BURNING BRUSH. 431 
- “The process of preparing new lands begins as early in the 
winter as the housing and managing the antecedent crop will 
permit, by grubbing the undergrowth with a mattock ; felling 
the timber with a poll-axe ; * lopping off the tops, and cutting 
the bodies into lengths of about eleven feet, which is about the 
customary length of an American fence rail, in what is called 
a worm or panel fence.t During this part of the process 
the negro women, boys, and weaker laborers, are employed 
in piling or throwing the brush-wood, roots, and small wood, 
into heaps to be burned; and after such logs or stocks are 
selected as are suitable to be malled into rails, make clap- 
boards, or answer for other more particular occasions of the 
planter, the remaining logs are rolled into heaps by means of 
hand-spikes and skids; but the Pennsylvania and German 
farmers, who are more conversant with animal powers than 
the Virginians, save much of this labor by the use of a pair 
of horses with a half sledge, or a pair of truck wheels. 
“The burning of this brush-wood, and the log piles, is a 
business for all hands after working hours; and as nightly 
revels are peculiar to the African constitution, this part of 
the labor proves often a very late employment, which affords 
many scenes of rustic mirth. When this process has cleared 
the land of its various natural incumbrances (to attain which 
end is very expensive and laborious), the next part of the 
process is that of the hoe; for the plough is an implement 
which is rarely used in new lands when they are either 
designed for tobacco or meadow. There are three kinds of 
the hoe which are applied to this tillage: the first is what is 
termed the sprouting hoe, which is a smaller species of mat- 
tock that serves to break up any particular hard part of the 
ground, to grub up any smaller sized grubs which the mat- 
tock or grubbing hoe may have omitted, to remove small 
stones and other partial impediments to the next process. 
The narrow or hilling hoe follows the operation of the 
sprouting hoe. It is generally from six to eight inches wide, 
and ten or twelve in the length of the blade, according to 
the strength of the person who is to use it; the blade is thin, 
and by means of a movable wedge which is driven into the 
eye of the hoe, it can be set more or less digging (as it is 
termed), that is, on a greater or less angle with the helve, at 
*Thisia a k, heavy-headed axe, of a somewhat oblong shape, with which the 
Americans makeureat dispatch. They treat the English poll-axe with great contempt, and 
always work it over again as old iron before they deem it fit for their use. 
The worm or panel fence, originally of Virginia, consists of logs or malled raila from 
abont four to six or eight incbes thick and eleven feet inlength. A good fence consists of 
tenrails anda rider. [tia called a worm fence from the zigzag manner of its construction, 
