AGRICULTURAL OBSERVATIONS 267 



merchantmen. Imagine my disappointment when, 

 soon after crossing the line into the State of Maine, 

 I saw several saw mills cutting thin box-boards out 

 of logs nearly all of which were smaller than 

 telegraph poles. The railway station building in 

 this pine-tree state was finished inside with Georgia 

 pine! 



" So withered stumps disgraced the sylvan scene 

 No longer fruitful and no longer green." 



I frequently visited Simcoe, Canada, and at Til- 

 sonberg, where there was a tedious wait for rail- 

 way connection, I would wander off into the near-by 

 clearings where infinite toil was being expended to 

 destroy the beautiful trees, in order that sunlight 

 might be let in to poor, water-soaked patches of 

 land which by no possible means could ever be 

 made to pay more than the meagerest reward for 

 the labor of clearing and tilling them. In travel- 

 ling from Montreal to Stambridge a French 

 district we passed through long stretches of 

 level country which had been cleared and fenced 

 into little fields by the severest toil. So many and 

 so high were the fences that from the car window 

 the whole countryside looked like one vast, con- 

 tinuous rail pile; only small areas of cultivated 

 land adjoining the railroad track could be seen; 



