214 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 



picking of New-England, and other hilly regions, this 

 is a most welcome change; but when the pioneer 

 comes to look about him for stone to wall his cellar 

 and his well, to underpin his barn, and form the 

 foundations of his dwelling, he realizes that the 

 bowlders he had exulted in leaving behind him were 

 not wholly and absolutely a nuisance ; glad as he was 

 to be rid of them forever, he would like now to call 

 some of them back again. 



Yet, the Eastern farmer of to-day has fewer uses 

 for stone than his grandfather had. He does not 

 want his farm cut up into two or three-acre patches, 

 by broad-based, unsightly walls, which frost is apt to 

 heave year after year into greater deformity and less 

 efficiency ; nor does he care longer to use them in 

 draining, since he must excavate and replace thrice as 

 much earth in making a stone as in making a tile 

 drain ; while the former affords shelter and impunity 

 to rats, mice, and other mischievous, predatory ani- 

 mals, whose burrowing therein tends constantly to 

 stimulate its natural tendency to become choked with 

 sand and earth. Of the stone drains, constructed 

 through parts of my farm by foremen whose wills 

 proved stronger than my own, but two remain in par- 

 tial operation, and I shall rejoice when these shall 

 have filled themselves up and been counted out ever- 

 more. Happily, they were sunk so low that the sub- 

 soil plow will never disturb them. 



Still, my confidence that nothing was made in vain 

 is scarcely shaken by the prevalence and abundance 



