GOOD AND BAD HUSBANDRY. 19 



moved at a heavy, perhaps ruinous, cost. A rich 

 man might order them all dug out in a month, and 

 see his order fully obeyed ; but, except to clear a spot 

 for a garden or under very peculiar circumstances, it 

 would not pay ; and a poor man cannot afford to in- 

 cur a hea"\y expense merely for appearance's sake, or 

 to make a theatrical display of energy. In the great 

 majority of cases, he who farms for a living can't af- 

 ford to pull green stumps, but must put his newly- 

 cleared land into grass at the earliest day, mow the 

 smoother, pasture the rougher portions of it, and wait 

 for rain and drouth, heat and frost, to rot his stumps 

 until they can easily be pulled or burned out as they 

 stand. 



So with regard to a process I detest, known as 

 Pasturing. I do firmly believe that the time is at 

 hand when nearly all the food of cattle will, in our 

 Eastern and Middle States, be cut and fed to them 

 that we can't afford much longer, even if we can at 

 present, to let them roam at will over hill and dale, 

 through meadow and forest, biting off the better 

 plants and letting the worse go to seed ; often poach- 

 ing up the soft, wet soil, especially in Spring, so that 

 their hoofs destroy as much as they eat ; nipping and 

 often killing in their infancy the finest trees, such as 

 the Sugar Maple, and leaving only such as Hemlock, 

 Ked Oak, Beech, &c., to attain maturity. Our race 

 generally emerged from savageism and squalor into 

 industry, comfort and thrift, through the Pastoral 

 condition the herding, taming, rearing and training 



