74 Foreign Notices : — North America, 



periods ; particularly for nearly three months in 1826. To-day (Aug. 8.) 

 the thermometer has not reached above 64° in the room in which I am now 

 writing, and in the air it is below 60°, and we light our fires, being too cold 

 to sit with our windows open ; but this, I hope, will not continue. The 

 nights are excessively cold, and the dews are heavy. I am assured that this 

 is a very remarkable year ; the winter was more severe than had occurred 

 for thirty years preceding. 



When I entered my present dwelling-house last fall (October), I found a 

 plot of ground of 40 or 50 perches, intended for a garden, but uncultivated, 

 and only occupied by enormous thistles and docks, and abundance of wild 

 sorrel. These it was my first business to destroy, by collecting them in a 

 pile, and making a bonfire. There were many pine and hemlock stumps 

 also sprinkled about, and which prevented any regular operations of culture. 

 These, also, I, with great labour, got rid of, for the most part. One sturdy 

 stump kept me at work three days before I conquered him ; for he seemed 

 to bid defiance to the axe and the fire, although the tree had been cut down 

 thirty years before. I was a young beginner then, you will observe, in 

 stump-moving ; and, besides, I prided myself in the design of bringing this 

 little plot into a good state without the aid of any body, and without its 

 costing me a cent for labour. Now and then my American neighbours 

 would peep over the rails to see me digging and chopping, and would 

 guess I was not used much to handling an axe. However, by perseverance, 

 I got them all out, and rolled them clean off the premises, and there they 

 all lie around me, monuments of my first year's labour. These same stumps, 

 by the way, are so full of turpentine, and are so hard and tough, that they 

 seem to defy the power of time and the elements to decompose them : at 

 all events, they have been known to continue firm and sound above a 

 century. Having cleared off the surface weeds, I ploughed up the soil, 

 having first spread upon it a thick covering of manure (a thing not used or 

 valued much in this country, from the expense of carrying it on the land), 

 and by this time the frosts began to set in, and I let it remain undisturbed 

 till the frost broke up in March. As there was neither tree nor shrub for 

 shelter or ornament around my house, and as the garden was much exposed 

 to the heat of summer and the cold northern blasts of winter, I set to work 

 to procure young trees from the woods ; amusing myself with selecting spe- 

 cimens of every variety, within my reach, that the neighbouring forests pro- 

 duce. You well know, my dear Sir, what a beautiful and rich series the 

 American forests furnish. My industry was rewarded by a very interesting 

 collection, serving the double purpose of a screen or shade, and of an em- 

 bellishment. This moist season has been much in their favour, and they flou- 

 rish well, and remind me of our English ornamental shrubberies. In this 

 part of my labour, I must confess, I did not receive much encouragement. 

 My neighbours viewed it quite as an act of supererogation : that an English- 

 man should take the trouble to come and plant trees, when all other men em- 

 ployed themselves to cut down, was beyond all comprehension ; was out of 

 all custom and precedent, among a race whose habits and associations lead 

 them to view as the greatest of natural beauties a naked " clearing," sur- 

 rounded by a " worm fence " of split rails. About the 8th of March, the 

 snow disappeared ; we once more saw the grass upon our " Beaver Dam 

 meadows," and the ice broke up from the Moshannon creek at the bottom 

 of my garden. In the woods, the snow lingered until the 1st of April : but 

 at the earliest moment that I could make any impression upon the ground, 

 I commenced my spring operations in the garden. You will smile at my 

 narrative ; but I was determined to supply my family wholly with vegetables 

 of my own raising, and I have the gratification now of seeing it effected, 

 and producing enough, too, for the whole winter, I think. I first cut out 

 my walks, and subdivided the ground into squares, then dug, and trenched, 

 and cleared, and weeded, and took out every stone ; made a map of my 

 land, and arranged my crops and courses, like other great farmers, in the 



