CLEANING THE LAND. 75 



ghosts of vegetation in that field, with the stumps of 

 others from four to five feet high, also erect, and all of 

 them of a most intense whiteness, the plough having done 

 its office between these monuments of idleness, and 

 scratched up an intervening crop of corn. The way that 

 this is brought about is from the farmer or settler (who in 

 better-regulated countries would have been the labourer 

 of other men possessed of capital, instead of an abortive 

 agricultural squatter on his own hook) having no hands 

 but his own to aid him in his toil, the task of a thorough 

 clearance from wood of his lands would have been too 

 much for him. Hence he grubs up the superficial shrubs 

 and bushes, and makes them into a fire at the root of the 

 larger forest trees, and he sets the whole thing in a blaze 

 at a dry time, and trusts thus to kill the trees. Those 

 that escape death from the effects of the conflagration he 

 " girdles," that is, he barks a foot or more of their entire 

 circumference, and thus stops the circulation of the sap 

 by which they live. By fire and " girdling " he thus 

 kills all trees within his inclosure, and then leaves the 

 storms to prostrate them as they gradually decay, when 

 of course he removes 'their bulk for the purposes of fuel. 

 I have heard of a machine which the better class of these 

 strange farmers use for the riddance of their land from old 

 stumps of trees, which they call "the tooth-drawer," I 

 believe propelled by oxen or horses ; there is a lever to 

 it, which extracts the bole of the tree, roots and all ; but 

 I never saw the machine in operation. Pumpkins and 

 melons, all excessively fine, and sweet potatoes, which I 

 think detestable, seem to me to be the only garden pro 

 duce they care about. They all keep fowls of the com 

 mon sort, very largely mingled with the Cochin China 

 breed, and therefore the eggs which you procure at all 



