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THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



347 



spreads over and obliterates the art or skill of 

 the landscape gardener, and claims a place or 

 even superiority^ with the exquisite flowers of 

 the parterre. It is universal. Cattle graze and 

 enjo}'- it, and minister to the wants of man. 



"But as the lion reigns supreme in the lo- 

 cality which he has inherited or selected as his 

 own, and levels contributions over still wider 

 circles, so there is a power behind the grass 

 which shall not only supplant, but drive it from 

 its realm. The forest approaches. Here and 

 there where the decaying rock yields up its 

 potash or its lime, fit food for the embryo plant, 

 appears the pine, ash, oak, maple, beech, birch 

 or walnut, and soon assumes the form and 

 comeliness of a tree. Various shrubs mingle 

 with them, whose innumerable leaves extract 

 from the atmosphere its nutritive properties, and 

 these cast annually, o^^er and protect the sur- 

 face and supply nourishment to the roots of all. 

 Forest trees take the lead, and as they gain 

 superiority, the lesser plants yield, laying down 

 their lives — a sort of vegetable marty-rdom — for 

 the general good ; they Avere useful in life, and 

 when done with that, still continue to sustain 

 the living growth. Here is a new state of things. 

 Man and his ways have disappeared. Nature 

 has assumed the sway, and again clothed the 

 earth in her primitive dress. The forest is 

 everywhere, covering hill, valley and plain. 

 Silence is in its dark courts, save when the 

 thunder breaks over it, or the tornado prostrates 

 it with its ferocious breath. 



"Such is the course of Nature — to contend 

 with her is worse than folly, being no less than 

 a sacrifice of health, prosperity and comfort. Let 

 her have these lands, and use them as she will. 

 In thirty years they will, be covered with trees 

 fit for timber and fuel, and return a profit to 

 their owners. 



" In the mean time, if the proprietors of the 

 more level and fertile lands wish to keep the 

 native population at home, they must invite the 

 mountain-men and cobble-stone-knoil-men into 

 their districts, and give them employment in 

 the numerous manufactories of one kind and 

 another, or divide their rich lands with them 

 for a fair compensation. These lands, under 

 a higher state of cultivation, will produce well 

 nigh as much as the whole do now, while the 

 products of the forest will be a clear gain ; an 

 immense expense of fencing and road-making 

 will be saved, the sparse population will Ije 

 gathered into more compact communities, taxes 

 of all sorts decreased, and the facilities for the 

 transaction of business and the general welfare 

 and happiness of all greatly promoted. If these 

 things are not regarded, the emigration West 

 will continue until scarcely a type of the origi- 

 nal New England stock Avill be left, and the 

 Shylocks who hold on to the better lands with 

 penurious grip, will find themselves surrounded 

 by those speaking other tongues, and in whose 

 veins runs not a drop of their ancestral blood. 

 " The fiat has gone forth, and puny men can- 



not check its career. Large portions of Massa- 

 chusetts soil, and immensely larger of Maine, 

 New Hampshire and Vermont will grow up to 

 forest, in spite of furnaces and locomotives. 

 England has passed through the same process. 

 Even now, some of the old towns of Massachusetts, 

 already settled more than two hundred years, 

 have a great many more acres covered" with 

 wood than they had fifty years ago. In the in- 

 troduction of scientific principles to his fields, 

 the farmer's head now performs much that was 

 once recjuired of his hands. He tills less land, 

 but the cultivation is more svstematic and 

 thorough, and when his crops are secured, they 

 are expended with an economy little understood 

 by his predecessors. 



" Our travelling companion, Jacob B. Farmer, 

 Esq., of Concord, Mass., is a gentleman of rare 

 powers of observation ; he confirms the views 

 we have expressed, — states that he has travelled 

 over the various routes we have now taken, more 

 than one hundred and fifty times within forty * 

 years, and that he has noticed these desertions 

 of the original homesteads through the whole 

 time, — but that a large majority of them belon"- 

 to the latter half of that period.'^ 



* ^ ^ ^ 



" In my last I spoke of the tendency of New 

 Hampshire lands to go back, first to grass and 

 then to forest lands. A fellow-traveller, detained 

 here, from Hillsboro', states that twenty farms 

 in that town have been deserted, and probably 

 Avill never again be occupied by man ; while a 

 resident of this place informs me that on a 

 single mountain tract in this neighborhood, ten 

 farms are deserted, and the buildings are in 

 ruins ! Such are the striking features all over 

 this region of country." 



TO DESTROY FLY IN WHEAT. 



If any of our readers have fly in their wheat 

 this fall — a risk, by the way, which all good 

 farmers run, as such iviU have their wheat 

 sowed early if they possibly can — let them not 

 forget to try the remedy proposed by our friend, 

 the late Jas. A. Cochran, of Augusta, and 

 sanctioned by his experience for several years. 



It is simply to apply from one to two bushels 

 of water-slaked — not air-slaked — lime per acre 

 to the "wheat when the dew or other moisture is 

 on the wheat, so that the lime will readily make 

 a ley which will run down the groove of the 

 blade to the nidus of the fly, or, as it then is, 

 maggot. The same application, made in the 

 spring, if not found fully effective in the fiill, 

 Mr. Cochran found to rid him almost entirely of 

 this pest. 



The hands that apply the lime, may handle it 

 with impunity if they will only keep their 

 hands well greased. Mr. Cochran used small 



