AMOS JACKMAN.

By Daniel Doan '36. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957. 312 pp. $3.95.

The economic and social pressures that forced abandonment of so many farms in the foothills of the White Mountains have been the subject of much conversation, some landuse studies, and an occasional work of fiction. In this last category obviously falls the recent effort by Daniel Doan to explain why the hill-farmers were obliged to leave the upland acres they cherished for the apparent security of the valley.

All Outing Clubbers and the many others who have speculated over the reasons for the cellar holes and neglected lilac bushes observedin their travels off the beaten path will learn much from this book. Many such readers will remember the final futile years of Quintown in the spreading wilderness between Smarts Mountain and Mount Cube. That era, the final chapter in man's vain efforts to settle the back-country of this vicinity, is dramatically portrayed by one who observed the decline at first hand.

After the author graduated from Dartmouth during the depression of the midthirties, he worked for his found on a marginal farm north of Hanover. He survived until the economic skies cleared and in the process, perhaps unconsciously, stumbled upon solid literary treasure.

The plot was suggested by many real incidents. The characters are also entirely plausible, although we never had the good fortune to encounter on a Grafton County trout brook the likes of the heroine.

But the influx into the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee Region of city-raised summer visitors and retired families increases the probability of farm boy meeting urban heiress.

The reader need not wonder what happened in later life to Amos and Joan. Hanover and the surrounding villages along the Connecticut Valley are well populated with Jackmans.

The author's description of the countryside in its changing seasons is superb. His apt use of native expressions supplies authenticity. For a down-to-earth novel the story of Amos Jackman's eventful life is hard to beat.