THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



337 



were dug into which the mice might be 

 enticed or fall, their destruction might be 

 effected." These holes were made in Dean 

 Forest about twenty yards asunder, and 

 from eighteen to twenty inches in depth, 

 hollowed out much wider at bottom than 

 at the top ; so that the animal when once 

 in could not easily get out again. In these 

 holes at least thirty thousand mice were 

 found in the course of three or four months, 

 and it was calculated that a much greater 

 number were taken out of the holes by 

 weasels, owls, magpies, &c. The food of 

 the field-mouse is exclusively vegetable, 

 and hence it is highly important to the 

 farmer to prevent its increase. — Mew Eng- 

 land Farmer. 



TREES. 



A tree is one of the most elegant objects in 

 nature. Beautiful in its youth, luxuriant and 

 graceful in its growth, majestic and noble in its 

 later years. The mighty oak having withstood 

 the storms of many centuries, still offers its un- 

 bending head to the tempest. It has seen the 

 rise and fall of many of the human race, and 

 man's most magnificent works have crumbled, 

 but still it flourishes, and every returning spring 

 clothes it with fresh verdure. The same olive 

 trees which, in the days of our Saviour, gave 

 name to the Mount, are still believed to exist. 

 AVhat interesting historic scenes have they 

 witnessed . 



" The cedars wave on Lebanon, 

 But Judah's statelier maids are gone." 



Napoleon in laying down the plan for his 

 great road over the Simplon, is said to have di- 

 verged from a straight line to avoid injuring 

 the great cypress of Somma, in Lombardy. 

 This tree is treated by the inhabitants with 

 great reverence, as it is supposed to have been 

 planted in the year of the birth of Christ. But 

 an ancient chronicle of Milan proves it to have 

 been a tree in the time of Julius Ccesar, 42 B. C. 

 It is 123 feet high, and 20 feet in circumference 

 at one foot from the ground. Much larger trees 

 arc known to exist, but their age, although sup- 

 posed to be greater, is not known. 



But if trees are so beautiful as well as use- 

 ful, and so enduring, why do we so much neg- 

 lect their cultivation ? Do we expect they will 

 spring up around us without being planted? 

 Magnificent forests have till so recently covered 

 our whole country, that we have not looked upon 

 trees for mere show and beauty than thirty feet, 

 with wide extending branches. 



Were more attention given to the cultivation 

 of trees for adorning our residences and afford- 

 ing us their fruit, it would make home more 

 pleasant, and tend to check our roving propen- 



sities. In the language of the lamented Down- 

 ing, " Our peculiar position in a new world 

 that requires a population full of enterprise and 

 energy to subdue and improve its vast territory, 

 has, until lately, left but little time to cultivate 

 a taste for rural embelishment. But in the 

 older States, as wealth has accumulated,, the 

 country become populous, and society more re- 

 fined in its character, a return to, and fondness 

 for, those simple and fascinating enjoyments to 

 be found in country life and rural pursuits, is 

 witnessed on every side. 



As they require some years for their 

 growth, it seems very uncertain whether we 

 shall ever live to enjoy the fruits of our la- 

 bors, and as we are such a moving people, might 

 we not ourselves, or at least our descendants, be 

 in Iowa or Oregon before trees of our planting 

 would attain a moderate size, and they would 

 pass into the hands of strangers. 



An old gentleman, who has within the last 

 ten years set out a number of trees, repeated to 

 us the old story that " he never expected to live 

 to enjoy the fruits of his labors." But upon 

 inquiry he admitted that he was amply repaid 

 for his trouble, not only in the pleasure of see- 

 ing them grow, but by the fruit which they an- 

 nually produced. We even now begin to look 

 with some self-congratulation on the success of 

 our own labors in this department. 



To this innate feeling, out of which, grows a 

 strong attachment to np^tal soil, we must look 

 for a counterpoise, to the great tendency to 

 constant change, and the restless spirit of emi- 

 gration, which forms part of our national char- 

 acter, and which, though to a certain extent 

 highly necessary to our national prosperity, are, 

 on the other hand, opposed to social and domes- 

 tic happiness. The love of country is insepara- 

 bly connected with the love oF home. What- 

 ever, therefore, leads man to assemble the com- 

 forts and elegancies of life around his habita- 

 tion, tends to increase local attachments and 

 render domestic life more delightful, thus not 

 only augmenting his own enjoyment, but 

 strengthening his patriotism and making him a 

 better citizen. And there is no employment or 

 recreation which affords the mind greater or 

 more permanent satisfaction than that of culti- 

 vating the earth and adorning our property. 

 '* God Almighty first planted the garden ; and 

 indeed it is the purest of human pleasures," 

 says Lord Bacon. And as the first man was 

 shut out from the garden, in the cultivation of 

 which no alloy was mixed with his happiness, 

 the desire to return to it seems to be implanted 

 by nature more or less strongly in every heart — 

 while there is no more rational pleasure than 

 that derived from these pursuits by him who 



"Plucks life's roses in his quiet field." 



The enjoyment draAvn from \t, unlike many 

 other amusements, is unembittered by the after 



