THE FARM OF THE FIRST MINISTER. II 



THE COW PASTURE. 



An early subject to claim the attention of the present proprie- 

 tor was the condition of his cow pasture, about one third of 

 which had been usurped by a vigorous growth of hardhack, 

 black alder, cold water, and willow bushes. The Bible tells us 

 that the advent of sin upon the earth was followed by " thorns 

 and thistles," 1 and that our first ancestor was commanded by 

 his Maker to " replenish and subdue it." 2 The alternative pre- 

 sented was the subjugation of these intruders or, in the near 

 future, no milk. 



He accepted the former, but, it must be humbly confessed, 

 with little knowledge of the best means of its attainment. 

 Kindly disposed neighbors told him that if he would cut his 

 bushes on two certain days in August, " when the sign was in 

 the heart," he would surely kill them. As it was impossible 

 with his established farm force to cut ten acres of them, vary- 

 ing in height from one to twenty feet, in two days, he was 

 constrained to disregard their disinterested advice. 



But extermination must be accomplished somehow, and he 

 began it by mowing the hardhacks (Spzrca satisctfolia) . This 

 temporarily improved the appearance of the pasture, but the 

 following season brought them all back again in increased num- 

 bers. Ploughing was next tried. Their stalks were turned 

 downwards and their roots upwards. They were literally up- 

 rooted, but while most of them were thus killed, their roots lay 

 upon the ground's surface, black, tough, fibrous masses, each 

 one resembling a big darky's scalp, which neither plow, har- 

 row, or other implement, would reduce to pulverization. 



But, inasmuch as fire will do what no other agent will, some 

 of these were gathered into masses and burned, and their ashes 

 paid in part the expense of their reduction. The remainder 

 were used as the substratum of a farm road then in process of 

 construction. Whether by this time, the forces of chemistry 

 have reduced these to their primal elements your speaker 

 knows not. He does know that that road has never settled, in 

 spite of time and frosts and floods. 



i Genesis, 3: 18. 

 2 Genesis, 1:28. 



