1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



4U 



only far enough apart for the narrow road to pass 

 between. These were the first of the Washington 

 cedars we had seen ; it would really seem that we 

 had never seen a tree before. And yet they were 

 only medium specimens. 



Close by the house lay the first cut of the Big 

 Tree par eminence ; the remaining part, or top, 

 had been cut up and removed. Near this first cut 

 stood the stump, about six feet high, with an arbor 

 mounted on the top, which had been squared down 

 for this purpose, the posts of the arbor standing out 

 in the line of the largest circuit at the ground, and 

 the space between them and the circuit of the toj) 

 filled in by a floor of short boards. The diameter 

 of the top is by measurement twenty-five feet one 

 way, and twenty-three and one-half the other. The 

 diameter at the ground was thirty-one feet. They 

 are all included in a space of fitty acres, and are 

 only ninety in number. The ground occupied is a 

 rich wet bottom, and the foot of the moist northern 

 slope adjacent, covered also with an undergrowth. 

 And why are they here, just here, and no where 

 else ? This, I confess, is to me the greatest, strang- 

 est wonder of all, that nowhere in the whole earth 

 is there another known example of these Anakiras 

 of the forest ; ninety seeds alone have been started, 

 ninety, and no more. Is there, was there no other 

 piece of ground but just this, in the whole world, 

 that could fitly take the seeds of such a growth? — 

 Why have they never spread, why has no one seed 

 of the myriads they sprinkled every year on the 

 earth, ever started in any other locahty ? 



And what a starting it is, when such a seed o^ 

 life begins to grow. Little did that tiny form of 

 matter, about the size of a parsnip seed, and look- 

 ing more like it than any other, imagine what it 

 was going to do, what feelings to excite, when it 

 started the first sproutings of the Big Tree ! We 

 measured an enormous sugar pine recently felled. 

 Sixty feet from the ground it was six feet in diam- 

 eter, and it was two hundred and forty feet high. 

 We measured one of the prostrate giants, and two 

 hundred and forty feet from the ground it was six 

 feet in diameter. The top was gone, but it could not 

 have been less than three hundred and fifty feet 

 high. And yet this tree was only eighteen feet 

 in diameter, where the Big Tree was twenty-five. 

 If the Big Tree were hollowed, one might drive 

 the largest load of hay through it without even 

 a brush of contact. 



Many of the trees, and all the largest of them 

 that remain, are greatly injured by fire. Their 

 time is therefore shortened, and a long time will 

 be required to bring the smaller ones to their max- 

 imum of growth. That a man instigafcd by the in- 

 fernal love of money, should have cut down the 

 biggest of them, and skinned the next, one hundred 

 and twenty feet upwards from the ground, (viz. : 

 the mother) that he might show or sell the bark of 

 her body, both sound as a rock at the heart, and 

 good for a thousand years to come — O, it surpasses 

 all contempt ! And yet to see this giant mother 

 still growing up as before, and bearing her fresh 

 foliage, ripening her seeds, and refusing to die ; hid- 

 ing still her juices and working her pumps in the 

 deep masses of her barkless body, which the sun of 

 two whole years has not been able to season through, 

 dead as it is, and weather-cracked without — it is a 

 sight so grand as almost to compensate for the loss 

 we sufier by the baseness of the human scamp." 



CORN-FIELDS. 



When on the breath of autumn breeze, 

 From pastures dry and brown, 



Goes floating like an idle thought, 

 The fair white thistle-down, 



then what joy to walk at will, 

 Upon the golden harvest hill ! 



What joy in dreamy ease to lie 



Amid a field new shorn, 

 And see all round on sun-lit slopes 



The piled-up stokes of corn, 

 And send the Fancy wandering o'er 

 All pleasant harvest fields of yore ! 



1 feel the day ; I see the field, 

 The quivering of the leaves, 



And good old Jacob and his house 



Binding the yellow sheaves ; 

 And at this very hour I seem 

 To be with Joseph in his dream. 



I see the fields of Bethlehem, 



And reapers many a one — 

 Bending unto their sickles' stroke, 



And Boaz looking on ; 

 And Ruth, the Moabitess fair. 

 Among the gleaners stooping there. 



Again I see a little child. 



His mother's sole delight, 

 God's living gift of good unto 



The kind, good Shunamite, 

 To mortal pangs I see him yield, 

 And the lad bear him from the field. 



The sun-bathed quiet of the hills, 



The fields of Galilee, 

 That eighteen hundred years ago 



Were full of corn, I see. 

 And the dear Saviour take his way 

 'Mid ripe ears on the Sabbath day. 



O golden fields of bending corn. 



How beautiful they seem ! 

 The reaper-folk, the piled up sheaves, 



To me are like a dream ; 

 The sunshine and the very air 

 Seem of old time, acd take me there ! 



Fur the New England Farmer. 



EFFECTS OF HOME-MADE GUAKO. 



Mr. Brown : — Having noticed several articles 

 on the value and use of " Home Guano," or hen 

 manure, in the jV. E. Farmer, and having an ac- 

 cumulation of the droppings of the hen roost for 

 years on hand, about half of which had been heaped 

 up, wet, and have undergone a state of fementa- 

 tion, the balance being dry, I determined to make 

 an application of it to my corn-field, although not 

 in strict conformity to the course suggested by the 

 correspondents of the Farmer. 1 took something 

 over one-half of a two-acre piece v.hich I had pre- 

 pared by turning under 40 loads of Ijarn-yard ma- 

 nure, spread on the sod, marked off" my land and 

 dropped the guano in rows, a single handful to the 

 hill, from a basket as one would ])laster, and cov- 

 ered with a hoe full or two, of soil to the depth of 

 half to three-fourths of an inch deep. On this 1 

 planted the corn. The balance of the pi( ce wag 

 planted from the same seed the same d ly, ma- 

 nured with compost. You no doubt have juiticipa- 

 ted the result, but for the benefit of those inexpe- 

 rienced in its use, and not appreciating its nutri- 

 tive or killing qualities, I submit it. While that 



