CROPS AND PROFITS 



of mattocks would start a flood of perspiration, 

 before he had combed a square yard of it into 

 a state of garden pulverization. 



Lying above this, however, was a vegetable 

 mould, with a shiny silicious intermixture 

 (what precise people would call a sandy loam), 

 well knitted together by a compact mass of 

 the roots of myrtles, of huckleberry bushes, 

 and of ferns. Geologically, the hill was a 

 "drift"; agriculturally, considering the steep 

 slopes and the matted roots, it was uninviting ; 

 pictorially, it was rounded into the most grace- 

 ful of cumulated swells, and all glowing with 

 its wild verdure; practically, it was a coarse 

 bit of neglected cow-pasture, with the fences 

 down, and the bushes rampant. 



What could be done with this ? It is a query 

 that a great many landholders throughout New 

 England will have occasion some day to sub- 

 mit to themselves, if they have not done so al- 

 ready. Overfeeding with starveling cows, and 

 a lazy dash at the brush in the idle days of 

 August, will not transform such hills into fields 

 of agricultural wealth. Under such regimen 

 they grow thinner and thinner. The annual 

 excoriation of the brush above ground, seems 

 only to provoke a finer and firmer distribution 

 of the roots below; and the depasturing by 



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