, 



190 May 1749. 



trees. The caterpillars often eat all the 

 leaves from the trees, fo that they cannot 

 bear fruit in that year; and numbers die 

 every year, both of fruit- trees an dforeft- trees. 

 The grafs in the meadows is likewife con- 

 fumed by a kind of worms, and another 

 fpecies caufe the plumbs to drop, before 

 they are half ripe. The oak here affords 

 not near fo good timber as the European 

 oak. The fences cannot ftand above eighteen 

 years. The houfes are of no long duration. 

 The meadows are poor, and what grafs they 

 have is bad. The pafture for cattle in the 

 forefts, con.fi fts of fuch plants as they do 

 hot like, and which they are compelled to 

 eat by neceffity ; for it is difficult to find a 

 iingle grafs in great forefts, where the trees 

 ftand far afunder, and where the foil is ex- 

 cellent. For this reafon, the cattle are 

 forced, during almoft the whole winter and 

 part of the fummer, to live upon the young 

 fhoots and branches of trees, which fome- 

 times have no leaves : therefore, the cows 

 give very little milk, and decreafe in fize 

 every generation. The houfes are extreme- 

 ly unfit for winter habitations. Hurricanes 

 are frequent, which overthrow trees, carry 

 away roofs, andfometimes houfes, and do a 

 great deal of damage. Some of thefe in- 

 conveniencies might be remedied by art ; 



but 



