CLEARING A FARM OF BOWLDERS. 37 



CLEARING A FARM OF BOWLDERS. 



ESSEX. 



[From an Essay.] 



BY JAMES J. H. GREGORY. 



Bowlders are the large stones, weighing from a few pounds 

 to many tons each: they were more or less rounded in the 

 course of their transportation from their parent ledges in the 

 North-West, long before man was created, as geologists tell 

 us, — such stones as we find on nearly all the farms of New 

 England that are not along river-courses, and of alluvial 

 formation. These are the stones that have given New En- 

 gland her network of stone fences, and which, when they 

 abound on the surface, are considered in the popular judg- 

 ment as indicating soil of good natural capacity. 



When on or near the surface, every farmer finds that they 

 interfere seriously with the cultivation and harvesting of his 

 crops. They are in the path of all horse-work ; they are the 

 nuclei around which gather bushes in the mowing, and weeds 

 in the tillage ; they consecrate a large area around them to 

 waste, where the plough never enters, and stones and general 

 refuse accumulate ; they are unsightly to the eye, and, in the 

 judgment of him who would buy, hold a first mortgage on 

 the premises ; and finally, in the same proportion as agricul- 

 ture progresses, all these objections grow in emphasis. 



Shall the bowlders be removed ? The hard-worked, prac- 

 ' tical New-England farmer replies by a counter-question, — 

 " Will it pay ? " If a man has any leisure, of course it will 

 always pay to invest his time in improvements ; but if clear- 

 ing his land of bowlders means giving time that the farmer 

 recognizes other calls for, and especially if it means the em- 

 ployment of hired help, then the question becomes somewliat 



