38 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Jan. 



forest trees, which we tliink ought to be placed 

 on record, and give it below. 



]\Ir. Freas : — The question is often asked, 

 •whether wood lots should be thinned 1 For ray 

 own part, I am now convinced, after no limited 

 reflection and observation, that they should not. 

 I have seen a growth of wood, natural growth I 

 mean, greatly and irreparably injured l)y it : and 

 I can see no reason why our grain and grass 

 crops should not be sown thin, or thinned out by 

 hand, as well as our woodland crops. The soil is 

 generally found competent to support all that it 

 puts forth, in the case of this class of vegetation, 

 and the heaviest, tallest, and most majestic 

 growth of wood and timber is alw.iys to be found 

 in new countries where the axe and smoke of civ- 

 ilized man have never lieen known. There seems, 

 indeed, to be something contaminating and stul- 

 tifying in his very presence to the beautiful pro- 

 ductions of the natural forest. I have spent many 

 a happy and laborious winter in the dim old 

 woods of Maine, which may well appropriate to 

 itself the poetic appellation of 



"Land of the forest and the rock," 



and along the timber-tenanted shores of the le- 

 gended Songo and broad Sebago, where the tall 

 pine, peering to heaven, 



"Fit for the mast of some tall admiral," 



and the majestic oak, made the wilderness which 

 had nourished them for centuries, tremble as they 

 fell before the logger's glittering axe ; and al- 

 though I have seen the trees standing so compact- 

 ly as to prohibit the passage of sleds, I have found 

 that this closeness of growth was not, to all ap- 

 pearance, detrimental, biit rather the reverse. 



One thing impresses itself upon the mind of the 

 beholder, as rather remarkable. 1 allude to the 

 almost total absence of dead or decayed limbs on 

 the trees constituting these vast primeval forests. 

 When a tree has completed its period of growth, 

 and lived perhaps for half a dozen centuries, it 

 dies, decays and falls ; but the younger and 

 healthier trees are straight, sound in all their 

 limbs, and furnished with a most beautiful pro- 

 fusion of foliage, and of the deepest green. I 

 have frequently passed through clumps of spruce, 

 occupying acres, and all the trees of more tlian 

 medium size, where it was impossible to proceed 

 more than a few yards in a right line, the dense- 

 ness of the growth necessitating and literally com- 

 pelling frequent divergencies to avoid the trees. 

 Yet here had been no trimming or lopping — the 

 growth was as nature produced it, sound and 

 healthy, and to all appearances to remain so for, 

 I have no doubt, hundreds of years to come. But 

 as soon as man commences his presumptuous 

 work of assisting nature in this department, she 

 ceases, in a great measure, to assist herself ; be- 

 comes diseased, with a morl)id lassitude pervad- 

 ing all her system, and fmally yields to the de- 

 stroyer, whose kindness to lier is deatli. 



A New Englander. 



Near Claremoni, N. H., Nov. 22, 1854. 



eating teeth. The grain to be ground is placed 

 in a hopper above the corrugated cylinder, and is 

 made to rotate, when the grain passes between 

 the concave described and tlie cylinder, and is 

 crushed between the spiral flanches of the con- 

 cave and the corrugations on the cylinders, and is 

 tlien discharged, ground, liy an opening in the 

 end of the concave. This mill is now in use, and 

 grinds four bushels per hour l)y one horse power. 

 Scientific American. 



GRrNnixc, Mn,i.s. — An improvement in mills 

 for grinding feed has 1)een made l)y Amory Felton, 

 of Troy, N. Y., which consists in the employ- 

 ment or use of si corrugated cylinder and a con- 

 cave and cap having spiral flanches and recipro- 



For the New England Farmer. 



MONTHLY PAHMER FOE DECEMBER. 



The title page and Index remind us that another 

 volume is completed — another year gone. Years 

 seem short as we grow old. When young, we 

 hurry up time ; when old, time hurries us. How 

 slowly comes Twenty-one ; how rapidly Forty- 

 two ! Yet, instead of growing dizzy or stupid 

 as the "wheels of time fly swifter round," the 

 better course is to "work, for the night cometh," 

 and instead of surrendering at the first summons 

 of old age, bravely reply, like good soldiers, — 

 "Come, and take us." Is it not as much the du- 

 ty of the old to preserve, as it is of the young to 

 improve the mind'! "Old men for counsel," is 

 the dictate of prudence. The young and inexpe- 

 rienced need this, and they look to the pages of 

 the Farmer for it. But they will not iind it 

 there, if old men, who naturally love quietude 

 and repose, do not, like old Solomon, seek out and 

 set in order, the pn^verbs of their experience. 

 It is a common complaint that the sons of farm- 

 oi's are not satisfied with the business of their fa- 

 thers. Is this strange? Think of the mofl'eZs that 

 are placed before them. Plutarch's I-ives ! Any 

 book of biography ! Kings, Generals, Congress- 

 men, Merchant Princes, — what "copies" these for 

 the farmer's boy ! "Biography of American 

 Farmers, Vol. 1." Although I have not yet seen 

 the Prospectus of this work, I have seen in the 

 Farmer of this year what I hope will prove to be 

 the germs of such a production : sketch of the life 

 of Richard Bagg, and of other friends of agri- 

 culture, and very brief notices of several men in 

 connection with statements of their farms. Here, 

 it strikes me, is a line iield for old farmers. You 

 may not have marched an army over the burning 

 sands of Africa, nor been Governor, nor made a 

 fortune by trafficking with Indians or Chinese, but 

 you have a good home, have raised up and educa- 

 ted a family, and therefore, must have done some- 

 thing ; — wluit have you done? Shall not the 

 word Biography or Autobiography, liave a place 

 in the index to the nest volume of the Neio Eng- 

 land Farmer 1 



" Index to the Sixth Volume.'''' — It is a laborious 

 job to make out an index to such a volume as the 

 twelve monthly numbers of the Farmer make. — 

 And the person who made the one before us, pro- 

 bably feels that no one ought to find any fault 

 with it. But he will allow mo to suggest what, 

 for my use, would be an improvement. I should 

 prefer to have every thing that relates to a few of 

 the leading subjects, placed under their respective 

 heads, so that'when investigating any particular 

 subject, I should find in the index reference to ev- 

 ery thing in the volume relating thereto. Taking 

 "5lanures," for instance. I would like to find un- 

 der that word, every thing that is mentioned in 



