1853. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



451 



fects of the malady we can now only suggest the this country the abundance of timber appears to 

 selection of hardy varieties and planting in situa- have engendered the idea of its worthlessness. — 

 tions somewhat protected from the cold west and Uj^^ j^ ^^^^ reflect that the rapidly increasing 

 north-west winds. Will peach growers who h'^ve^^^^^^^ ^^^ j^ j^ .,„„y.,ii ^^^ jji lessening 

 had opportunity for extensive observation give us I j ^, ^ ^, • , .u • 



thebinefitof their experience on this subject ? | 'he supply, and that the increase, by growth^s 

 If we have drawn erroneous conclusions from our by no means so great as the consumption. We 

 own observations we shall be thankful to any one ^ presume there is not a plantation of wood-land in 

 who will set us right.— Genesee Farmer. 



DESTRUCTION OF WOOD. 



An aged and venerable man remarked to us re- 

 cently, that in a single neighborhood, and in the 

 comparatively brief period of five years, not less 

 than two hundred acres of forest land, all of it 

 densely wooded, had been entirely denuded of its 

 original growth ! At this rate he is of opinion 

 that in a few years we shall be compelled to pay 

 roundly for every thing we obtain in the shape of 

 wood, whether deflagrable or not. There is noth- 

 ing more fatal to a country than the destruction of 

 its wood, for with the growth perishes, in a very 

 great measure, the essential principles of vegeta- 

 ble fertility. Mr. Thaun, a few years since, in a 

 speech before the French House of Assembly rel- 

 ative to this subject, remarked that war, famine, 

 and pestilence, are less terrible afilictions than the 

 waste of wood. France, said he, will disappear 

 as many flourisiiing countries already have, if she 

 do not follow tl.-e example of Cyrus, who planted 

 forests in i\sia-Minor. It is only the abundance 

 of forests and water which enables China to sup- 

 port her hundred millions of population. In that 

 empire there are more trees planted than destroyed. 

 Spain, so highly cultivated, and so densely crowd- 

 ed with inhabitants in the days of the Roman Em- 

 pire, and in the times of the Moors, and since 

 those of Charles the Fifth, owes her present dreary 

 and desolate appearance to the waste of her woods. 

 The same is the case with most of the countries 

 of Asia, and the came will no doubt, at no distant 

 day, be the case in this country, if not prevented 

 by the adoption of a policy the reverse of that 

 which we are now pursuing. It is indeed a pain- 

 ful and revolting contemplation to witness the 

 wanton destruction of our noble forests, and the 

 denuded hills and bleak mountains once clothed in 

 robes of living verdure. In Scotland, many of the 



New England, where there should have been thous- 

 ands of acres. There is much land that can be 

 devoted to no oihQx profitable use, and the expense 

 of planting is too insignificant to be urged as an 

 objection by any one. We shall refer to this sub- 

 ject again. 



SPEED THE PLOW. 



DY CARLOS D. STEWART. 



Speed the plow, and turn the furrow, 



Scatter wide the yellow grain ; 

 Soon it will, with golden harvests, 



Bring an hundred fold again. 

 Who so happy as the plowman ? 



Up and singing with the sun — 

 Happy, trudging in the furrow, 



Happy, when the day is done. 



Speed the plow, and turn the furrow, 



Sow the seed, and reap the land : 

 Envy not the king his sceptre, 



Better fills the plowman's hand. 

 None so happy as the plowman. 



None on earth so true a lord ; 

 Reaper of the golden harvests, 



Planter of the golden sward ! 



For the New England Farmer. 



METEOROLOGICAL, &0. 



Mr. Editor : — For seven days in succession, end- 

 ing the 14th of this month, the heat of the atmos- 

 phere has been greater than usual. For four days, 

 by Farenheit's thermometer, it ranged from 84* 

 to 89 and three days from 90 to 90. In some lo- 

 cations it rose in the shade as high as 100, 101, 

 102, 103, and even 104, between one o'clock and 

 two P.M. On the 13th, there were showers and 

 thunder heard in almost every direction from this 

 place ; but not a drop of rain fell here till five 

 o'clock P. M., and not much then, yet the light- 

 ning played around and struck the earth in the 

 East, West, North, and South, within half a 

 mile of where I was, amid almost clear sky. On 

 looking up to discover where those bright and 

 dangerous electrical missiles came from, a point of 

 a cumilus cloud was seen nearly to project directly 

 whose base lay over 



, , , • i . n ," I over head, but not quite, „..~.^^ ,.^... ... 



landed proprietors have for some years been en- piyj^^^jji^ county, some fifteen miles distant. The 

 gaged in restoring the forests which had been 1 lightning appeared to shoot beyond the cloud in 



swept away in previous ages. The old Duke of 

 AinoL planted on his estate in Perthshire, many 

 hundred thousands of mountain birches. The pa- 

 triotic efforts of Sir Walter Scott, in restoring 

 beauty to the bleak wastes and barren hill sides 

 in the vicinity of Abbotsford, deserves all the com- 

 mendation which literature can bestow. Such ex- 

 amples, are like apples of gold in pictures of silver; 

 they have an abiding and perennial effect, opera- 

 ting as a centre of aetiiin from which none but the 



the broad sunlight with such heavy and sudden 

 peals of thunder which was truly startling— but 

 not a drop of rain. Saturday, the loth, was con- 

 sidered the warmest day ever known here. It is 

 not half the year that the thermometer rises as 

 high as 90*^ in August. The last time it rose to 

 90*^ in August, was in 1850, Aug. 5th, when it 

 was at one o'clock just 90°. The nest previous 

 was Aug. 1848, the 10th, 12th, and 16th, when 

 it stood at 1 P. M. at 90 each day. I perceive by 

 the papers that Saturday was not the warmest day 

 in Boston, owing, I suppose, to an Easterly wind 



most desirable influences can flow forth. But in 'from the ocean. Here, the wind in the forenoon 



