CROPS AND PROFITS. 121 



arrow-head or two in the neighborhood, chipped 

 from white quartz, and as keen and sharp as on the 

 * day they were wrought. 



I am aware that what are called ' tidy farmers ' 

 would have brushed away these outlying copses, no 

 matter what roughnesses they concealed ; but I sus- 

 pect their rude autumn clippings with a bush-hook, 

 would only have provoked a spread of the rootlets ; 

 and if effectual, would have given them only a bit 

 of barrenness. 



Up-country farmers are overtaken from time to 

 time, with what I may call a spasmodic tidiness, 

 which provokes a general onslaught with bill-hooks 

 and castaway scythes, upon hedge rows and wayside 

 bushes, and pasture thickets, without considering 

 that these thickets may conceal idle stone heaps or 

 decrepid walls, which are as sightless as the extermi- 

 nated bush ; and their foray leaves a vigorous crop 

 of harsh stubs, which, with the next season, shoot up 

 with more luxuriance than ever, and leave no more 

 available land within the farmer's grasp than before. 

 Wherever it is profitable to remove such wild growth, 

 it is profitable to exterminate it root and branch. 

 Half doing the matter is of less worth than not doing 

 it at all. But it is well to consider before entering 

 upon such a campaign, if the end will justify the la- 

 bor ; and if the recovered strips of land will carry re- 

 6 



