36 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



AUGUST 13, IS3*. 



From the Grcenjitld Oazette. 

 TIMBER TREES. 



No country is any better, ami few so well 

 stocked with such a variety of iiotile forest trees as 

 America. Scattered tliruiislioiit the continent, are 

 to be found almost every Uind of tree convenient 

 for utility or ornament. The oak, elm, walnut, 

 ash, ])ine, fir, clierry, maple, with many other 

 varieties are to be found in {^reat profusion. Al- 

 though in the older and thicker settled portions of 

 the country, there is yet ii .sufficiency of tindier 

 trees for all ordinary purpo.ses, and the forests con- 

 tain many of great size and beauty, yet to fiiid 

 them in all their beauty and perfection, in great 

 (juantilies and njagniticunt size " the iiriniisval 

 monarchs of the soil," we must visit the newly set- 

 tled i)arts of the country, where the axe of the 

 liack-woodsman is but beginning to be heard. In 

 some parts of the country, the cutting down of the 

 forest trees and converting them into lumber for 

 exportation is one of the principal occui)ations of 

 the inhabitants. Large quantities of logs are an- 

 nually rafted down the Coniieclicut river from the 

 wooils bordering on its banks in Veriiioiit, the 

 l)riucipal i)art of these slop at the towns lower 

 down the river, and are sawed tip and used in 

 building; many go to Springficdd and Hartford. 

 But the State of Maine possessing as it does an ex- 

 tensive sea-coast and many fine harbors as weU as 

 inland streams with a considerable portion of its 

 surface yet covered with forests — does more proh- 

 liiy in the exportation of lumber, than all the other 

 States of the Union; many of the iidiabitants make 

 it their chief employment, and vast quantities are 

 shipped to various parts of the United States, the 

 West Indies, and England. The " lil)rary of en- 

 tertaining knowledge," states that " the princijial 

 exportation of deals from America, not only to 

 Europe, but to the West India Colonies, is of the 

 white pine." So great is the ilemaiul for this Sj)e- 

 ries of tindier, that in the thickly peopled districts 

 it has been almost entirely consujiied, so that those 

 who are engaged in the business of cutting down 

 the tiees have to pass the greater [)art of their lime 

 in remote forests where the white |)ine is still 

 found. The places in which the Imnbering par- 

 ties intend culling in the winter, they visit in the 

 summer, and prepare a stock of hay for their oxen ; 

 in the di'|)th of winter with the snow five or six 

 feet deep, and the mercury in the iherinomeler 

 sometimes eighteen or twenty d(^grees below the 

 freezing point, they go iiito the woods, build them- 

 selves huts roofed with bark, and with utmost en- 

 ergy commence felling the tree's : when felled they 

 are cut into logs of about eighteen feet in length, 

 and drawn by their oxen lo the bank of some stream 

 and rolled upon the ice; in April or May, when- 

 ever the ice breaks up and the " freshets couje 

 down," the current floats the logs to some place 

 where the stream is of sufficient width to allow 

 then) to bo formed into rafts, which are conduct- 

 ed down the stream and dcliveied to the mer- 

 chants. Thousands of logs which are collected in 

 the Kennebec river during the winter, are taken 

 down the current as far as Weiislow, about ono 

 hundred miles from the sea, where the logs heijig 

 j)reviously marked, the owners arc enabled to se- 

 lect the |)roduce of their respective laborers. The 

 timber is hero sold to the proprietors of numerous 

 saw-mills established on the Kemiebec, between 

 Wenslow and the const, where it is sawed up and 

 exported. 

 The timber trees which are most plenty in our 



forests, and from their (jualities most valuable for 

 geneial a|i|)lication are the oak and pine. For 

 strength and durability, the oak claims the ]U'e- 

 cedeiice of all other liudier ; it [lossesses a com- 

 l>inaliou of necessiiry cpudities that render it par- 

 ticularly fit for shiji building, for which it is much 

 us{'d. Of one hinulred and forty species, of the 

 oak, that urft desciibed by riiffei'ent writers, more 

 than one-half belong to America. The age to 

 which the onk can continue to vegetate, is not fidly 

 ascertained, but it is very great, probably three or 

 foiw hundred years. It sometimes grows to an 

 enormous size, intention being made of one in Dor- 

 setshire, England, which was sixty-eight feet in 

 circumference, with a cavity sixteen feet long and 

 twenty feet high, which was ujade use of by an 

 old man, idiout the time of the Comuion wealth, as 

 a house of entertainment for travellers ; this is the 

 largest ever maile nieniion of After the oak, the 

 pine, from its abundajite, and from its various 

 good qualities, claims the second place among val- 

 uable trees. As the oak is the shipwright's timber, 

 so is the pine the carpenter's. Michaux in his 

 splendid work on the Forest Trees of North Amer- 

 ica has described fourteen species of pine, which 

 are found in the woods of this country. The 

 most valuable of these are the " Long Leaved 

 I'ine," from which our tiM'pentine and tar are 

 princi|)ally produced, the " White I'ine," Hem- 

 lock, Spruce, and the American Silver Fir. 



Although the exportation of timber is now car- 

 ried on so largely from North America, and its for- 

 ests seem inexhaustible, being yet as it were com- 

 menced upon, yet the oi)eraiion of causes, may, 

 and i)robably will render it in the lapse of years 

 no longer an exporting country for tind)er ; those 

 causes are the indiscriminate clearings of the 

 agri(ndtural settlers, " and the conflagrations that 

 occasionally take place" — for instance the one that 

 occurred in New Brunswick in October, 1825, in 

 which upwards of a limjdred miles of the coimtry 

 on the north side of Mirammichi river was burnt 

 over. The woods are often set on fire from mere 

 wantonness, and in hot, di'y seasons the flames 

 spread with inconceivable rapidity, destroying in 

 a few moments that which it has taken centuries 

 to produce. 



ON PROPAGATING THE PURPIiE BROCCOLI, 

 PROM SLIPS. 



Oy reading Mr. Kendall's article upon the prop- 

 agation of cabbages from slips, I feel inclined to 

 draw the attention of your readers to the growing 

 of jiurple broccoli in the same way ; a practice 

 whi( h was adopted, some years since in the west 

 of Cornwall, and for aught I know may be still 

 continued there. The variety thus treated seemed 

 to be rather peculiar in its habits, and compact 

 and handsome in its growth. The head being re- 

 moved l<)r cidinary purposes, the method was to 

 let the stump remain, which had already thrown 

 out sprouts below ; and these being left to grow 

 showed no indication to form heads for the season. 

 In the month of June the sprouts were suiliciently 

 advanced to be slipped off; and after being ex- 

 posed n day or two in the sun to cauterize 

 iho wound, they were planted out in the usual 

 maimer. In two or three weeks they liad taken 

 root, nn<l in the course of the autunm made fine 

 stocky plants. 1 have seen many instances of the 

 broccoli thus grown having heads three feet in 

 circumference, and as close and compact as pos- 

 sible. — Maine Farmer. 



SUB-MARINE MINES. 



It is a most remarkable (iict, that not oidy irt 

 hills and valleys, atid fiom the plains, have the 

 enterprising explorations of the miners been con- 

 ducted — some of the Cornish mines have actually 

 been carried to a considerable distance imdcr the 

 sea; some of these sub-marine excavations, as de- 

 scribed by Mr. Hawkins, display in a striking man- 

 ner, the tflects of per.severance and the defiance of 

 danger on the part of the miners ; for instance, 

 the noted mine of Huel Cok, in the parish of St- 

 Just, which descends 80 fathoms and extends it- 

 self forward under the bed of the sea beyond low 

 water mark. In some |il;icrs the miners have only 

 three fiitboms of rock between them and the sea ? 

 so that they hear very distinctly the movement 

 and noise of the waves. This noise is sometimes 

 terrible, being of an extraordinary loudness, as the 

 Atlantic ocean is here many biindjcd leagues in 

 breadth. In the mine, the rolling of the stones 

 and rocks over-head whi(d) the sea moves along 

 its bed, is plainly lieard ; the noise of which, mix- 

 ed with the roaring of the waves, sounds like re- 

 iterated claps of thunder, and causes both admira- 

 tion and terror to those «lio have the curiosity to 

 go down. In one place, where the vein was very 

 rich, tliey searched it with imprudence, and left 

 but four feet of rock between the excavation and 

 the bed of the sea. At high water the bowling of 

 the waves is beard in this place in so dreadful a 

 manner that even the miners who work near it, 

 have often taken flight, supposing that the sea was 

 going to break through the weak roof and pene- 

 trate into the ujine. — Lardner''s Cabinet Cyclopedia. 



THE HARVESTS. 



Norwn•HSTA^DING the late frosts which threat- 

 ened so seriously the prospects of our farmers, 

 our accounts from the difi'erent sections of the 

 country, afford us the gratifying intelligence that 

 the crops are everywhere abundant. In many 

 parts the wheat is said to be heavier, ••Mid general- 

 ly in better condition than several years past. It 

 seems that in anticipation of a failure of the wheat 

 and rye from the effects of frost, a larger propor- 

 tion than usual of corn, buck-wheat, &c. wasi)laiu- 

 ed by many of the firmers, which must necessa- 

 rily have a tendency to give a larger supply than 

 usual of those articles. But we will undertake to 

 guarantee, that there will be mouths enough for 

 all, and we heartily congratulate our country 

 friends on the abundant success which has crown- 

 ed their labors. 



Our |)apers from the villages of the interior 

 come to us with notices of the husbandman's suc- 

 cess, and invitations for the villagers and farmers 

 of the surrounding country, to join in the celehr.i- 

 tion of" Harvest Ucune," a species of merry mak- 

 ing which the farmers of our Slate, i)articularly 

 the German descendants keep up with becoming 

 cheerfulness, accompaided by the most enlivening 

 demonstrations of joy and thankfulness. The liar- 

 dy sunburnt cultivators of the soil, assemble to- 

 gether in some sluidy retreat, and enjoy the good 

 things to which they are so honestly entitled with 

 a zest that gives u double relish to the feast and 

 the merriment. 



From what we can learn, and we have taken 

 some pains to make enquiries, the farmers have 

 cause for congratulations, not only through our 

 own, but through the neighboring states of Dele- 

 ware, New Jersey, New York and Ohio. — United 

 States Gazette. 



