io OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



dron among them (which country people call mer- 

 cury, ivy, and I know not what names beside) and 

 this entire range of exterior fence was gone over each 

 springtime April being the usual month and made 

 effective, by lopping upon it such lusty growth as 

 may have sprung up the season past. It is afflictive 

 to think what waste of natural resources is committed 

 in this way every year by the scrubby farmers of New 

 England. 



The stock equipment of this farm of nearly four 

 hundred acres, consisted of twelve cows, some six 

 head of young stock, two yoke of oxen, a pair of 

 horses, and a hundred and fifty sheep. I blush even 

 now as I write down the tale of such poor equipment 

 for a farm which counted at least two hundred and 

 seventy acres of open land the residue being wood, 

 or impenetrable swamp. And it is still more melan- 

 choly to reflect that the portion of the land which 

 aided most in the sustenance of this meagre stock, 

 was that which was most nearly in a state of nature. 

 I speak of those newly cleared pasture-lands from 

 which the wood had been removed within ten years. 

 In giving this description of a farm of twenty years 

 ago, I feel sure that I am describing the available 

 surface of a thousand farms in N"ew England to-day. 

 We boast indeed of our thrift and enterprise, but 

 these do not work in the direction of land culture 



