1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



425 



timber should be worth over $700, to let you 

 out without loss. It seems evident, therefore, 

 that raising saw logs would be unprofitable for 

 a poor man. 



Here in Vermont where woodland is worth 

 from two to forty dollars per acre, a, good 

 sugar place is considered the most valuable of 

 all our forests. Now there are but few sugar 

 places where the trees will average fifty per 

 acre. These trees will yield about 100 lbs. of 

 sugar \xx a season, worth $12. Now the pro- 

 duce of an acre of tillage land should be very 

 much higher. Woodland when already grown 

 is the most unprofitable of all land, and how 

 much more unprofitable to own it while grow- 

 ing, in a country where there are taxes to pay 

 and folks live by eating. 



After a field has at length yielded a (vrop of 

 wood, it will require good management to 

 clear off the wood and stumps in such a man- 

 ner as to have the land in as good shape as it 

 was before the trees were planted, and we 

 should be too old to perform the necessary 

 labor of clearing and managing it, and our 

 children would probably do as we ought to do, 

 if living on land that requires such a course of 

 improvement, that is, sell it or give it away, 

 and move to a country where the Creator has 

 provided a soil that will yield some return for 

 man's labor. 



In regard to changes of climate caused by 

 the clearing up of forests, I wish individuals 

 in different sections of the country, would 

 candidly state what such changes in their re- 

 spective localities have been. At this time, 

 so soon after the clearing has been done, it 

 could be ascertained whether the climate has 

 not in every case changed for the better. We 

 should not presumptuously charge folly to the 

 Almighty. As man was created to till the earth, 

 it seems natural and just to expect that obedi- 

 ence of that law should not imperil his health 

 or happiness. 



Here in northern Vermont the favorite loca- 

 tions for early settlers were upon the hills, be- 

 cause the frosts were less heavy, and crops 

 more certain. The high lands were visited 

 by breezes that purified the air and dispersed 

 the fog and miasma that seemed to linger in 

 the valleys. The valleys were also interspersed 

 with swamps, muck beds, &c. ; but after the 

 hills were cleared the low land became dryer 

 and now proves to be the most productive of 

 any in the region. 



Fever and ague never prevailed here to any 

 great extent ; but consider the peril to the 

 health of a laborer who begins a clearing in a 

 valley where the trees stand one or two hun- 

 dred feet high aroand his little opening of per- 

 haps five acres. The sun sending its hottest 

 rays upon the earth, blackened by recent burn- 

 ing, and no breath of air stirring. The rain 

 comes in torrents in summer. The snows falls 

 deep in winter. 



Honor to the sturdy pioneers, who, notwith- 

 standing the adverse climate and somewhat 



uncertain crops, cleared up the land and let 

 in the sun to dry up the pestilential damps, 

 and allowed the breeze to cool and equalize 

 the temperature as it wafts them away. 



The changes of climate occasioned by clear- 

 ing up the forest are not to be deplored, but 

 accepted with thankfulness, as the labors of 

 the farmer are more surely crowned with suc- 

 cess. I have read that in some sections of the 

 West and in California, where the rains were 

 formerly very abundant at certain seasons, fol- 

 lowed by droMghts, now occasionally showers 

 come in the dry season, showing a favorable 

 change in climate. As evidence of the possi- 

 ble productivness of lands without forests, we 

 can look to the most fertile regions of the 

 West, — the extensive prairies. 



The value of wood for fuel, building and 

 fencing purposes is, very great ; but a few 

 acres are enough on each homestead. If for- 

 ests are necessary to a country, the State should 

 own and exempt from taxation, a certain num- 

 ber of lots in each town, and keep them, — as 

 men insure their buildings, lives, or erect 

 lightning rods on buildings, — to ward ofi some 

 calamity that may possibly happen. 



Z. E. Jameson. 



Irashurg, Vt., July 18, 1868. 



BUYING AND SELLING "WOOL. 



We are heartily glad to see the wrangle 

 that is going on in many sections of the coun- 

 try about buying and re-selling wool. Conven- 

 tions of wool-buyers meet and resolve to buy 

 wool only under the one-third-shrinkage rule, 

 and wool-growers, either in individual or asso- 

 ciated capacities, denounce such action on the 

 part of the buyers as "outrageous" and "ob- 

 noxious." Some parties have carried on the 

 talk about gum, and grease, and tar, and lamp- 

 black, and "pitch-tops," till an outsider might 

 suppose that the men engaged in the business 

 of raising thoroughbred merino sheep were the 

 biggest set of rascals in the country ; indeed, 

 that any process of breeding and care which 

 showed result in the growth of more than four 

 pounds of wool upon one sheep in the same 

 year must be, of necessity, fraudulent. On 

 the other hand, we hear it said that the 

 buyers combine for the sole purpose of keep- 

 ing prices at the very lowest ebb. 



Some writers are calling upon the producers 

 to hold on to their wool, and not sell or con- 

 sign it to any men who are guilty of taking 

 part in a scheme to rob them of a just_ compen- 

 sation for their products. The strain of talk 

 upon this latter point seems especially sensible, 

 when we remember that most of the wodl 

 grown in the country is produced by men who 

 must sell at some price, and that urging them 

 to hold on to their wool is equivalent to tell- 

 ing them to put no bread or meat on their 

 table. It sounds well enough, like much talk 

 on other matters, but which is very diflJcult or 

 impossible to put in practice. 



