SOLON ROBINSON, 1850 439 



given at length in another article. But now, who will 

 plant an orchard when he knows the fruit will be all 

 stolen? Or who will buy a flock of sheep to graze his 

 rocky hills, although good for little else than sheep walks, 

 when he knows one half of them, at least, will go to the 

 dogs, instead of the butcher. 



I enjoyed a long ride with an enterprising young 

 farmer, through the winding crooked roads, and over the 

 granite hills, and saw much more to interest my mind 

 than I can now relate. Everything has an ancient, and I 

 must say rather behind-the-age appearance. Old-fash- 

 ioned gambrel-roofed farm houses; old barns and out- 

 buildings, covered with an old mossy coat; old mossy 

 wells, with old iron-bound buckets ; old willow trees over- 

 hanging the old spring house, from whence the same 

 little rill has trickled down among the old grey granite 

 rocks, through long centuries of old time. Old stone walls 

 meet the eye at every turn, to mark where once was per- 

 haps a fence; where now is an unsightly line of stones, 

 greatly in the way of cultivation, which would serve a 

 far better purpose if buried beneath the surface to act as 

 underdrains, than they do in their present position. 

 Much of the land is of a character that would be bene- 

 fited by such a disposition of the surface stones, which, 

 in many cases, have been laid into walls, just to get them 

 out of the way. Do farmers ever think how much walls 

 are in the way; or how much land they now occupy? I 

 noticed upon one farm, five contiguous lots, not one of 

 which contained an acre, surrounded by heavy stone 

 walls; and the remainder of the farm was divided into 

 inclosures of four or five acres each. Probably one tenth 

 of the land was thus lost to cultivation, besides the loss 

 of time in annual repairs, and keeping them clear of 

 bushes. Close as this county is to the city, the majority 

 of the inhabitants have not yet caught the infecting spirit 

 of improvement, which is now animating the age, and 

 fulfiling that prophecy which says, the crooked shall be 

 made straight, and rough places smooth. But the time is 

 speedily coming when old prejudices must give way. 



