MR. newhall's address. 9 



j Another, and perhaps the greatest cause of the cleterloration of 



! these lands is owing to our farmers generally having abandoned the 



keeping of sheep, which are the best gleaners of pastures, after other 



• stock ; readily feeding upon bushes, vines, briars and other foul 

 ^ growth that is left by other stock, and which will increase and soon run 



out a pasture, if left to the occupancy of the cow and horse, without 

 I the intervention oi sheep or the plough. I am confident that sheep, 

 ' equal to half the number of cows, maybe kept in the same pastures 



without detriment to the cows, by letting the sheep follow the cows 

 \ from pasture to pasture ; and there is no mode which has been re 

 : commended for exterminating wood waxen and other noxious weeds, 

 ' that destroy all valuable growth of vegetation, that can be adopted 



for this purpose, attended with so little expense, or perhaps I may 

 ! say with any profit, as that of feeding with sheep. If the surface 

 ' is cleared by mowing or burnin^? or both, and fully pastured with 

 ■ sheep, and if so highly stocked as to require some extra feed, the 

 ! better. In three years the land will be entirely cleared, the soil 

 I enriched and fit for the plough, where it is not too rocky, and where 

 I it is, it will make good dairy pastures. 



I A very considerable portion of these lands, in this part of our 

 ( county, have been permitted, and in some instances encouraged, to 

 ' grow over to wood, which, owing to the rocks and roughness'^of the 

 ; surface being unfit for cultivation, is probably for the interest of the 

 ; owners, and certainly no detriment to the public, for wood and tim- 

 \ ber are diminishing in quantity very fast; and the invention of 



steam will hasten the fulfilment of the Miller prophecy— the burning 

 . up of the world, or at least the combustible parts of it. 

 ; Some twenty or thirty years since, geologists made a survey, and 



exammed the coal mines in England, who reported that in their 



• opmion, there was coal sufficient at the then present consumption to 

 1 supply the country for two centuries. The increase of its consump- 

 } tion since has been very great. If the calculation then made is at 



all to be depended upon, there will not be a coal left in that country 

 one hundred years hence ; and it is easily perceived, considering 



i t^ie vast quantities now consumed, that if the whole island of Great 

 Britain were coal, it would take but a few centuries to burn it down 



I to high water mark. 



I Our pastures might be very much improved, undoubtedly, by 

 j planting forest trees upon them of different kinds, accordin^^ to the 

 I nature of the soil. 9 



