56 MY FARM. 



division palings has been done away with ; the inac- 

 cessible angles of enclosures which fed monstrous 

 wild growth, are submitted to even culture and crop- 

 ping ; an under drain through the bottom of the val- 

 ley lawn, has absorbed the scattered stones and the 

 tottling wall of the pasture, and given a rank growth 

 of red-top and white clover, where before, through 

 three months of the year, was almost a quagmire. 

 This drain, fed by lesser branches laid on from time 

 to time through the springy ground of the peach 

 orchard, and by the waste way of the fountain at the 

 door, now dischai'ges into a little pool (once a mud 

 hole) at the extremity of the lawn, where a willow 

 or two timidly dip their branches, and the frogs wel- 

 come every opening April with a riotous uproar of 

 voices. Even the scattered clumps of trees stand 

 upon declivities where cultivation would have been 

 difficult, or they hide out-cropping rocks which were 

 too heavy for the walls, or the drains. So it has 

 come about that the old flimsy pasture, with its 

 blotches of mulleins, thistles, wax myrtles, and the 

 ill shapen yard, straggling peach orchard (long since 

 gone by), have made my best grass field, which needs 

 only an occasional top dressing of ashes or compost, 

 and a biennial scratching with a fine-toothed harrow, 

 to yield me two tons to the acre of sweet-scented 

 hay. 



