7<t BOARD OP AQRICULTUKE. 



Now you can look back and see what has been done by keeping 

 milch cows, and fattening beeves upon the pastures without 

 manuring them, by burning over the land, and depriving it of its 

 absorbent power, and by cutting off the wood. 



Now we have got to the bottom of the whole thing. So far as 

 the pasture land is concerned, we are in the " slough of despond." 

 I often hear it said, such and 3uch a farm used to carry tliirty 

 head of cattle, but now the buildings have got bad, the lands 

 have grown up to brash, and the inhabitants have left and " gone 

 West ; " and unless we take the back track we have got to give 

 it up and go "out West," there to be the same scourge we have 

 been to the hills of New England. 



But let us stop here awhile and see if it is not possible to rein- 

 vigorate these lands, and if it is, let us try to go back up the hill. 

 We all like to slide down the hill, but it is hard work to get back. 

 If we are not afraid of the work, now comes the practical ques- 

 tion — "What are the steps to be taken to get back ?" 



For the purpi)se of improvement, we will divide the pasture 

 lands of Maine into three classes, each of which requires a differ- 

 ent mode of treatment. 



A large proportion of the pasture laud of New England is hill- 

 side and mountain slope. We have much of such pasture in 

 Massachusetts, and I suppose you have in Maine, though being in 

 Maine for the first time, I have been surprised to have seen, so 

 far as I have gone, so little land of this character. These hill-sides 

 are almost unapproachable, but sheep and cattle scale them. My 

 opinion is that the Almighty, in his kindness and care for his 

 creatures, never intended tliat such land should be swept of its 

 forests. I believe he intended it to grow wood. I believe that 

 the farmer has undertaken to turn the natural course of things 

 backward — has undertaken an impossibility in undertaking to make 

 these lands grow grass, and that he should give them up to grow 

 wood every acre of them. Not that he should abandon them to 

 wood, but that he should plant them with the seeds of trees adapted 

 to the climate and locality, and seduously care for them. I be- 

 lieve in the progressive idea of the abandonment of useless fences, 

 but these lands set apart to wood should be kept fenced ; the 

 farmer should surely keep all cattle out, and, if possible, the 

 partridges and rabbits, until these slopes are covered by forests. 

 Not by accident but by design has the great system of Nature 

 been determined ; and if the farmers will conform to it in this 



