74 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



May, 1842. 



that the tree should be cut as near the grouml 

 as possible, ns tlieieby wood will be saved. And 

 where trees aie so cut, lliey iriuch more readily 

 throw lip shoots, than when ii high, unsightly 

 stnnip remain?. And these shoots will be of a 

 healthier and more vi<;orons character. Care 

 should also be taken, in chopping, that the stninp 

 he not left hollowing inward, like a dish ; for in 

 this case it woultl become a reservoir for the 

 rain.s, and the water collected there would be- 

 come a fountain of mischief, working through 

 the stump to ilie roots, which sustain the new- 

 plant, and inducing diseases which would defy 

 remedy. 



Another error in regard to the management 

 of woodlands, nnd which has no claim to appro- 

 bation, save its popularity, is the prevailing prac- 

 tice of choppiiig only tlje old trees and such as 

 are beginning to deciiy. By this process, much 

 valuable vonng timber must necessarily be de- 

 stroyed ; the woodland becomes thin ; the winds 

 pass through it with fury, twisting the remain- 

 ing trees greatly to their injury, and in the event 

 making them a sickly, short lived affair. Cut 

 clean as you go, is a motto which cannot be too 

 clearly adhered to with regard to woodbinds; 

 then there will he no lodging trees; no regrets 

 at breaking down young limber; no necessity 

 for paths here and there, which, in many wood- 

 lots, occupy almost as much space as the wood 

 itself. A new and oven growth will spring up, 

 which will protect itself from the violence of 

 winds, and shield the earth and roots from 

 scorching sunbeams. As it advances in growth, 

 the sicKly plants will die out, and nature, by a 

 ))rocess of her own, will prune such as remain 

 to her own advantage. Where shoots start from 

 stumps, however, it may be well to thin them 

 with an axe the second year, for such shoots are 

 liable to start in so great abundance as to ex- 

 haust, to a groat extent, the source of nourish- 

 ment. This i- especially the ca.se with the chcs- 

 iiiit. But let it be remcnd)ered, that from wood- 

 hiiuls so nianani'd. cattle and shee[) must be kept 

 at a respectful distance. 



Where timber lauds are cut off with a view 

 of renewing their growth, then the winter uioiitbv 

 are the preferable lime for performing the opera- 

 lion. When trees are cut in spring or summer, 

 shoots will stait ; but they are less vigorous than 

 those which spring from winter clearings, and 



The perio<l necessary for a forest to renew it- 

 self varies with the soil and location to from 

 twenty to thirty years. We have seen very 

 pretty woodlots," of tall, handsome trees, which 

 were said to have been entirely cut off twenty 

 years before; ami there are instances mentioned 

 in which, by cutting off well covered woodlands, 

 a new crop has appeared in that time, more val- 

 uable than the one taken off. 



A new variety of trees is Usually introduced 

 to the .soil. Evpr;;reens never start from the 

 stump or root of ohl trees, hut are succeeded by 

 birch, beech and maple. Be(!ch, though a re- 

 pinductivc tree, is usually succeeded by maple 

 and white ash. Thus nature gives a rotation of 

 crops, which may, to some extent, account for 

 the rapid growth of tress on lands which have 

 been cut over. 



Mount Osceola, Jimuwy, 18i1. 



Sto.nes on Cultivated Land.— It is an error 

 to suppose (s:iys the Boston Mer. Journal) that 

 stones should be entirely removed from land 

 which is under cultivation. Those stone.s, which 

 would he in the way oi' the sevllie while mow- 

 in-, of cour>.' ^-hoi'ihl 1,0 n'lnie.ed, but all the 

 Sinaller stones should r.uu.iu ; and if wholly or 

 partially embe.lded in llie soil, thoy preserve the 

 moisture during' a ihnualit, and thus serve mate- 

 I lally to increase tli.- nop. The following article 

 frcun the Geiitlejneii's .Alagazine, published in 

 1773, is to the jioiut:— 



"It has been long known to exfierienced far- 

 nier.s, that taking away verv small stones and 

 flints is delriinputal to 'i.loiis'hed lands in gener- 



aud all lands of u l;;nil:,;_r nalure. It was, how- 

 ever, never iuiagiiie,! il,.it the ilamage could be 

 so great, as a is leju iiuuui to be since unusual 

 ([juantiiies of flints and other stones have been 

 repeatedly gathered for the use of turnpike roads. 

 In the p'ari-h of .Stevenage, in Hertfordshire, 



there is a field known by the name of Cbalkdell- 

 field, containing about 200 acres; the land in 

 this field Wiis formerly equal, if not superior, to 

 mo.^t lands in that county ; but lying convenient 

 for the surveyors of the road.s, they have picked 

 it so often, and stri|)ped it of the flint and small 

 stones to such n degree, that it is now interior to 

 lands that were formerly reckoned not much 

 above half its value, acre for acre. Nor is it 

 Chalkdell-field alone that has materially suffered 

 in that county by the above-mentioned |iraciice ; 

 several thousand acres bordering on the turnpike 

 roads from Wellwyn to Baldoch have been so 

 much impoverished, that the loss to the inheri- 

 tance forever must be computed at a great many 

 thousand pounds. What puts it be\oiKladouht 

 that the prodigious impoverishment of the land 

 is owing to no other cause hut picking and carry- 

 ing away the stones, is, that those lands have 

 generally been most impoverished which have 

 been most often picked; nay, I know a field, part 

 of which was picked, and the other part (ilough- 

 ed up before they had time to pick it, where the 

 pint that was picked lost seven or eight pai ts in 

 ten of two succeeding crops; and ihough the 

 whole field was manured and managed in .all re- 

 spects alike, yet the impoverishment w'as visible 

 where the stones had been picked off, and extend- 

 ed not an inch farther; an incontestible proof of 

 the benefit of the stones." 



ProBCuy of Men of Geuiiis. 



A writer in the Quarterly Review presents a 

 very striking fact in relation io the fuiiily history 

 of men eminently distinguished by their intel- 

 lectual attainments. He was discussing ai: ob- 

 jection to the copyright bill — that jivpchiili/ in 

 literary properly would establish an aristocracy, 

 would found another noblesse — and shows th.at 

 there is no danger of this result from the bill in 

 (jueslion. 



" We are not going to speculate," he says, 

 " about the causes of tlie fact — but a fact it i-s*— 

 that men distinguished for extraordinary iiilel- 

 leeiual power of any sort very rarely leave more 

 than a very brief line of progeny behinil them. 

 Men of genius liavti scarcely ever done so — men 

 of iiiiaginative genius, wo might say, almost nev- 

 er. With ihe one exception of the noble Surrey, 

 we cannot at this moment point out any represen- 

 tative in the male line, even so fir down as in the 

 third generation of any Knslish |ioer, and we 

 bilieve the case is the same In France. The 

 blood of beings ol' that order can seldom be 

 tracejl far tlown eren in the female line. With 

 the exception of Surrey and Spenser, we lu-e not 

 aware ol' any great English author of at all re- 

 mote date from whose body any living person 

 d.aims to he descended. There is no other real 

 English poet prior to the middle of the eighteenth 

 century, and we believe no great author of any 

 sort, except Claremlon mid Shaftsbury, of whose 

 blood we h ive any inheritance amongst us. — 

 Chain-er's only son"died childless. Shakspeare's 

 line expirird in his danghrer's oidy tianghter. 

 None of the other dramatists of that age lelt any 

 proireny — nor Raleigh, nor Bacon, nor Cowley, 

 nor Butler. The grand-daughter of !\Iiltoii was 

 the last of his blood. Newton, Locke, Pope, 

 Swift, Arbuthnot, Hume, (Jibbou, Cuwper, Oray, 

 Walpole, Cavendish— and we might greatly ex- 

 tend the list — never married. Neither Boling- 

 broke, nor Addison, nor Warbnrlon, nor Johnson, 

 iiorBurke, transmitted their blood. ftl.Renonrd's 

 last argument against a perpetuity in literary 

 property is, that it would be fonudini; another 

 noblesse. Neither jealous aristocracy nor envious 

 jacobism need be under much alarm. When a 

 human race has produced its 'bright consum- 

 itjate flower' in this kind, it ' seems commonly 

 to be near its end.' Poor Goldsmith might have 

 been mentioned in the above list. The theory is 

 illiistrateil in our own day. The two greatest 

 names in science and literalm-e of oin' time wcre 

 Uavy and Sir Walter Scott. The first died chihl- 

 less. Sir Walter left four children, of whom three 

 are dead, only one of them (Mrs. Lockhart) leav- 

 ing i.isiie, and the fourth, (his eldest sou,) tbnugh 

 living, and long married, has no issue. These 

 are curious facts." 



Cabbage Worms. — A writer in the Southern 

 Cultivator says, "he had a square of very fine 

 cabbages in his garden, upon which the worms 

 had commenced making great ravages. Peimy- 



royal was gathered ami scattered over the cab- 

 bage heads plentifully, and the work of destruc- 

 tion ceased." The writer did not know whether 

 the discovery was a new one, hut it seems to have 

 been a very easy ami effectual one, and well 

 worth a trial.— .4/6. Cult. 



Observations of a random Journey. 



A NEW HAMPSHIRE VILLAGE. 



PiTTSFiELD has a neat village situated fifteen 

 miles east-north-easterly from Concord on the 

 Suncook river, which has its most northerly 

 source in the Gunstock mountains in the north- 

 easterly section of Gilford and in .'\lton, only a 

 few miles from Wimiipisseogee lake, and takes 

 its course south-westerly where it unites with 

 the Merrimack two miles above Hooksett fulls 

 at the south-western corner of Pembroke. The 

 village of Pittsfiehl in this valley is surrounded 

 by fertile swells of land on which are situated 

 elegant farms with their neat houses generally 

 painted while or red, having in all cases ca- 

 pacious barns and other establishments. South- 

 erly from the village, and .at no very great dis- 

 tance, the most elevated laml is the mountain 

 called Catamount, which can be seen a little to 

 the left of the Nottingham and Northwood hills 

 at the distance of seventy, eighty, and a hun- 

 dred miles on the high grounds of Worcester 

 county in Massnchnsetts; and fiirther on the 

 Gunstock and Ossipee mountains, the Jecor- 

 way peak, &c. in a direct line — a littlu further 

 to the south-east the nionntains in Alton — slill 

 further east the mountains iu Strafford and 

 Brookfield, and southerly from the whole the 

 isolated mountain Agamenticus, near the sea in 

 York, state of Maine. Catamount is surrounded 

 from its base to its top with farms and firm 

 buildings: perched nearly at its top is the splen- 

 did farm of the late Elder Ehonezer Knowhon, 

 w ho was tempteil to letive this eligible spot with 

 a personal popularity both as a preacher of reli- 

 gion and as a political man which lasted him to 

 the close of life, to take up his abode on a fin-m 

 that might be more easy of cultivation, biu could 

 hardly be more fruitful, in the county of Waldo, 

 .Maine. 



You look down upon the Pittsfiehl village in 

 almost every direction from the hillt!, west, north, 

 east and south. The ])osition of the village is 

 much more interesting — the landscape is far 

 more beautifiil than Concord ever can be, he- 

 cause the hills are made up of that siibstanlial 

 soil which in the vcru.al season preserves the 

 most lively green, and of the chequered texture 

 of idtcrnate arable, mowing, pasture and wood- 

 land, with now aifl ilien a scattering of tall 

 pines an J a craggy high steep in the extreme 

 distance. Pittsfiehl li.is grown within the last 

 ten years to be as large, if not a larger village, 

 than Concord was ten years ago: within thp 

 last five or six years there have been erected in 

 the village three elegant new churches, each 

 supplying a coniireuailonal, calvanistic baptist 

 or freewill baptist society: theio are besides, 

 within the limits of ibe town, another freewill 

 or Christian, and a Fri(Mids' ineeling-hou.se. The 

 buildings of which this village is composed are 

 neat and durable : Ihe main i)art is on a street 

 six rods in width, running south cast and norlh- 

 wcst nearly one mile. Passing into the village 

 from Concord at the to|) of a hill is an elegant 

 farm with its ample fields north and south of the 

 main road : from this point the flowing stream 

 widened by a dam which raises the water above 

 the road where the biidge p.asses over it, with 

 the extensive brick factory near it, surrounded 

 on all sides with neatly painted dwellings, first 

 strikes the eye almost at your feet ; and fiirther 

 off appear the spires of the churches with a 

 continuation of the main village further east. 

 Many of the buildings had been erected within 

 the last two years— some of them of brick aro 

 belter buildings than have usually been erected 

 in Concord : the bricks are so well burnt that 

 they would seem to be as durable as granite 

 itself. We observed a block of brick tenement*! 

 erecting by .Maj. Berry on the north-east side of 

 the main street below the old meeting-house. 

 So careful w.as he in its erection that we men- 

 lion Ihe case as an example for erecting other 

 buildings of brick : a space was left in the wn\l 

 ihr the circulation of the air between the tiers 

 of brick suflicient to exclude both frost and 

 (himji from finding its way into the interior. A 



