174 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Jem a, 
Pine Lumbering—A Lesson from History. 
The white pine, (Pirns strobus,) is perhaps the 
most valuable tree of our forests. From the 
first settlement of the country it has been most 
highly prized for lumber, and it now forms a 
part of almost every good dwelling in the land. 
The window frames and sashes, the blinds and 
doors are almost universally of pine. It often 
forms the mop-boards and shingles, the floors 
and parts of the frame work. This tree was 
widely distributed over the older States in the 
North, and occupied the valleys of rivers and 
plains, where it was most accessible to the early 
settlers. The pine loved smooth easily worked 
land, and the settler did the same. The pioneer, 
in making his clearing for a farm, had no 
thought for posterity. He wanted to plant corn 
and cultivate grasses, and the trees were his 
natural enemies. They had no value except for 
fuel, as they have none now, in many of the 
new settlements remote from navigable streams. 
As the population increased, and cities began 
to be built, it would pay to cut and saw the 
pine, and send it to market. The settler wanted 
to realize immediately upon his purchase, and 
all the pine lumber was marketed that he could 
cut and saw. Thus all New England, except 
Maine, has been stripped of its pine, and even 
in the Pine Tree State, the pines are beginning 
to fail, and spruce, fir, and hemlock, are taking 
their place. It is said, we know not how 
truly, that pine from Michigan now some¬ 
times finds a market in Maine. 
It is only about eighty years since Vermont 
was settled, and it is not fifty years since' the 
lumber trade was the principal business at Bur¬ 
lington, on Lake Champlain. The region 
around for twenty miles, back to the foot of the 
Green Mountain range, was heavily timbered 
with white pine. The men are now living who 
remember the grand slaughter upon these mon- 
arclis of the forest, and the shipping of the lum¬ 
ber, through the lake, and the St. Lawrence, to 
Europe. Trees from four to six feet in diame¬ 
ter, and from 140 to 180 feet in hight, were not 
uncommon. Dr. Wlieelock, of Dartmouth Col¬ 
lege, is said to have measured a tree that stood 
upon the college grounds, and found it 270 feet 
in length. But now a pine a hundred feet high 
is a very rare object. In a recent trip from 
Burlington eastward to the mountains, we did 
not see an acre of primitive pine forest, and but 
few of the second growth. Other varieties of 
wood are much more common than the pine. 
Remains of the old forests are occasionally seen, 
in enormous stumps not yet rotted in the ground, 
or in stump fences, that have stood fora genera¬ 
tion. The export of pine lumber has long since 
ceased, and the region is now dependent upon 
Canada and the West for its supplies. Hardly 
an intelligent farmer can be found that does not 
mourn over the indiscriminate havoc of the 
first growth of pines. It would take at least 
three hundred years to restore them. 
Is there not a lesson in this fact for the lum¬ 
bermen of Michigan and the North-western 
States ? They own the land, and wish to make 
the most of it, for themselves, and their cliil- 
cjren. The clearing up of their pine lands is 
likely to go forward more rapidly than in Ver¬ 
mont, for the tide of emigration moves stronger 
westward, and we have an immense population 
along the seaboard, that must be more and 
more dependent*upon these new States for their 
pine lumber. At present they have but a small 
profit upon their lumber, because of its distance 
from market The market is «J1 the while com¬ 
ing nearer to them, and, judging from the past, 
the cost of transportation will be diminishing. 
Will it not be better for their estate, a richer in¬ 
heritance for their children, to leave at least half 
of these forests untouched by the ax? Sup¬ 
pose an acre of primitive pine forest now stand¬ 
ing near the shore of Lake Champlain. With 
pine lumber worth from $20 to $30 a thousand, 
and a home market, every one acquainted with 
the business, can readily see the value of such 
a piece of property. Many of the trees would 
be worth $100 and upwards, and an acre would 
purchase a respectable farm. 
It is worth while for the new settlers upon 
these pine lands to look forward fifty years, and 
think of their heirs, if not of their own old age. 
Then an acre of cleared meadow may be worth 
$50 for cultivation, and an acre of primitive 
pine $1000 for lumber. Of course, the most of 
the forest must perish to make room for farms 
and the onward march of civilization. We only 
ask that the wants of posterity may be consid¬ 
ered, and that the unprofitable experiment of 
New-England be not repeated. 
Important Discovery in Sugar Making. 
In the Journal d’Agriculture of Feb. 5th, the 
editor, M. Barral, speaks of the new process of 
M. Rousseau for the fabrication of sugar, as be¬ 
ing likely to cause a revolution in this branch 
of industry. We are inclined to receive with 
distrust the glowing accounts that the French 
are wont to give of their great discoveries, yet 
we cheerfully acknowledge that some of these 
have proved of great advantage to agricultural 
science, and hope that this new process may, on 
further trial, be found to possess all the merit 
claimed for it, and that our Western farmers 
may be able to use it successfully in the manu¬ 
facture of sugar from the sorghum. The chemi¬ 
cal agents employed are cheap, have no injuri¬ 
ous action on the human system, or the saccha¬ 
rine juices. The repeated filtrations through 
animal charcoal, which are now used for refin¬ 
ing sugar, are said to be unnecessary, and the 
evaporation of the syrup can be effected in 
simple apparatus. 
The juice that is extracted from the saccha- 
riferous plant is generally colorless as long as it 
remains in the cells of the plant, but changes 
rapidly on exposure to the air, because it con 
tains albumenoid matters, and other substances 
which are colored brown or black by the action 
of oxygen. M. Rousseau, removes the albume¬ 
noid matter by heating the saccharine juice in a 
boiler with three thousandths of its weight of 
sulphate of lime, (plaster of paris) pulverized. 
When the liquid reaches 212°, all the coagulable 
matters rise to the surface and unite in a firm 
head, and a perfectly clear juice remains, which 
may be drawn off. This juice, if left exposed to 
the air, will become as black as ink, but if from 
6 to 8 per cent of its weight of hydrated per-oxide 
of iron be stirred in, it is freed, in a few seconds, 
from all the changeable organic matters, and 
continues, for an indefinite period, colorless. 
Nothing now remains to be done but to evap¬ 
orate the water and thus obtain crystalized su¬ 
gar. M. Barral remarks that he has been able 
to try the experiment only in the laboratory, 
but he has tried it enough to satisfy him that 
the application on a large scale will be success¬ 
ful. In a subsequent number of his journal he 
reaffirms his belief in the value of this discovery, 
and says that he has made excellent sugar by 
this process. He moreover says that in a few 
days an experiment will be made on a large 
scale, and in September next, after the gather¬ 
ing of the beet crop, this process will be em¬ 
ployed in one of the large sugar houses in France, 
and several farm sugar houses will be fitted up, 
which the farmers can visit, and ascertain for 
themselves all the profit that they can derive 
from this discovery. This process has no per¬ 
ceptible effect in removing the coloring matter 
of brown sugar, after the juice has become ox- 
ydized by exposure to the air; the repeated fil¬ 
trations through animal charcoal are then neces¬ 
sary to refine the sugar. 
We will here mention for the benefit of our 
Western friends the remark of an experienced 
sugar refiner of this city, that one reason of the 
failure to make sugar from the sorghum, in many 
cases, is that tlie whole stalk is ground up, top 
and all, whereas the top should be cut off and 
only the main body of the stalk ground. The 
top often contains an acid which hinders the 
sugar from crystalizing, but does not prevent 
the making of good syrup. 
Plowing by Steam. 
There is little hazard in saying that the steam 
plow will be in successful operation in this 
country within ten years from this time. The 
spirit of the age demands it. The painfully 
slow pace of the horse or ox laboriously toiling 
in the furrow, is all out of keeping with the 
times. Men who ride triumphantly over their 
fields With the reaper and mower, will not long 
be content to plod the weary rounds now re¬ 
quired to bring their acres into cultivation. 
The advanced condition of agriculture demands 
it. Men of far-reaching intellect, capable of 
large plans, are now content to be farmers, but 
their operations must correspond to their abili¬ 
ties ; they must be generals in the field, and en¬ 
gage in wholesale operations on the spreading 
prairies that invite to glorious though peaceful 
triumphs; they must number their acres by the 
thousand, and they will have implements com¬ 
mensurate with the work. Then, too, improved 
cultivation needs an instrument adapted to its 
methods. Deep tillage, and thorough commi¬ 
nution of the soil are recognized as essential to 
the best crops, and the plow as now constructed 
can only approximate to the required work. 
The great outlay of animal power needed for 
thorough culture, is one great obstacle to its 
general adoption. But in addition to the con¬ 
fessed need of the steam plow, we have the fact 
that it is actually working. Recent English 
journals give accounts of the successful per¬ 
formance of Fowler’s steam cultivating appa¬ 
ratus—not on the exhibition grounds of an Ag¬ 
ricultural Society merely, but in the regular 
work of the farm. In a single locality, within 
a radius of 20 miles around Overtown, there are 
fourteen of these machines at work, of which the 
owners give most encouraging statements. Mr. 
Stratton, well known as one of the foremost 
breeders of English Short-Horns, having used a 
12-liorse power Steam Plow, since October, 1859, 
says; “ The machine is managed entirely by my 
own farm servants, and yet since we have be¬ 
gun to plow for wheat-seeding, 200 acres have 
been plowed without any breakage, or the delay 
of even half a day on account of either engine 
or tackle_We go eight inches deep ; and fre¬ 
quently at the rate of one acre per hour.” Other 
intelligent men give testimony to the same ef¬ 
fect. The cost of plowing an acre is stated by 
one owner of a machine, to be 7 shillings ster¬ 
ling, or about $1.75. 
Those who have compared the working 
