons in short, 
 orderly rows beside the great building, so that plenty of 
 space is left in which to drive and walk between the groups. 
 Then the horses are unharnessed and stabled, and the carefully 
 covered wagons left in charge of the night watchmen, who also 
 guard the boxes and barrels left outside the building, while 
 the sleepy drivers find some comfortable corner to drowse in 
 until the moment of action. 
 
 With the first peep of light they are back at their posts, 
 and begin to uncover their loads, chatting together, exchanging 
 jokes, and talking over the probable market prices for the day. 
 
 Presently appear the picturesque figures of women, with 
 rough, uncovered hair, tattered dresses and faded shawls, each 
 
28 
 
 A BOSTON MARKET. 
 
 bearing a capacious basket on one arm. They wander about, 
 hoping to pick up a discarded vegetable here and there, and 
 waiting for the barrels of refuse to be brought out from the 
 stalls within. 
 
 When these barrels are deposited on the sidewalk an eager 
 search begins, and the baskets are speedily enriched with 
 
 Faneuil Hall Market. 
 
 cauliflowers which show the first brown specks of decay, 
 bunches of celery containing one or two perfect stalks, and 
 sweet potatoes partially spongy from age or misfortune. 
 
 Ah ! it's many a fine bit ye can pick up here to put in the 
 soup pot! " calls one woman, glancing at an observer with a 
 knowing look which is almost a wink ; and another thrifty 
 
A BOSTON MARKET. 
 
 29 
 
 gleaner adds, as she seizes upon a wrinkled turnip, " Five 
 courses I'll have, the day, and if Jimmie buys a bit of liver 
 there'll be six ! " 
 
 With every increasing ray of light, come wagons from the 
 provision stores and smaller markets of the city, to select from 
 the waiting carts large quantities of the vegetables and fruit 
 needed for their daily sales. The scene becomes animated ; the 
 broad street is alive with voices. On Friday, especially, 
 the day when suburban stores send in for their Saturday's 
 stock of provisions, it is difficult to find one's way about among 
 the carts, without jostling eager bargainers. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting season to visit the market is 
 during the summer or early fall, when thousands of berry 
 boxes or great loads of peaches arrive daily. A few firms sell 
 their fruit by auction, and this naturally adds a lively excite- 
 ment to the scene. Groups of Italian owners of fruit-stands 
 are on the spot betimes. One marketman says of them, " An 
 Italian starts a stand on nothing, but in a month he comes 
 down here and buys whole loads of fruit for cash." 
 
 It is in the fall that the market wagons are most delightful 
 to the artistic eye. Pale green cabbages, yellow^ squashes, 
 piles of celery in varied green, and golden carrots seem 
 actually to light the air. 
 
 Meanwhile, as this fruit and vegetable traffic is going on at 
 one side of the market, the meat has arrived on the other, and 
 is rapidly carried into stall and cellar. Great white-covered 
 carts, like emigrant wagons, stand there, packed to the very 
 top with pink and white carcasses ; and men adorned by 
 burlap mantles fastened with a skewer are busily tossing them 
 into their destined places. 
 
 At sunrise a gong strikes, and the market proper, the great 
 building lined with stalls flanking a central walk, is opened to 
 trade. Then the bustle within is scarcely exceeded by that 
 without. Men hurry about, drawing on their white frocks and 
 overalls, and begin to remove great carcasses of meat from the 
 sacking which has protected them from dust through the night, 
 
Selling from the Carts. 
 
A BOSTON MARKET. 
 
 31 
 
 or hang on huge iron hooks the meat which has just been 
 brought in from the storehouses. 
 
 One man is assorting his stock of eggs by testing their 
 freshness. A lighted candle is placed in the side of his egg 
 box, and over this he holds each egg for a second, and looks 
 through it, before passing it on into its appropriate place. 
 The degree of clearness shown through the shell indicates, to 
 his practised eye, the probable age of the egg and its state of 
 freshness. 
 
 Quite early in the morning come the stewards of the great 
 hotels, to buy their supplies for the day, and then sets in the 
 regular trade; from that of the young housekeeper who wants a 
 steak, but privately wishes she knew tenderloin from porter- 
 house, to that of the boarding-house keeper, who buys in large 
 quantities, expertly selected. 
 
 Meantime, while food of all sorts is magically appearing in 
 such profusion, comes a smaller dealer, whose stock is fresh 
 and sweet as the early morning. This is the watercress 
 woman, a slight little creature who comes in tugging a big 
 basket filled with bunches of cress, dark green in its freshness, 
 and dripping with moisture. This she sells by the dozen 
 bunches at the different stalls. 
 
 There is something fascinating in the idea of her trade, so 
 connected is it with damp fields and clear, running water. 
 
 Then, bringing an odor sweeter than that from " Araby the 
 blest" to those who remember grandmother's garden, comes a 
 young girl with a basket full of the mints, catnip for the kitty, 
 and sage and sweet marjoram. 
 
 Outside the market are new phases of interest everywhere. 
 A clear, triumphant sound breaks upon the air. It is the 
 crow of chanticleer, and looking about, after recovering from 
 the first surprise of hearing a barn-yard echo in a city street, 
 one notices several rough coops containing live fowls. Some 
 of these are putting their red-combed heads through the slats, 
 and gazing about in a very inquiring manner, and one is preen- 
 ing her feathers as if to be in gala costume for the sacrifice. 
 
32 
 
 A BOSTON MARKET. 
 
 These fowls are bought b}^ the Orthodox Jews, w^hose religion 
 forbids them to eat meat killed by aii}^ but their own sect, and 
 it is no uncommon sight to see a woman walking away from the 
 market, carrying under her arm a lively and very surprised 
 biddy, whose legs have been securely tied together. 
 
 But where do the fish-stalls of the market obtain their daih' 
 supplies ? To find an answer to that question one must walk 
 to the wharf. There boats are coming in laden with the fish, 
 which is bought on the spot b}' wholesale dealers, and not only 
 supplied to various local markets, but also packed and sent 
 away to other towns and cities. 
 
 The wharf itself, rather slimy with fish-drippings, is made 
 lively by men running about with large hand-carts, filled with 
 the fish which they have just obtained from the boats. • 
 
 The previous process of loading the carts is a rapid and 
 picturesque one. Large baskets of cod or mackerel are filled 
 on board the little boats, swung up and over the side by means 
 of a rope, and dumped into the cart. The man who fills the 
 basket is hardy and sailor-like, clad in a short jacket or a 
 colored jersey, and the motion with which he spears several 
 fish at a time on a small fork is suggestive of the hay-field. 
 
 Other boats have come in bringing clams, and these are 
 shovelled into small baskets, dipped in water to be rinsed, and 
 then handed, dripping, to the wharf. 
 
 Returning to the market proper, we shall find it full of 
 bustle and interest all day long. The marketnien outside, as 
 soon as their stock is sold, drive homeward, sometimes quite 
 early, but often, on days when trade is slow, not until late in 
 the day. 
 
 The market itself closes at five o'clock, except on Saturday 
 night, when it is open until nine. A gong strikes fifteen 
 minutes before the closing hour to warn the keepers of stalls to 
 do their daily cleaning up, and when it strikes again its 
 warning note embodies the old nursery rh3'me : 
 
 Home again, home again, market is done. 
 
 AucE Brown. 
 
A Maple -Sugar Camp 
 
 Along in March the people in Vermont, and in other states 
 where the sugar-maple is grown, begin to look for what they 
 call the sugar-snow. While the ground is vStill white and the 
 river is filled with broken ice, just as the winter is ending and 
 the earth is relaxing from its frosty thraldom, the soft snow 
 that comes helps the flow of sap, and hence it is called the 
 sugar-snow, and is welcomed with much gladness and many 
 preparations. Sugar-snow and sugar-time are among the most 
 delightful experiences in the year to young people in the 
 Green Mountains. 
 
 After the outbreak of the Civil War, my father moved from 
 a large town into Vermont, and I shall never forget the 
 excitement which prevailed among us when he announced one 
 day that work would then begin in the sugar-place. 
 
 There were four of us, or, counting Tray, the dog, five ; 
 and I don't see why Tray should not be counted, for he took as 
 much interest in the proceedings as any of us„ and long after- 
 ward the words ' ' Sugar-place ! ' ' would always rouse him 
 from the deepest slumbers. Only one other word ever had the 
 same effect upon him, and that was " Woodchucks ! " 
 
 The first work in a sugar-camp is to scatter the buckets. 
 The farmer goes to each tree with his bit, and bores one, two 
 or three holes through the bark. Into each hole he inserts a 
 wooden or galvanized-iron spout, through which the sap flows 
 into the buckets suspended below it. Thirty years ago the 
 buckets and spouts were all of wood, but they have been super- 
 seded by tin and galvanized iron, which are cleaner and 
 more economical. 
 
 The work of tapping is not easy, as the snow is usually 
 very deep when it is done. A large sugar-place in Vermont, 
 where a great amount of maple-sugar is made, contains from 
 one thousand to three thousand trees, and a place with less 
 
34 
 
 A MAPLE-SUGAK CAMP. 
 
 than three hundred trees is called a small one. If the weather 
 is favorable, that is, when the days are warm and the nights 
 frosty, the buckets attached to the trees first tapped are filled 
 before the last ones have been bored, and their contents must 
 
 be boiled at once. The flow is some- 
 times so copious that the men have 
 to work night and day to prevent loss. 
 
 The sap is gathered by a man or 
 boy who goes to the buckets and 
 empties them into large pails sus- 
 pended from a sap-yoke which he 
 wears on his shoulders. 
 
 When there is a good crust over 
 the snow to hold him up, this work in 
 the bright morning, with the bluest 
 of skies above, is not unpleasant, but 
 when the orchard is large, and the 
 snow deep and soft, and he has been 
 toiling through the day and into the 
 darkening night, attending to the 
 steady drip, drip, drip in the over- 
 p _ flowing buckets, he is apt to think 
 
 that sugar-time is not so jolly after 
 
 Gathering Sap. 
 
 all. 
 
 Perhaps, too, he does not feel well from having tasted the 
 sap too often. It is so delicious as it comes fresh from the tree 
 that it is a wonder if he does not drink too much of it. Some- 
 times the boy is relieved by having a team of horses and a 
 sled, on which a tub is placed to receive the contents of the 
 buckets. 
 
 While the sap is being gathered the boiling must be kept 
 up continuously. In the days of wooden spouts and buckets 
 the sugar was made in a great iron caldron, suspended by 
 chains over a fire in the open air. As the fire burned and the 
 caldron bubbled, the winds made free contributions of dirt, 
 twigs, sand and smoke, which did not tend to improve the 
 
A MAPLEi-SUGAR CAMP. 
 
 35 
 
 flavor of the sugar. Probably most of the sugar made in 
 Vermont would hardly be marketable to-day if it were made 
 in this way. 
 
 Now sugar-houses are built, containing brick or stone 
 arches, with sheet-iron pans, or evaporators, in which the 
 sugar is boiled. Being kept from contact with anything which 
 is not strictly clean, it is purer and of finer grain and lighter 
 
 A Maple Sugar House. 
 
 color than it used to be. When the sap has been boiled until 
 the water has nearly all passed out of it in the steam, it is 
 strained and then rapidly boiled until it grains or hardens or 
 changes from syrup to sugar. 
 
 The work of sugaring off in the old caldron made a 
 red-letter day for the children. Provided with a spoon and 
 
36 
 
 A MAPI^E-SUGAR CAMP. 
 
 saucer, or a wooden paddle made especially for warm sugar, 
 each boy and girl would set out over snow-drifts much higher 
 than their heads, and when the sugar was nearly done and 
 would lie on snow, the fun began in good earnest. 
 
 Filling their saucers with the sugar, they repaired to the 
 nearest clean snow and spread the sugar over it to cool before 
 they ate it. There was more merriment than at any candy- 
 pulling, and it sometimes happened that all of the farmer's 
 family were encamped in the woods to help in the work. 
 
 On one occasion old Tray learned a lesson he never forgot. 
 Always ready to take any sugar offered him, he evidently 
 considered that he had not been treated often enough, and took 
 matters in his own — paws. 
 
 I had just dropped a lot of the hot sugar on the snow, and 
 while waiting for it to cool had turned my back. The tempta- 
 tion was too much for dog-nature, and like the Jackdaw of 
 Rheims, "While no one was looking. Tray stepped up and 
 twigged it." 
 
 When his teeth shut firmly down on the hardened wax, as 
 the sugar was called, he could not open his mouth again. He 
 scraped with his paws, ran round and round, and rolled over 
 and over, but no relief came ; and worst of all, his most 
 intimate and loved companions stood laughing at his 
 misfortune. He could only sit up and wait for his lockjaw to 
 melt. Never after that would he eat the before coveted wax, 
 and he always showed that he took it as an insult to have it 
 offered to him. 
 
 When I went to the old schoolhouse of our district, I was 
 proud to find in my geography that Vermont produced more 
 maple-sugar than any other state in the Union. 
 
 Some few farmers, instead of making the sugar, make 
 delicious maple-honey, and, sealing it up in bottles, send it to 
 the great hotels in the cities. One way or another a farmer 
 with a large sugar-place in Vermont makes a good deal of 
 money from it every year. 
 
 Ruth Russ. 
 
A New Hampshire Fish -Farm. 
 
 Fish-farming, or the breeding of fish by artificial means, is 
 a comparatively new industry, and as the reader probably 
 knows, its object is the stocking of rivers with salmon and 
 trout. Early attention was given to it in New Hampshire, and 
 there was opened a free passage from the ocean to the very 
 heart of the Franconia Mountains through the Merrimac and 
 the Pemigewasset Rivers. 
 
 Fishways have been constructed in these rivers to enable 
 the fish to ascend. A fishway is a spout or aqueduct designed 
 to overcome the steep ascent from the head of a dam to the bed 
 of a river which would baffle the fish in its progress, and it is 
 so divided by partitions that the pilgrim from the ocean can 
 make his upward journey and rest from time to time in favoring 
 eddies instead of being exhausted in a struggle with the abrupt 
 fall. There is an excellent reason 
 
 for helping him on his way as much 
 as possible. 
 
 Salmon begin to ascend the 
 streams about the first of June, and 
 the}^ make a holiday of the summer, 
 sporting in the eddies and shady 
 nooks, and playing in the rapids. 
 Late in the autumn when they are 
 paired, each couple selects some 
 spot in the coarse sand or gravelly 
 
 bottom, and in a hole therein the ^ ^ . 
 
 ' Young Salmon. 
 
 female deposits her eggs. The male 
 
 hovers about the spot and helps her in covering the eggs with 
 sand and gravel to a depth of six to ten inches. 
 
 This operation being complete, the happy couple return to 
 their winter quarters in the ocean, leaving their progeny to 
 hatch, wriggle and wash out of the nursery as best they may. 
 
38 
 
 A NEW HAMPSHIRK FlSH-:PARM. 
 
 In the natural process very large numbers of eggs are destro}- ed 
 by various causes, and probably not more than fifteen per cent, 
 of them come to life ; but by the artificial process, the New 
 Hampshire Fish Commission has for a series of years obtained 
 from ninety to ninety-five per cent. 
 
 In connection with the hatchery is a trout-pond for the 
 preservation of breeders, and a pond for the reception of salmon 
 taken while on their way to the mountains. A kind of trap 
 
 called a weir is made of poles, brush and netting, from which 
 the salmon are scooped out with hand-nets, and carried in 
 boats made for the purpose, to the breeding ponds. 
 
 Ivate in autumn, the fish that have been captured during 
 the summer season and held prisoners in the reception pond 
 are closely watched to ascertain when they are ready to spawn. 
 As soon as detected in the natural process of preparing a bed 
 in which to deposit eggs, they are carefully taken by means 
 of a net, and when their eggs have been secured, they are 
 turned loose in the river to make their way back to salt water. 
 
 The hatching-house is a comparatively inexpensive building ; 
 it is long, low-studded and double- walled, the space between 
 
 In a Salmon Weir. 
 
A NKW HAMPvSHIRK FISH-FARM. 
 
 39 
 
 the two walis being packed with sawdust to prevent the water 
 inside from freezing. 
 
 The water is brought in a large iron pipe from a spring, 
 and distributed to each of the six hatching-troughs ])y faucets, 
 which regulate the supply. The troughs are ten inches wide 
 by six deep, extending nearly the entire length of the building ; 
 and they are arranged on trestles to allow the water to flow 
 with a gentle current from the upper end to the lower, and 
 thence off into a w^aste-pipe. 
 
 In each trough is a series of hatching-boxes, which may be 
 described as square, shallow sieves, made by fastening small 
 wire screens for a bottom, to a frame a foot long, and wide 
 enough to just fill the trough crosswise. A free current of 
 water flows through the sieves over, under and among the 
 eggs, which are deposited and spread upon the wire screens. 
 
 The eggs are spherical in shape, nearly the size of a 
 common pea, of a delicate pink color, and transparent enough 
 to show the eyes of the embryo salmon. About three months' 
 time is required for hatching them. 
 
 Of all frail forms of life, the young salmon, just hatched, 
 exceeds in interest anything the writer remembers having seen. 
 A casual observer would notice the cast-off shells, and would 
 think he also saw as many eggs as before. What appear to be 
 eggs are, in fact, yolk sacks, or in other words, provision bags, 
 with the outer shell cast off, each sack with its little salmon 
 attached just below and behind where the gills are to be. 
 
 Looking sharp we detect two little black specks with a 
 hair line extending from between them, for half an inch or so. 
 These little black specks and the hair line are the eyes and the 
 backbone of a salmon, which in the course of eight years, 
 perhaps, if nothing befalls, will weigh twenty-five pounds, and 
 measure three feet in length. 
 
 This extremely slight trace of creation is enveloped in a 
 body of liquid so transparent and perfectly clear that in the 
 space of a few days a complete set of ribs can be seen starting 
 out from the backbone and gradually gathering into the form 
 
40 
 
 A NEW HAMPvSHIKK KISH-FARM. 
 
 of a fish. Ill the course of a week something like a head and 
 tail appear and the thing begins to wriggle. 
 
 It has not yet got strength to move its yolk sack, which 
 remains exactly where it was when hatched. By and by the 
 transparent liquid, which encloses the lively little framework, 
 
 begins to have a 
 cloudy look along 
 the backbone, and 
 by a tremendous 
 wriggle, the em- 
 bryo succeeds in 
 starting its yolk 
 sack just a hair's 
 breadth. Then it 
 takes a rest, and 
 wriggles again, 
 making another 
 advance. 
 During the second 
 week it develops rapidly, 
 the sack growing smaller 
 and the fish larger. The 
 liquid has hidden the 
 framework from sight 
 now, and is gradually 
 solidifying. At the end 
 of three weeks the yolk 
 sack is all absorbed in the 
 bod}', and it is time for 
 the perfect little creature 
 to get its nourivShnient 
 from the surrounding element, the water. The young salmon 
 are now considered capable of caring for themselves, and are 
 turned loose in the river, or conveyed to such other streams 
 as it is thought desirable to stock. 
 
 M. Hawks. 
 
 The Hatching -Troughs. 
 
Among the Pines. 
 
 Maine has been very properly called the Pine Tree State, 
 for it is in her almost exhaustless pine forests that she finds 
 one of her sources of wealth and commercial importance. 
 Although spruce and hemlock have been gradually taking the 
 place of the pine in the lumber trade, yet there are still va.st, 
 unexplored tracts stretching far away toward Canada, where 
 this noble tree still flourishes in all its old-time grandeur and 
 luxuriance. Early in the fall, sometimes by the first or middle of 
 October, the advance guards of the lumber crews, each con- 
 sisting of some half a dozen men, start for the forests where 
 their employers' claims are situated. 
 
 They select a place as near as possible tO' one of the small 
 streams that thread this vast lumber region in every direction, 
 and build the camp that is to serve them and their comrades 
 for a shelter during the long, cold winter that is at hand. 
 
 A hut, proportioned to the size of the crew that is to 
 occupy it, is built of large logs, carefully notched and fitted at 
 the corners, and chinked with moss and clay. A stone fireplace 
 is built in one corner, and bunks for the men are placed 
 against the wall and filled with the fragrant tips of pine boughs 
 to serve as beds. 
 
 The roof is made of long, split shingles, fastened down 
 with long poles instead of being nailed, and finally covered with 
 spruce boughs, which, after the first fall of snow, keep out the 
 wind and frosts very effectually. The earlier camps used to 
 have only the hard-trodden earth for floors, and their inmates 
 got along without such conveniences as tables, plates, etc., but 
 now they are provided not only with plank floors, but a table 
 with a suitable supply of crockery is in most cases provided, as 
 part of the woodman's necessary outfit. 
 
 Near the hut of the loggers another is constructed with 
 much care, to make it as comfortable as possible for the duml) 
 
42 
 
 AMONG THK PINEvS. 
 
 companions of their winter's toil, the patient, plodding oxen or 
 the quicker horses. By the time everything is ready for their 
 reception the tote teams make their appearance with the cattle 
 and the supply of food that is to serve them all during the 
 winter. Flour, pork, beans, molasses and tea are the staples. 
 
 Sometimes a barrel of corned beef finds its way into the 
 camp, but as a rule the diet of the men consists of hot flour 
 bread, with pork fat for a relish, and tea without milk, 
 sweetened with molasses. 
 
 These, with the indispensable dish of baked beans, cooked 
 to perfection in a bean-hole dug in the earth and lined with hot 
 stones, form luxurious fare to appetites sharpened by hard 
 work in the cold, frost}^ air of midwinter. 
 
 Sometimes a lucky shot may bring down a moose, or an 
 equally lucky find may put them in possession of enough 
 bear-meat to make every day a feast-day for a week or two. 
 The fat of the bear is said to be very delicate and sweet to the 
 taste, and is much prized by hunters and lumbermen. In it 
 they fry their favorite dainty, the Yankee doughnuts. 
 
 A crew generally consists of a boss, who takes the charge 
 of affairs, allots the work and sees that it is faithfully 
 performed by the choppers, swampers, teamster and cook. 
 
 The boss decides upon the best place to commence 
 operations, and then all hands clear a road from that spot to 
 the stream, so that when the snow comes there will be a 
 comparatively smooth and level roadway for the teams to drag 
 their ponderous loads over during the winter. 
 
 Commencing his work with the earliest gleams of daylight, 
 the sturdy, strong-armed chopper plies his axe, stopping only 
 for a hasty dinner at twelve, until the ghostl}^ shadows of 
 twilight fall upon him from between the dusky tree-trunks, 
 and the evening star, far above in the blue, wintry sky, seems 
 resting like a glowing gem upon the topmost spire of the giant 
 pine above his head. 
 
 Then the weary worker turns his steps campward, where a 
 blazing fire and a hot supper soon make him forget the cold 
 
AMONG THK PINKS. 
 
 43 
 
 and fatigue of the day ; while in the companionship of his 
 mates he finds the mental stimulus that binds him to the 
 half-forgotten world outside his own forest solitudes. 
 
 Besides the hard work, there is always more or less danger 
 in felling these mighty trees. The experienced, chopper can 
 
 A Camp in Winter. 
 
 easily detect by the motion of the swaying trunk in what 
 direction it is about to fall, and he makes his retreat accord- 
 ingly ; but as the enormous branches go crashing down 
 through the tops of the smaller trees, they are often broken 
 and hurled through the air, crushing whatever lies in their 
 track, occasionally wounding and sometimes killing the 
 
44 
 
 AMONG THE PINKvS. 
 
 luckless chopper, whose skill in woodcraft proved insufficient 
 to shield him from this unexpected danger. 
 
 The tallest trees are usually sawed at the landing into logs 
 of a convenient length for the drive, which begins as soon as 
 the spring sun has acquired power to melt the immense masses 
 of snow and ice that cover the hillsides. Then every little 
 brook is swelled to a raging torrent, into whose eager embrace 
 the logs are hurried, and the perilous and exciting work of the 
 river-driver begins. 
 
 From lakes and tributary streams the logs are driven into 
 the main river, where they form one indistinguishable mass 
 called the main drive. The different crews now vie with each 
 other in deeds of agility and daring, and it is wonderful to note 
 the skill and promptness with which these men, scorning 
 danger and discomfort, manage to keep those millions of 
 rolling logs in the main channel of the river. 
 
 Without a dry thread of clothing for many days and nights 
 in succession, the river-driver knows neither rest by day nor 
 ease by night. 
 
 Sometimes the boat containing the supplies fails to reach 
 the stopping-place for the night in advance of the crew, and 
 then the poor fellows, cold and wet as they are, must lie down 
 hungry and shelterless upon the bare ground, to snatch such 
 rest as they may find in their comfortless quarters. 
 
 With the soles of his boots armed with sharp spikes to keep 
 him from slipping on the wet, smooth logs, and a setting-pole, 
 with which to guide them and steady his own steps, the river- 
 driver considers himself fairly equipped for the toils and 
 dangers awaiting him. 
 
 In a narrow channel between high banks, or at the head of 
 a fall, the logs are apt to form what is called a jam, that is, one 
 or more logs chance to strike across the stream in such a way 
 as to obstruct the passage, so that those pressing on behind, 
 unable to pass, are piled high one above another in the most 
 inextricable confusion. 
 
 To break one of these jams is a difficult and almost always 
 
AMONG THK PINKvS. 
 
 45 
 
 dangerous task, as the operator must in many cases cut away 
 with his axe one or more of the obstructing logs, thus letting 
 the whole mighty mass loose in an instant, and giving him 
 little time to escape from the terrible onslaught. 
 
 Sometimes when the banks are high and the channel very 
 narrow, it is necessary to let a man down from the top by a 
 rope to perform the dangerous task ; and if he escapes with 
 only a few bruises and scratches he may consider himself very 
 fortunate, since the parting of the rope, or the failure of his 
 comrades to draw him up at the ver}^ instant that the jam 
 starts, might be death swift and sure, without any possibility 
 of rescue. 
 
 When at length the logs reach their destination they are 
 enclosed in a boom. This is simply a floating fence of large 
 logs, fastened together so strongly that their wild brethren, 
 fresh from the forests, cannot escape from their restraining arms. 
 
 And now it is the duty of the boom-master to see that each 
 owner has his own logs assigned to him fairly and justly. 
 Every man's logs are marked by some kind of hieroglyphic cut 
 deep into each log by the axe of the loader. 
 
 If any log, either by carelessness or accident, has reached 
 the boom unmarked, it becomes the property of the boom- 
 master, who is also entitled to a certain proportion of the 
 lumber, as his share for the care and labor of harborage and 
 distribution of the whole. 
 
 It seems a tame ending to all this wild turmoil, this dumb 
 exhibition of unloosened savagery, to see the poor logs at last 
 floating meekly down to the sawmills, where 
 
 Steam, the slave, shall tear them with his teeth of steel, 
 
 carve them into plain, commonplace boards and staves, that 
 shall, in time, lose even the fragrant breath that alone reminds 
 one of their forest origin, and hidden beneath a coat of 
 paint and varnish, make comfortable or beautify the homes 
 of civilization. 
 
 Mrs. H. G. Rowe. 
 
A Winter Harvest, 
 
 The traveller who, on a pleasant midsummer day, ascends 
 the Kennebec River in Maine for the first time, is likely to be 
 much interested in the signs, which appear as soon as his boat 
 has passed from salt water into fresh, of a great industry which 
 evidently surpasses all others in importance thereabout. 
 
 At frequent inter^^als upon the Kennebec are seen great 
 wooden structures. Some of these have wide-spreading 
 gambrel or curb roofs, and are picturesque objects in the 
 landscape ; others are simply vast barracks of rough planks 
 and boards, unpleasant and disfiguring to the shores of the 
 broad river. All of these are ice-houses, and they are the 
 depositaries of the great ice-harvest of the Kennebec. 
 
 In midsummer, scarcely less than in the latter half of 
 winter, these great houses are a scene of activity. Schooners 
 are brought to their very doors by tugs, and there are seen 
 lading with great blocks of clear, blackish-green ice. From 
 each of the ice-houses a long and slightly inclined plane leads 
 down to the light wooden wharf where the vessel lies ; and 
 down this smooth incline a continuous line of blocks of ice, 
 urged on by men and boys with picks, is descending. 
 
 The Kennebec River is a great centre of the ice-cutting 
 business because, joined with a snug winter climate which 
 makes ice a tolerably sure crop, it has a great stretch of 
 navigable fresh water. Clear ice may be cut here over the 
 very spot where ocean vessels may moor the next summer and 
 load it, to be taken directly to the cities on the coast farther 
 south . 
 
 Perhaps the business of harvesting ice on a great Maine 
 river comes nearer to the fabled plucking of apples of gold 
 from the trees in the garden of the Hesperides than anything 
 else in modern practical industry. The ice, to begin with, is 
 Nature's gift to everybody. There is no property in it, no 
 
A WINTKR HARVKvST. 
 
 47 
 
 ownership of it by any one, until it has been marked out to 
 cut ; and any one may do that, and possess the ice, if he is 
 able to cut it afterward. 
 
 But this free gift of Nature brings to the inhabitants of the 
 Kennebec River, along the twenty-five miles from Augusta, 
 where there is a dam, down below the foot of Swan Island, 
 where the water begins to be brackish, a yearly income of from 
 
 one to four millions of dollars, according to the price for which 
 they sell their crop of a million to a million and a half tons 
 of ice. 
 
 To the Kennebecker, therefore, the winter is the real 
 harvest-time. That is the season when fortunes are most 
 readily acquired by the enterprising, and employment 
 most easily found by those who need it. 
 
 An ice-claim must be marked out anew each year, and 
 preempted over again as often as the ice melts away. On 
 the Kennebec, as soon as the ice is strong enough to bear 
 a man, the claim is staked out by setting bushes or stakes 
 in the ice, or often, where it is very systematically done, by 
 setting in joists with boards nailed across them. 
 
 Loading the Ice-Schooner. 
 
48 
 
 A WINTER HARVEST. 
 
 The construction of an ice-house on the bank carries with 
 it, in practice, the right to cut the ice on the river in front of 
 it ; and as the ice could not be secured without an ice-house in 
 which to store it, only those who are able to get a foothold on 
 the land can gather the ice-harvest, theoretically free to all. 
 
 There is nothing to do, after the claim is marked out, until 
 the ice has become thick enough to carry a horse, so that the 
 snow may be scraped off as fast as it falls. Ice will not make 
 rapidly under snow, and will not attain its full thickness. The 
 iceman's most anxious time is when there is danger of a 
 snowfall on the ice before it is strong enough to bear horses to 
 scrape it. 
 
 If the snow steals a march on the scrapers in this way, 
 it is often necessary to get rid of it by a very laborious and 
 expensive process. A hole is cut through the ice, and the 
 snow saturated with water. When this freezes the ice will 
 bear a horse ; but the worthless snow-ice thus formed must be 
 planed off, also by horse-power, with a planer made for the 
 purpose. The scraping and planing is called cultivating the 
 ice, and it is generally a very expensive sort of cultivation. 
 A single night may caUvSe the icemen an expense of five or six 
 thousand dollars in the cost of the removal of a heavy snowfall. 
 
 The iceman's crop is nearly ripe when clear ice has formed 
 to a thickness of twelve inches, and then the preparations are 
 made for the harvest. 
 
 From the point on the shore where the elevator leading to 
 the ice-house reaches the brink, a canal from five to twenty 
 feet wide, according to the magnitude of the business, is 
 opened out into the river, through which the blocks of ice are 
 presently to be floated to the house. 
 
 It must be kept clear as long as the ice-harvest continues, 
 no matter how many degrees below zero the mercury may fall. 
 In the day, the constant moving of ice-blocks through the 
 water suffices to keep the channel open. At night, in freezing 
 weather, the necessity gives rise to one of the coldest and most 
 lonesome occupations that one can imagine. 
 
A WINTER HARVEST. 
 
 49 
 
 Armed with a great triangle of heavy pieces of wood, which 
 he drags through the water, a man marches up and down the 
 channel all night long, crushing and scattering the thin sheets 
 of ice with his triangle as fast as they form. The workman 
 to whom this cheerless task falls must be heartily glad that 
 the gray wolves no longer make the frozen Kennebec a 
 thoroughfare. 
 
 With the opening of the canal comes an interesting result 
 at once. The thickness of the ice is increased by the exposure 
 
 The Harvest in Progress. 
 
 of the water and the cooling of its surface. The cold is let into 
 the river, as it were, both below and above the cut. By the 
 time all this has been done, the middle of January has generally 
 been reached. The date varies, of course, with the season. 
 
 The ice has now a thickness of from twelve to eighteen 
 inches. Sometimes it is even thicker than that ; but a 
 thickness of more than eighteen inches is a disadvantage, 
 because it renders the blocks of ice hard to bar off from the 
 field. Now the field is carefully marked off, with a grooving 
 machine drawn by a horse, into regular parallelograms, which 
 are generally twenty-two by thirty inches square, the size 
 which the individual blocks of ice are to have. 
 
50 
 
 A WINTER HARVEvST. 
 
 The ice-fiel^, unlike other fields, is cultivated before it is 
 plowed. It is only now, when the marker has grooved the ice 
 across and across, that the ice-plow is brought, or rather that 
 several ice-plows are brought, for several go over the same 
 ground in succession. 
 
 A plow which cuts to a depth of six inches first follows 
 the marker's grooves. Then comes another, which cuts two 
 inches deeper, and then another, cutting still deeper, and so on 
 until the trenches have been carried so deep that the blocks of 
 ice may be barred off or loosened from the field. 
 
 Beginning at the outermost end of the canal, and working 
 out at right angles with it as far as the field has been marked, 
 the workmen break off, with a heavy wedge-shaped instrument 
 called a bursting bar, sheets or sections of blocks of ice, making 
 a new channel running off from the original canal. 
 
 Through this channel the sheets of ice are forced, by means 
 of hooks, to the main canal, and thence to the foot of the 
 elevator which runs to the ice-house. 
 
 At this point a narrow bridge of planks is thrown across the 
 canal, upon which is posted a man armed with an iron bar. 
 Standing with his face toward the shore, this man separates 
 the sheets of ice into single blocks, with quick blows of his 
 bar, as they float beneath him. 
 
 With a quick push this man thrusts each block over 
 revolving chains upon the elevator. These chains are 
 provided with lags or straight bars of wood, and the block 
 is drawn up the inclined plane into the ice-house by the 
 continual movement of the elevator. 
 
 There is here an ingenious but very simple arrangement by 
 means of which the blocks of ice are left at the proper place. 
 At the level of the floor of the ice-house is a pocket or open 
 space in the floor of the elevator, through which the ice passes. 
 When it is desired to carry the cakes higher, the pocket or 
 hole is closed with boards, and the ice intelligently keeps on 
 to the next pocket above. 
 
 In the house, the blocks of ice are placed close together on 
 
A WINTKR HARVEST. 
 
 51 
 
 their sides, and left three or four inches apart at the ends, so 
 that they will not freeze together with the melting and freezing 
 to come. • 
 
 The crop is harvested now ; and if the iceman has had a 
 fairly fortunate season, he has garnered at least a thousand 
 tons to the acre. Not unfrequently the crop reaches thirteen 
 hundred tons to the acre. 
 
 The river is at its busiest in February, but the opening of 
 navigation brings another busy season. All summer long 
 schooners and barges, under tow, ply up and down, lading at 
 the ice- wharves. The blocks of ice are sent down the runway 
 to the vessel's side, and there lowered into her hold. 
 
 Machinery is used here, too, as far as possible. A lowering 
 winch is placed at the hatchway of the vessel, and the ice is 
 lowered by the aid*of ropes and pulleys. The workers in 
 the ice-harvest are frequently farmers and their sons from the 
 country lying back from the river. Often the ice-workers are 
 engaged in the sawmills in the summer season. 
 
 A man who is industriously disposed may manage to work 
 pretty hard the year round on the Kennebec. So may a horse, 
 for that matter, for the same animal that pulls the scraper and 
 the ice-plow pulls the land-plow, the harrow and the mowing- 
 machine later on. But continuous industry seems to be 
 congenial, both to men and to animals, in the stimulating 
 climate of Maine. 
 
 Thus a crop which costs nothing for seed, nothing for the 
 ground to raise it upon and nothing to fertilize, but a good 
 deal to cultivate and still more to harvest, becomes a source of 
 wealth to many, and of profitable employment to many more. 
 
 J. E. Chambrrlin. 
 
Moose - Calling. 
 
 The moose is a noble beast, and an}^ form of honest hunting 
 for him through the deep solitudes of the north woods is full of 
 keen interest and enjoyment. But moose-calling stands alone 
 in the hunter's mind, the most exciting, the most disappoint- 
 ing, the most dangerous method of hunting in New England. 
 
 Other forms of hunting moose are more attractive in many 
 ways, but I doubt if the hunter's nerves ever again thrill with 
 quite the same sensations that sw^ept over him that first night 
 when he stood by a little opening in the forest, with the 
 solitude and utter loneliness of the wilderness about him, and 
 heard the deep silence suddenl}'- broken by an angry roar, 
 and then the crashing advance of the great ugly brute rushing 
 straight down upon him out of the dark woods. 
 
 Tracking through the first snows requires strength and 
 patience and cunning ; and one has, beside the excitement of 
 the hunt, the beauty of the winter woods, and the peace and 
 restfulness of the night-camp. Tracking is warmer and much 
 more comfortable every way than waiting perfectly motionless, 
 without daring even to swing the fingers or stamp the toes, out 
 of which the autumn frost is slowly chilling the life ; but it 
 lacks the tremendous impressiveness of the night, and the 
 swift, fierce thrill of the bull's answer and his savage rush. 
 
 The same may be said of still-hunting, or creeping, as the 
 Indians call it. In tracking or still-hunting one is following a 
 timid animal that, unless wounded or headed, dashes off in 
 a swinging trot at the first sniff of danger. 
 
 When moose begin to mate in September, an old bull grows 
 savage and uncertain of temper ; it is never safe, day or night, 
 to approach him carelessly. The call may only alarm him, 
 and send him off into deeper solitudes ; but it is just as likely 
 to throw him into a rage that brings him crashing down to 
 attack at sight the first living thing that opposes him. 
 
MOOSE-CALLING. 
 
 53 
 
 And so there is always the added charm of uncertainty and 
 danger about it. As for torching and crusting and murdering 
 the poor animals in their yards, where deep snows have 
 imprisoned them, after taking their portraits with a kodak, as 
 so-called sportsmen do nowadays, they are abominable, all of 
 them. No decent hunter, unless driven by hunger, will have 
 part or parcel with those who use them. 
 
 The call of the cow moose, which the hunter always uses 
 first, is a low, sudden bellow, quite impossible to describe 
 accurately. It breaks out of the woods and is gone so 
 suddenly as to leave one simply surprised, with no accurate 
 impressions. Before hearing it I had frequently asked Indians 
 and hunters what it was like ; the answers were rather unsat- 
 isfactory. Like a tree falling, like a cow, like the swell of a 
 cataract or the rapids at night, like a rifle-shot, or a man 
 shouting — these were some of the answers, till one supposed 
 it must sound something like a menagerie at feeding-time. 
 
 One night, as I sat with my friend before our bark tent 
 eating our belated supper in tired silence, while the rush of the 
 salmon pool near and the soughing of the wind among 
 the spruce tops were making our eyelids heavy as we ate, a 
 sound suddenly filled the forest and was gone. Strangely 
 enough, we pronounced the word " Moose ! " together, though 
 neither of us had ever heard the sound before. 
 
 lyike a gun in a fog might, perhaps, head the list of similes, 
 though after hearing the sound several times, I am still at a 
 loss to describe it. No two animals ever bellow precisely 
 alike, and the thick trees break up the vibrations, making 
 the sound still more vague, which accounts, perhaps, for the 
 variety of description. A single low, indefinite bellow is 
 heard early in the mating season. Later it is more prolonged 
 and definite, and often repeated twice in quick succession. 
 
 The best hunter I ever met used a short and abrupt call, 
 uttered with the accent at the end, and a quick roll of his head 
 as he uttered it. After a second's interval he repeated it, 
 slightly prolonged, with a slower roll of the head. Two 
 
54 
 
 MOOSE-CALLTNG. 
 
 seconds after, with the trumpet's mouth close to the ground, 
 he began a plaintive, pleading bellow long drawn out, while 
 the trumpet-mouth described three wide circles in the air, 
 ending abruptly without accent. If no answer came, a 
 half-hour passed before the call was repeated. 
 
 Though his call was often successful, I confess it never 
 
 Moose-Calling. 
 
 sounded to me much like that of a moose. Perhaps had I been 
 farther away, with a vivid imagination and in ignorance of the 
 hunter's wiles, I, too, might have been deceived. The answer 
 of the bull varies but little, and is easy to imitate. It is a 
 short, hoarse, grunting roar, frightfully ugly when close at 
 hand, leaving no doubt as to the mood he is in. 
 
t 
 
 MOOSE-CALLING. 
 
 55 
 
 Sometimes, when a bull is shy, and the hunter thinks him 
 to be near and listening, he follows the call of the cow by the 
 short roar of the bull, at the same time snapping the sticks 
 under his feet and thrashing the bushes with his trumpet. 
 Then, if the bull answers, look out. Jealous and ready to 
 fight, the beast hurls himself out of his concealment, and 
 rushes in like a tempest to meet his rival. 
 
 Once aroused in this way he heeds no danger ; and the eye 
 must be clear and the muscles steady to stop him surely ere he 
 reaches the thicket where the hunter is concealed. Moonlight 
 is poor stuff to shoot by at best, and an enraged bull moose is 
 a very big and a very ugly customer. It is a poor thicket, 
 therefore, that does not have at least one tree with conveniently 
 low branches. 
 
 The trumpet with which the calling is done is simply a 
 piece of birch-bark, rolled into the shape of a cone, with the 
 smooth side within. It is fifteen or sixteen inches long, about 
 four inches in diameter at the larger and one inch at the 
 smaller end. The right hand is folded round the small end 
 for a mouthpiece ; into this the caller grunts and roars and 
 bellows, at the same time swinging the trumpet's mouth in 
 sweeping curves to imitate the peculiar roll of the cow's call. 
 
 If the bull is near and suspicious, the sound is deadened by 
 holding the mouth of the trumpet close to the ground ; this, to 
 me, imitates the real sound more closely than any other 
 attempt. So man^^ conditions must be met for successful 
 calling, and so waril}^ does a bull approach, that unless far 
 back from civilization the chances are strongly against the 
 hunter's ever seeing his game. The old bulls are sh}^ from 
 much hunting ; the younger ones fear the wrath of an older 
 rival. 
 
 The calling season begins early in September and lasts six 
 or seven weeks. In this season a perfectly still night is the 
 first requisite. The bull, when he hears the call, will approach 
 silently within an hundred yards. It is simply wonderful how 
 noiselessly the great brute can move through the thick woods. 
 
56 
 
 MOOSE-CALLING. 
 
 Then he makes a wide circuit till he has gone completely 
 round the spot where he heard the call, and if there is the 
 slightest breeze he scents the danger and is off on the instant. 
 
 On a still night his big, trumpet-shaped ears are marvel- 
 lously acute, and only absolute silence on the hunter's part 
 can insure success. Another condition quite as essential is 
 moonlight. The moose often calls just before dusk and before 
 sunrise, but the bull is more wary at such times and can 
 seldom be called into the open. 
 
 By far the best place for calling, if one is in a moose 
 country, is from a canoe on some quiet lake or river, between 
 two open shores if possible. On whichever side the bull 
 answers, the canoe can then be backed silently into the shadow 
 of the opposite bank. 
 
 If there is no water near the hunting-ground, then a thicket 
 in the midst of an opening in the forest is the only suitable 
 spot from which to call. Such spots are rare except about the 
 barrens, which are open, treeless plains scattered here and 
 there throughout the great northern wilderness. Here the 
 hunter collects a thick, dry nest at sundown, and spreads 
 the warm blanket that he has carried on his back all the weary 
 way from camp ; without it the cold would be unendurable 
 after three or four hours of silent waiting. 
 
 When a bull answers a call from such a spot he will 
 generally circle the barren just within the edge of surrounding 
 forest, and unless enraged by jealousy will rarel}^ venture into 
 the open. He is a creature of the thick woods ; never at ease 
 unless within quick reach of their protection. 
 
 An exciting incident happened to Alek, my Indian guide, 
 one autumn while hunting on one of these barrens with a 
 sportsman whom he was guiding. He was calling one night 
 from a thicket near the middle of a narrow barren. No answer 
 came, though for an hour or more he felt quite sure that a bull 
 was near and listening. He was about to try the roar of the 
 bull, when the creature suddenly burst out of the woods behind 
 the two men, in exactly the opposite quarter from that which 
 
MOOSK-C ALINING. 
 
 57 
 
 they were watching, and in which they believed their game to 
 be hidden. 
 
 Alek started to creep across the thicket, but on the instant 
 a second challenge rang out fiercely in front of them, and 
 directly across the open they saw the underbrush sway 
 violently, as the bull they had long suspected broke out in a 
 towering rage, grunting and grinding his teeth, and thrashing 
 the bushes with his big antlers. 
 
 He was slow in advancing, however, and Alek crept rapidly 
 
 A Bull Moose and Herd. 
 
 to the Other side of the thicket, where, a moment later, his 
 excited hiss called his companion. From the opposite fringe 
 of forest the second bull had hurled himself out, and was 
 plunging with savage roars straight toward them. 
 
 Crouching low among the firs, they awaited his headlong 
 rush, not without many a startled glance backward, and a very 
 uncomfortable sense of being trapped and frightened, as Alek 
 confessed to me in confidence. He had left his gun in camp ; 
 his employer had insisted upon it in his eagerness to kill the 
 moose himself. 
 
58 
 
 MOOvSE-CALLING. 
 
 The bull had come rapidly within rifle-shot. In a minute 
 more he would be in the thicket, and already the rifle-sight 
 was trying to cover a vital spot, when right behind them, at 
 the thicket's edge it seemed, a frightful roar and a furious 
 pounding of hoofs brought them to their feet with a bound. 
 
 A second later the rifle was lying among the bushes, and a 
 frightened hunter was scratching and smashing in a desperate 
 hurry up among the branches of a low spruce, as if only the 
 tip-top were half high enough. Alek was nowhere to be seen, 
 unless one had the eyes of an owl to find him down among the 
 roots of a big windfall. 
 
 But the first moose smashed straight through the thicket 
 without looking up or down, and out on the barren a tremen- 
 dous struggle began. There was a few minutes' confused 
 uproar, of savage grunts, grinding teeth, pounding hoofs and 
 clashing antlers, with a hoarse undertone of labored breathing. 
 Then the excitement of the fight was too strong to be resisted, 
 and a dark form wriggled out from among the roots, to look 
 at the struggling brutes not thirty feet away. 
 
 Three times Alek hissed for the white man employer to 
 come down, but that gentleman was safe astride the highest 
 branch that would bear his weight, with no desire evidently 
 for a better view of the fight. 
 
 Then Alek found the rifle among the bushes, and waiting 
 till the bulls backed away for one of their furious charges, he 
 brought the larger one to his knees with a bullet through the 
 shoulders. The second stood startled an instant, with raised 
 head and n:tuscles quivering, then dashed away across the 
 l)arren and into the forest. 
 
 Such encounters are often numbered among the tragedies 
 of the great wilderness. In tramping through the forest one 
 sometimes finds two sets of huge antlers locked firmly together, 
 and scattered about among the underbrush white bones picked 
 clean by wildcats and prowling foxes. It needs no written 
 record to tell their story. 
 
 WlIvTJAM J. IvONG. 
 
Fox -Hunting in New England. 
 
 The health-giving, all-day hunt of a fox on his native hills, 
 as free and nearly as fleet as the wind, is a sport which is still 
 popular in some parts of New England, and one which is in a 
 high degree calculated to develop the endurance, wariness and 
 patience which go to make a true sportsman. Though not 
 every day's hunt is successful in the securing of Reynard's 
 brush, there is rarely a day when one cannot be started, and 
 keen is the satisfaction when he falls to the tireless trailing 
 of the hounds, and the patience, good judgment and accurate 
 aim of the hunter. 
 
 Bach sportsman has one or two hounds which he keeps for 
 an occasional hunt, and from one to five or six hounds are 
 ordinarily used. They are strong, well-made dogs of great 
 courage and endurance, read}^ and willing to follow a started 
 fox from twelve to thirty-six hours, unless in his flight he 
 sooner comes within reach of the ambushed gun. They are 
 also keen of scent and intelligent enough to understand the 
 many methods used by the fox to baffie them in their pursuit, 
 and to throw them off the trail. 
 
 In order that the dogs may work well together they should 
 be acquainted and run close instead of stringing out. They 
 should work steadily in full cry, and slowly, as a fox, if too 
 hard pressed by fast following dogs, will go straight away 
 across country instead of circling within range of the hunter. 
 
 While foxes are quite numerous, they are seldom seen 
 unless ahead of the hounds. It is their habit to seek 
 retirement during the day in remote swamps and deep woods 
 where they are not likely to be disturbed, and to emerge after 
 nightfall to roam over the hills. Their lightness and strength 
 of limb takes them many miles in a night. 
 
 In hunting them the hounds find a track made by a fox in 
 his nocturnal ramble, and following it carefully in all its 
 
6o 
 
 FOX-HUNTING IN NP:w KNGI^AND. 
 
 winduigs, come to where the fox has stopped for the day. He 
 is soon on his feet, and leading the dogs on what may be a 
 long journey. If not followed too fast he will usually run in 
 a large circle, and within a few hours swing around to the 
 region from which he was started. The shrewd and experi- 
 enced hunter, knowing the runways usually taken from a 
 certain starting-point, conceals himself within range of one of 
 them, and waits his chance for a shot. 
 
 If the fox comes his way, and if the hunter does not miss 
 him, he is borne home in triumph and exultation over the 
 
 As Fleet as the Wind. 
 
 capture of the wariest, cunningest animal that ever led a 
 hound. If the sly creature takes another course the sportsman 
 shoulders his gun and starts for home, philosophically hoping 
 for better luck next time. 
 
 lyCt me tell you about a hunt I had recently. One day in 
 December we had our first snow, a light, feathery fall lasting 
 during the day till sunset. It was of the right thickness to 
 ensure perfect following the next morning, for snow following 
 is the best, since it is easier for the dogs to keep to the track, 
 and the fox can be distinguished at a much greater distance 
 upon the whitened hills. 
 
 In the evening I met Sweet and Robbins, two veterans in 
 fox-hunting, and a hunt was planned for the next day. Later 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN NKW KNG1.AND. 6l 
 
 in the evening Robbins and I, with our two hounds, Buck and 
 Sport, met at Sweet's house, where we were to pass the night 
 in order to be in readiness for an early start and a long day. 
 
 The next morning, after fortifying ourselves against cold 
 and fatigue by a solid breakfast, and after feeding the dogs, 
 who were in a state of great excitement and crying to be off, 
 we set out for Tatnic Hill, about a mile away, at about sunrise 
 on as beautiful a winter morning as ever dawned ; and though 
 it was cold, our brisk walking kept us from feeling it 
 unpleasantly. 
 
 On reaching the hill we loosed the hounds, and they 
 bounded away in different directions, well knowing that if 
 they separated they would sooner find a track. We walked 
 around aimlessly in order to keep warm, until suddenly from 
 vsouth of us came floating up Buck's clear voice, singing the 
 news that a track was found. In a very few moments Sport 
 and Flirt had joined him. We could hear their voices growing 
 fainter and fainter in the distance, and we knew that they were 
 heading south away from us. 
 
 After a little we could hear them again, showing that they 
 had changed their course, and were bearing east. We stood 
 listening intently, till Sweet said : " Lou, that fox lies in the 
 Scarborough swamp. He'll go north through the woods to 
 Prince Hill, and then to Long Rock, and when he gets there, 
 I shall be there ! " 
 
 Off he started at a great pace. We laughed, and followed 
 him. Sure enough, the hounds swung around to the Scar- 
 borough swamp, and soon after entering it their steady cry 
 broke into a scream as the fox slipped out ahead of them and 
 headed east instead of north. 
 
 Straight away east went 'the fox, till once more the dogs 
 were out of hearing, and we tramped north through the snow 
 to Barrett's Ledges, which we thought he would pass on his 
 return from the river. On reaching them we sat down and 
 rested, and waited further developments. We did not know, of 
 course, whether the fox would come that way, or would take 
 
62 
 
 KOX-HTTNTING IN NKW KNGl.AND. 
 
 some other route and destroy our chances for the day, for it 
 was now the middle of the afternoon. 
 
 We had been sitting there nearly an hour, listening with 
 eager ears, when far in the distance I thought I could faintly 
 hear the voices of the hounds. There was a breathless pause, 
 
 Waiting for a Sliot. 
 
 and then it came clearer and so unmistakable that I exclaimed, 
 " They're coming, boys, run for places ! " 
 
 At the word we scattered. Sweet went to the brow of the 
 hill, Robbins concealed himself in a clump of white birches 
 near an old barway, and I stood behind some trees near a path 
 that ran out from the woods. 
 
 As I stood looking through a small field-glass which I 
 carried, and while the hounds were yet far in the distance, I saw 
 the fox come from the valley below us about a quarter of a 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN NBW ENGLAND. 
 
 mile away, and springing upon a large rock, stop and listen for 
 the dogs with his head turned and one foot uplifted. Satisfied 
 that they were still hot on his track, he dropped from the rock 
 and started on again, running as if he were getting tired, as 
 his next move showed him to be. 
 
 In a number of years' hunting I have known foxes to do 
 many clever things to throw off the dogs, such as running into 
 the midst of a flock of sheep, and staying there to let the sheep 
 trample out the sight and scent of their tracks, running in a 
 shallow brook for a long distance, running in a travelled road, 
 and other schemes that only a fox would think of. But the 
 cleverest thing I ever saw done was done by that fox. 
 
 After leaving the rock he went to an old stone wall, mounted 
 it and proceeded some distance on the top. Then stepping 
 down he trotted straight out across 
 
 a meadow for a distance of about 
 twenty rods. He next turned around, 
 retraced his steps to the wall, care- 
 fully stepping in the track he had 
 made going out, remounted the wall, 
 crouched for a spring, and bounded 
 through the air like a ball, jumping 
 in the opposite direction at least 
 twenty feet, and coming again toward 
 
 us. 
 
 At the Wall. 
 
 Nearer and nearer came the 
 hounds, clearer and clearer came the music of their voices. 
 Buck's bell-like notes, Flirt's high treble and Sport's deep bass 
 making the hills ring again, till finally they burst into sight in 
 the valley, running beautifully, giving tongue constantly, and 
 after following hard all day, still running so close that you 
 could lay a blanket over the three. On they came to the wall, 
 and to the place where Reynard trotted out across the meadow. 
 This track they followed, as he knew they would, till the^^ 
 came to the place where it stopped as completely and suddenly 
 as though the fox had developed wings and flown away. 
 
64 
 
 FOX-HUNTING IN NKW ENGI.AND. 
 
 Then they stopped and seemed to be in consultation, for it 
 was confusing to reach the end of a fresh fox-track in the 
 middle of an open meadow. 
 
 But cunning as Reynard was, and well laid as was his plan, 
 the intelligence and experience of his relentless pursuers were 
 a match for him. After a few moments lost in vainly looking 
 for a continuation of the track, the hounds separated. Buck 
 and Flirt went one way and Sport the other, in large circles, 
 knowing that one or the other must pick up the track again. 
 Soon Sport's roar announced that he had recovered the 
 trail, and in a moment they were in full cry again. 
 
 It was not long before I saw the fox bound into sight 
 again at the edge of the woods, and after standing a moment 
 switching his tail in evident annoyance, he started down the 
 path directly to me. On he came, while my heart beat so that 
 I could hear it, and I scarcely breathed. "A few more rods," I 
 thought, " and I'll try him." 
 
 Suddenly he stopped, raised his head suspiciously and 
 turned abruptly to the left, and ran lightly and swiftly to 
 within eight rods of where Robbins lay. I watched him 
 eagerly, and was wondering whether Robbins could have 
 changed his position, when a wreath of smoke curled out of 
 the white birches and floated lazily upward, and the fox 
 sprang into the air and fell back motionless. 
 
 We hastened to him, and the hounds, their ardor increased 
 by hearing the report of the gun, soon came up in great 
 excitement and threw themselves upon the fox ; but life was 
 extinct, and they soon left him, and lay down to rest. We 
 were then quite a distance from the village, and when 
 we reached it we were all tired and hungry ; but we had that 
 fox's skin, had had a grand day's hunt, and one to be always 
 pleasantly remembered and talked over. 
 
 lyOUIS B. Cl^KVKLAND. 
 
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