38 A Change and Succession of Crops recommended, 



The corollary to be drawn from these observations, 

 is practical. Speculation is vain and visionary, when 

 it does not assist in the practical business of life. Let 

 agriculturists be warned, by the declijie 0^ plants or ani- 

 mals, to change their course. When c7'ops are repeat- 

 tree was previously to be found." The reviewers speak in- 

 credulouslv of this fact, which is nevertheless undoubtedly 

 true ; and corroborative of similar relations. Many of the 

 phenomena of nature pass so often without notice, that they 

 appear incredible, when our attention to them is awakened. 

 We are yet novices in these secrets, which, with all our 

 pride of science and experience, are hidden from our ken. 

 We can but seldom agree about effects, much less do we ac- 

 cord in developing causes. It is almost as extraordinaiy, 

 that any timber should grow, where, at the depth of four 

 inches from the surface, he f Mackenzie J uniformly met with 

 a solid body of ice, in midsummer : but this is not a solitary 

 instance. 



The savage and ruinous custom oi firing the xvoods, against 

 which our laws have feebly provided, is borrowed by our 

 borderers, from their predecessors the Indians. It not only 

 prevails where Mackenzie found it, in the northern regions 

 of our Continent; but through the southern and middle dis- 

 tricts of the wilderness, possessed by the natives, and their 

 half civilized successors. The partial and temporar)- benefits 

 of pasture, or facilities to hunting, ser^^e as excuses for an 

 enormitv, which renders extensive tracts of country, origi- 

 nally valuable, finally desert, sterile and worthless. No de- 

 predations on personal property, are so destructive, as tliis 

 most atrocious and irreparable offence. Timber will not grow, 

 or thrive, where fires of the woods are frequently repeated. 

 The change of timber, from a species destroyed, to one en- 

 tirelv different ; is by no means confined to those places, where 

 fires have caused the destruction of precedent growths. 



