446 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



ments ; and there are unerring tokens of her im- 

 pending approach. The clang of the anvil has 

 ceased; the mill grinds not, nor saws, and the 

 mountain stream babbles or roars along its unim- 

 peded course. The majesty of State laws compels 

 to a good condition of the public roads, though 

 there are few to travel them. But Nature is on her 

 triumphal march, arid trenches upon these as well 

 as the garden and the field. First comes the grass, 

 like the atmosphere, determined that there shall be 

 no vacuum in nature. It covers the fallows of hus- 

 bandry, the deep cuts made for the avenues of 

 trade ; spreads over and obliterates the art or skill 

 of the landscape gardener, and claims a place or 

 even superiority, with the exquisite flowers of the 

 parterre. It is universal. Cattle graze and enjoy 

 it, and minister to the wants of man. 



But as the lion reigns supreme in the locality 

 which he has inherited or selected as his own, and 

 levels contributions over st'll wider circles, so 

 there is a power behind the grass which shall not 

 only supplant, but drive it from its realm. The for- 

 est approaches. Here and there, where the decay 

 ing rock yields up its potash or its lime, fit food for 

 the embryo plant, appears the pine, ash, oak, ma 

 pie, beech, birch or walnut, and soon assumes the 

 form and comeliness of a tree. Various shrubs 

 mingle with them, whose innumerable leaves ex- 

 tract from the atmosphere its nutritive properties 

 and these, cast annually, cover and protect the sur- 

 face and supply nourishment to the roots of all, 

 Forest trees take the lead, and as they f;ain superi- 

 ority, the lesser plants yield, laying down their 

 lives — a sort of vegetable martyrdom — for the gen- 

 eral g.' od ; they were useful in life, and when done 

 with that, still continue to sustain the living growth. 

 Here is a new state of things. Man and his ways 

 have disappeared. Nature has assumed the sway, 

 and again clothed the earth in her primitive dress. 

 The forest is everywhere, covering hill, valley and 

 plain. Silence is in its dark courts, save when the 

 thunder breaks over it, or the tornado prostrates it 

 with its ferocious breath. 



Such is the course of Nature — to contend with 

 her is worse than folly, being no less than a sacri- 

 fice of health, prosperity and comfort. Let her 

 have these lands, and use them as she will. In 

 thirty years they will be covered with trees fit for 

 timber and fuel, and return a profit to their own- 

 ers. 



In the mean time, if the proprietors of the more 

 level and fertile lands wish to keep the native pop- 

 ulation at home, they must invite the mountain- 

 men and the cobble-stone-knoll- men into their dis- 

 tricts, and give them employment in the numerous 

 manufactories of one kind and another, or divide 

 their rich lands with them for a fair compensation. 

 These lands, under a higher state of cultivation, 

 Will produce well nigh as much as the whole do 



now, while the products of the forest will be a clear 

 gain ; an immense expense of fencing and road- 

 making will be saved, the sparse population will be 

 gathered into more compact communities, taxes of 

 all sorts decreased, and the facilities for the trans- 

 action of business and the general welfare and hap- 

 piness of all greatly promoted. If these things are 

 not regarded, the emigration West will continue 

 until scarcely a type of the original New England 

 stock will be left, and the Shylocks who hold on to 

 the better lands with penurious grip, will find them- 

 selves surrounded by those speaking other tongues, 

 and in whose veins runs not a drop of their ances- 

 tral blood. 



The fiat has gone forth, and puny man cannot 

 check its career. Large portions of Massachusetts 

 soil, and immensely larger of Maine, New Hamp- 

 shire and Vermont will grow up to forest, in spite 

 of furnaces and locomotives. England has passed 

 through the same process. Even now, some of the 

 old towns of ^lassachusetts, already settled more 

 than two hundred years, have a great many more 

 acres covered with wood than they had fifty years 

 ago. In the introduction of scientific principles to 

 his fields, the farmer's head now performs much 

 that was once required of his hands. He tills less 

 land, but the cultivation is more systematic and 

 thorough, and when his crops are secured, they are 

 expended with an economy little understood by his 

 predecessors. 



Our travelling companion, Jacob B. Farmer, 

 Esq., of Concord, Mass., is a gentleman of rare 

 powers of observation ; he confirms the views we 

 have expressed, — states that he has travelled over 

 the various routes we have now taken, more than 

 one hundred and fifty times within forty years, and 

 that he has noticed these desertions of the original 

 homesteads through the whole time, — but that a 

 large majority of them belong to the latter half of 

 that period. 



In this stroll among the farmers, we passed 

 through fourteen towns, — eight in Massachusetts 

 and six in N. H. Hancock, from which we date, 

 is generally hilly. On the south and easterly 

 portion there is a comparatively flat tract of sever- 

 al hundred acres of excllent land, much of it free 

 from stones, and producing large crops of good 

 quality grass without manure. It is seldom plowed. 

 Mr. David Wood, who owns one of the farms oc- 

 cupying this tract, has adopted the English fal- 

 lowing system on a portion of it, by plowing two 

 or three years in succession, and then seeding down, 

 but with what success, we did not learn. Mr. 

 Wood usually winters some thirty horses, a pair of 

 oxen, and several cows, for all of which the hay is 

 cut. The horses perform no labor, and are kept in 

 good condition, by a half bushel of cut hay, and a 

 quart of meal, corn and oat meal, twice each day. 



Out of the 19,000 acres of this town, we should 



