AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
178 
made little clearings, inclosed small patches of 
ground for their corn and potatoes, and disfigured 
it so that when it came into my hands it was 
about as rugged and unprepossessing a bit of real 
estate as one would care to look upon ; its re¬ 
deeming qualities being a fine natural surface, an 
excellent soil, valuable and stately timber—where 
it still stood—a long stretch of clear, broad, navi¬ 
gable river passing in front, and a charming view 
for miles distant, embracing in its scope, the vig¬ 
orous young town aforesaid. It was a natural 
resort for the Bald Eagles, too ; where they had 
for generations lived, and bred their young, and 
between them and the Squatters, the most har¬ 
monious relations seemed to exist, without harm 
of one to the other. Of a part of this Squatter” 
territory, having dispossessed the “Sovereigns” 
by the purchase of their “ betterments ”—what a 
misapplication of terms for such vandal spolia¬ 
tions as they had committed !—I made a farm, by 
cutting down their girdled trees, clearing out their 
brush fences, straightening their lines, and clear¬ 
ing up the land to the extent of several hundred 
acres, and have occupied it for agricultural pur¬ 
poses ever since. Of this, however, I am not go¬ 
ing to discourse. 
But the ruggedest part of the whole lay further 
along the river, worse mutilated than the other 
which I first took in hand ; and as I had no par¬ 
ticular use for it, I let my cattie range over it in 
Summer; while all the neighboring bipeds, in 
search of holiday amusement, resorted thither for 
the excelleut fishing; found along the shores and in 
the stream opposite, and for gunning, and other 
vagabond recreations, usually, however, in a quiet, 
respectable way. It has a long, sandy beach of 
half a mile, lying in front, wooded down to its 
shore ; just back of that a terraced bank, with a 
stretch of old pasture land embracing an occasion¬ 
al clump of Elms, Beeches, Oaks, and Maples, 
which the Squatters had accidentally, or lazily 
left upon their “ improvements ;” and a dense for¬ 
est in rear, as a finishing back ground—in short, 
a delightful spot to “loaf” of a lazy, sunny, 
Summer’s day. How many times I have envied 
the sleepy loiterers as they lay along that breezy 
beach, under the shade of those grand old trees, 
their boats swinging lazily by the shore, and wish¬ 
ed that I could be as happy in the indulgence of 
such idleness ! But I had no taste that way, and 
for years gave up the ground to them, and the 
cattle—or to the cattle, and them, rather, and re¬ 
served it, Micawber like, for “something to turn 
up ” at one day, or another. Well, the time final- 
y arrived, and during the fine open weather of the 
past Winter, I took the matter in hand, and in an 
incredibly short time—to Park makers— cut out, 
not planted, a grand affair of a hundred acres or 
more, of as agreeable recreation grounds as one 
rould ask for—in a new country. There is wood, 
grass, water, bathing, fishing, yatching, row¬ 
ing, all to heart’s content, with a steamboat 
wharf to land at, and within half an hour’s access 
to eighty-thou sand people. 
But, you may ask, Mr. Editor, how has this 
park been so readily accomplished, an old Squat¬ 
ter’s settlement been so easily converted into a fin¬ 
ished piece of shade, and pleasance! I’ll tell you. 
Squatters do no sort of improvement by calculation. 
They move by chance, and accident. When they 
attempt to cut out a clearing, it is never done by 
straight lines. They cnntle in here : they hack 
out there; if there _s a swamp hole in one 
place, they fall the surrounding tree tops into it 
to get rid of further trouble, and so leave it; a 
clump of “ old settlers,” as they call the big trees, 
in another place they shy round it, not loving 
heavy chopping ; and thus, after occupying their 
premises awhile, and then abandoning them to the 
recuperation of nature, the trees and grounds of¬ 
tentimes take those features which, when put 
under the action of a discriminating mind, yield 
the very thing you want, and which, perhaps, 
with all the study you could give it, under a state 
of nature, you could not succeed half so well in 
accomplishing. So with this place. There was 
a broad, open space of old turf ground a little way 
along the shore ; then a clump of tangled young 
wood, underlaid 'with a thick growth of bushes ; 
beyond, a point of heavy timber running out from 
the forest into the open ground; a few scattering, 
stalwart old elms, oaks, and maples, which be¬ 
ing left out alone in the clearing, had thrown out 
vigorous young shoots far down their originally 
tall, naked trunks, and now gave dense masses 
of shade all around them. 
The edges of the deep woods, too, had become 
feathered down to the ground with the younger 
growth springing up beneath them, and covering 
up the bare trunks which new clearings are apt 
to show so repulsively, and thus prepared them 
for the hand of a skillful improver. Yet, all was 
wild, lying waste and unattractive. There were old 
frog-holes and swales, which had lain since crea¬ 
tion, and where the frogs had piped in shrdl con¬ 
cert every Spring since Noah’s flood, now full of 
decayed tree tops that had been filled into them 
io save chopping up at the time of clearing. Ta¬ 
ken altogether, it was about as pretty a mess as 
one would care to go into, who did not understand 
quite well what he was about, and what he want¬ 
ed to make of it. Thousands of other just such 
spots, land- wise, lie all over the country. 
Now, for the way of doing it: I first took a 
couple of good ditchers out to tap the frog and 
swamp holes, and drain them into the swales ; 
half a dozen good woodsmen, expert in the use of 
axes and bush-hooks, and with a light axe in my 
own hand, and each a heavy one in theirs, we en¬ 
tered the grounds. For the first few days we at¬ 
tacked the brush-wood, cut it close, dragged it out 
on to the open ground, where it could be burned 
without scorching the standing trees, and piled it. 
Then, with my own axe in advance, I marked 
eveiy bad, imperfect tree, or sapling that needed 
removal, while the men followed and cut them 
away, and chopped them up for clearing out. 
Thus, open groves of fine young second-growth 
were made of thickets and almost inaccessible 
brush-wood. Spectral old trunks of dead, stand¬ 
ing trees were cut down, and chopped into “ log¬ 
ging length” for hauling out; and gaunt, crooked, 
ill-shaped things felled, to make room for the 
thrifty, and handsome ones. In short, whenever 
we saw a thing which required removal, it was 
done up thoroughly, and after a few weeks’ work, 
what looked so wild, rampant, and neglected be¬ 
fore, now showed as if the advance guard of ruin 
itself had rushed in upon it. There lay the 
slaughtered wood, and the hacked-up brush and 
tree tops, stretched out upon the ground, and 
sprawling over the grass, higglety pigglety, as if 
the very genius of havoc had made a descent up¬ 
on it, scattered hither and thither over many 
broad acres of ground, with huge old stumps here 
and there between, adding to the desolation ; a 
nice specimen of “ improvement,” to the eye of 
a pleasure-ground admirer 1 
Such was the first series of labor. Next, two 
solid yoke of oxen went out with us to our daily 
toil. The brush piled, and out of the way, we 
hitched to the worthless logs and rubbish which 
the fallen trees had made, and hauled them to¬ 
gether for burning; and what was fit for fire¬ 
wood we laid aside for that purpose. Any quan- 
i tity of old decayed trunks and tops lay half 
buried under the leaves, and in the water-holes 
now dry, whole quarries of them—all these we 
hauled out one after the other, and made the 
ground clean throughout. The field stumps—those 
of the trees long ago chopped away—were pulled 
out and piled for firing, and every combustible 
thing taken out from among the standing trees. 
A few days of diy weather, and fire was applied 
to the heaps of dry rubbish. A jolly time we had 
of that, lasting a few days longer in “ picking up,” 
rolling the old charred logs closer together as they 
burned away, and “ branding.” After this, nu¬ 
merous blackened spots of burnt ground and ash¬ 
es remained, which we scattered away with our 
spades, and sprinkled grass seed over, and this is 
now springing up to clothe the earth again, fresh 
and vigorous. A person knowing the place last 
year, would scarcely recognize it now, so chang¬ 
ed for the better. The features are all renewed, its 
face washed, hair combed, and brought into come¬ 
liness and beauty, at a cost not exceeding two or 
three hundred dollars ; and here is a Park, com¬ 
prising all the main requirements which belong to 
a finished one of the kind, with the simple differ¬ 
ence, that it has been made in a few weeks, out 
of an old slashing, instead of twenty or thirty 
years of engineering, leveling, plastering, prun¬ 
ing, manuring, and the thousand and one other 
things which are indispensable to create one from 
an already cleared surface. 
The most grateful sensation of the whole to 
myself is, that instead of a nusiance to my estate, 
and of little account in a productive way, it has 
now a paying fancy value worth treble any other 
part of the farm, from its attractiveness as a 
place of Summer resort to the neighboring town’s 
people, who find that they have a watering place, 
and park, close at home, instead of going several 
hundred miles away to enjoy a less desirable one 
among “the fashionables.” It is, in short, anew 
creation; something, made of nothing; and hun¬ 
dreds of such can be just as easily made all over 
the country. Rusticus. 
--- 
Pruning Fruit, Shade, and Forest Trees. 
June and July are good months for removing 
large limbs from fruit and shade trees. The sap 
is now in a right condition to form new wood, 
and the healing process commences at once. 
The foliage also serves as a shade to prevent sun 
checks in the wounded parts, although where 
large branches are taken from fruit trees it is bet¬ 
ter to coat the exposed portions with the solution 
mentioned below. 
The tools for pruning are : first —a sharp, finely 
set saw, nearly pointed at the end, that it may en¬ 
ter between closely growing limbs. Neither should 
it be a “backed” saw, but like the common 
board-saw used by the joiners. Second —a hand 
hatchet, like a small axe, easily used by one hand. 
Third —a stout pruning knife; and each of them 
sharp. Then, a step-ladder, easily carried in the 
hand, or on the shoulder. Of course we give no 
directions as to what particular branches are to 
be cut off, as the tree or shrub is not before us, 
presuming also, that the pruner understands his 
business. 
As to the mode or manner of doing the work, 
let every branch be cut close to the body of the 
tree, or main branch from which it is taken, and 
the bark pared close and smooth, for the wound 
rapidly to heal over. If a choice tree, a solution 
of gum shellac dissolved in pure alcohol to the 
consistency of cream, should be laid upon it with 
a paint brush, to exclude the air, and prevent the 
exposed wood from sun-cracking. 
Pruning, in general, is not half enough regarded 
