STONE ON A FA.KM. 217 



in cultivation?" If you do, clear it of stone from 

 the surface upward, and for at least two feet down- 

 ward, though they be as large as haycocks, and as 

 fixed as the everlasting hills. Clear your field of 

 every stone bigger than a goose-egg, that the Plow 

 or the Mower may strike in doing its work, or give 

 it up to timber, plant it thoroughly, and leave its 

 stones unmolested until you or your descendants shall 

 have a paying use for them. 



A friend deeply engaged in lumbering gives me a 

 hint, which I think some owners of stony farms will 

 find useful. He is obliged to run his logs down shal- 

 low, stony creeks, from the bottom of which large 

 rocks often protrude, arresting the downward pro- 

 gress of his lumber. When the beds of these creeks 

 are nearly dry in Summer, he goes in, with two or 

 three stout, strong assistants, armed with crowbars 

 and levers, and rolls the stones to this side and that, 

 so as to leave a clear passage for his logs. Occasion- 

 ally, he is confronted by a big fellow, which defies 

 his utmost force ; when, instead of drilling and blast- 

 ing, he gathers dead tree-tops, and other dry wood 

 of no value, from the banks, and builds a hot fire on 

 the top of each giant bowlder. When the fire has 

 burned out, and the rock has cooled, he finds it soft- 

 ened, and, as it were, rotten, on the top, often split, 

 and every way so demoralized that he can deal with 

 it as though it were chalk or cheese. He estimates 

 his saving by this process, as compared with drilling 

 and blasting, as much more than fifty per cent. I 

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