1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARiMER. 



423 



fortable and in many cases tasty farm buildings 

 occupy their places. Carts, wagons, and even 

 the family carriage, now roll over good roads, 

 where we remember sloughs, and rocks, and 

 roots, and "sharp pitches." Where we once 

 followed the sturdy mower with a "sharp 

 stick," boys now scratch their heads as they 

 stand with ' 'nothing to do" but watch a machine 

 that not only cuts the grass but spreads the 

 swath. Great changes, real and imaginary, 

 were presented to our eyes. The actors of the 

 past were gone. We followed them to a neatly 

 walled graveyard, where on marble and slate 

 — both the product of the surrounding hills — 

 we read a brief biography of most of these 

 early settlers. They "rest from their labors 

 and their works do follow them." Were they 

 good or bad ? Did they benefit or curse the 

 land .'* Shall we approve or condemn ? 



But we noticed other changes. On some of 

 the land from which the primitive forests were 

 removed since our recollection, there is now a 

 thrifty "second growth," which has already 

 produced "saw logs" and sugar orchards. 

 Indeed many of these hill farms are now de- 

 voted to pasturage and the growth of wood. 

 Even in the vicinity of Boston, it is a mooted 

 question with the oldest inhabitants whether 

 the amount of wood is less now than it was 

 fifty or one hundred years ago. 



Wood seems to be the natural product of 

 our New England hills. Our cleared lands 

 manifest a strong tendency to revert, not to a 

 barren desert, but to a tangled forest. Bushes 

 and wood are continually encroaching on pas- 

 ture and cultivated fields. And to our minds 

 there is little danger that the hills of New 

 England will ever become as destitute of veg- 

 etation as are those of Egypt and of other 

 countries, whose soil and climate are unfavora- 

 ble to the growth of forest trees. 



Effects of Improved Culture. — Co- 

 lumella, in his fourth book, De Re Bustica, 

 tells the storj of a certain Paridius, who had 

 a farm planted with vines, and he also had two 

 daughters. Of his farm, he gave one-third to 

 the man who married his eldest daughter, but 

 by increased attention to cultivation, he re- 

 ceived as large a product as before, from the 

 two-thirds which he had reserved to himself. 

 Afterwards, on the marriage of his second 

 daughter, he gave away half of the remaining 



land, and in a short time, he found by still 

 greater improvements in culture that his in- 

 come was in no respect diminished. From 

 this. Columella very naturally infers that as 

 much attention and labor was bestowed on the 

 remaining third, as had been previously be- 

 stowed on the whole farm. Is it not true, at 

 the present time, that if the manure and labor 

 now expended on the whole farm, were ex- 

 pended on one-third of it, the crop, in a ma- 

 jority of instances, would be in no respect di- 

 minished ? We have yet much to learn re- 

 specting the capacity of the soil. 



THE LEAF. 



The fibres of the leaf which spread out from 

 the base, are prolongations of the vessels of the 

 wood ; and beneath them, forming the covering 

 of their under surface, are similar prolongations 

 of the inner bark. The green exterior ponion 

 of the leaf is a continuation of the outer tissue 

 of the bark ia a thin, porous form. The pores 

 or mouths in the green portions are an essen- 

 tial part of their structure. The leaf of the 

 common lilac is said to contain not less than 

 120,000 pores to the square inch. They are 

 most numerous on the under surface. The 

 leaves spread out their broad surfaces to im- 

 bibe gaseous food from the atmosphere. Un- 

 der the stimulus of light, they continually ab- 

 sorb carbonic acid from the atmosphere. In 

 the vessels of the leaves, this is decomposed 

 into carbon and oxygen. The carbon is re- 

 tained and the oxygen thrown off. During the 

 darkness, oxygen is absorbed, and combining 

 with the carbon in the vessels, is thrown off in 

 the form of carbonic acid, but much less is 

 thrown off in the night than is absorbed in the 

 day. Hence in the Arctic regions, where the 

 sunlight is never absent during the summer, 

 and there is no darkness to interrupt the ab- 

 sorption of carbon, we can understand how 

 vegetation pushes upward with almost mirac- 

 ulous rapidity ; and in regions where the days 

 are very long and the nights comparatively 

 short, we see why the wheat and corn spring 

 up and reach maturity in a few weeks. 



Twenty-five hundred gallons of air contain 

 about one gallon of carbonic acid gas. To 

 find and absorb this small quantity of gas, the 

 tree spreads out its thousands of feet of leaves, 

 which are constantly in motion in the ever 

 moving air, and thus the ponderous trunks of 



