T-t Foreign Notices ; — North America. 



periods; particularly for nearly three months in 1826. To-day (Aup. 8.) 

 the thernionieter iius not reaclieil al)ove G4-" in the room in which I am now 

 writini:, and in the air it is below 00°, and we light our fires, being too cold 

 to sit with our windows open ; but this, I hope, will not continue. The 

 nights are excessively colli, and the dews arc heavy. I am assured that this 

 is a very remarkable year; the winter was more severe than had occurred 

 for thirty years preceding. 



When 1 entered my present dwelling-house last fall (October), I found a 

 plot of ground of 4-0 or 50 perches, intended for a garden, but uncultivated, 

 and only occupied by enormous thistles and docks, and abundance of wild 

 sorrel. These it was my first business to destroy, by collecting them in a 

 pile, and making a bonfire. There were many pine and hemlock stumps 

 also sprinkled about, and which prevented any regular operations of culture. 

 These, also, I, with great labour, got rid of, for the most part. One sturdy 

 stump kept me at work three days before I conquered him ; for he seenH;d 

 to bid defiance to the axe and the fire, although the tree had been cut down 

 thirty years before. I was a young beginner then, you will observe, in 

 stump-moving ; and, besides, I prided myself in the design of bringing this 

 little plot into a good state without the aid of any boily, and without its 

 costing me a cent for labour. Now and then my American neighbours 

 would peep over the rails to see me digging and chopping, and would 

 guess I was not used much to handling an axe. However, by perseverance, 

 I got them all out, and rolled them clean off the premises, and there they 

 all lie around me, monuments of my first year's labour. These same stumps, 

 by the way, are so full of turpentine, ami are so hard and tough, tiiat they 

 seem to defy the power of time and the elements to decompose them : at 

 all events, they have been known to continue firm and sound above a 

 century. Having cleared off the surface weeds, I ploughed up the soil, 

 having first spread upon it a thick covering of manure (a thing not used or 

 valued nuich in tiiis country, from the expense of carrying it on the land), 

 and by this time the frosts began to set in, and I let it remain undisturbed 

 till the frost broke up in March. As there was neither tree nor shrub for 

 shelter or ornament around my house, and as the garden was much exposed 

 to the heat of summer and the coUl northern blasts of winter, I set to work 

 to procure young trees from the woods ; amusing myself with selecting spe- 

 cimens of every variety, within my reach, that the neigiibouring forests pro- 

 duce. You well know, my dear Sir, what a beautiful and rich series the 

 American forests furnish. My industry was rewarded by a very interesting 

 collection, serving the double purpose of a screen or shade, and of an em- 

 bellishment. This moist season has been much in theirfavonr, and they flou- 

 rish well, and remind me of our English ornamental shrubberies. In this 

 part of my labour, I nnist confess, I did not receive much encouragement. 

 My neighbours viewed it (|uite as an act of supererogation : that an English- 

 man should take the trouble to come and plant trees, when all other men em- 

 ployed themselves to cut down, was beyond all com|)rehension ; was out of 

 all custom and precedent, among a race whose habits and associations lead 

 them to view as the greatest of natural beauties a naked " clearing," sur- 

 rounded i)y a " worm fence" of split rails. About the 8th of March, the 

 snow disappeared; we once more saw the grass uj)on our " Beaver Dam 

 meadows," and the ice broke up from tiie INloshanuon creek at the bottom 

 of my garden. In the woods, the snow lingered until the 1st of April : but 

 at the earliest moment that I could make any imj)ression upon the ground, 

 I conunenced my spring operations in the garden. You will smile at my 

 narrative ; but I was determined to su|)ply my fiunily wholly with vegetables 

 of my own raising, and I have the gratification now of seeing it effected, 

 and producing enough, too, for the whole winter, I think. I first cut out 

 my walks, and sul)divided the ground into squares, then dug, and trenched, 

 and cleared, and weeded, and took out every stone; made a map of my 

 land, and arranged my crops and courses, like other great farmers, in the 



