AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
175 
wide and deep, liave now shrunk into much 
smaller dimensions; from what cause, can any¬ 
one tell, if not that the hills and mountains are 
now almost entirely bereft of trees ? Drouths 
prevail all over the Eastern continent, with in¬ 
creasing severity; and scientific and observing 
men everywhere proclaim that this is owing 
chiefly to the cause of which we now speak. 
Valleys and low-lands, and fertile plains should 
of course be cleared of trees and devoted to 
farms and gardens; but at least the rocky hills 
and mountains should not be shorn of their 
leafy honors. Let the trees stand sacred from 
the desolating ax, all along our hights, to break 
the fury of storms, and to condense and bring 
down the useful vapory of the clouds upon our 
fields and into our springs and streams. It is 
high time that the older States of the Union be¬ 
gan to move in this matter, either regulating the 
destruction of our old forests, or encouraging 
the growth of new. We believe that some 
wholesome laws touching this matter would both 
secure our posterity a good supply of lumber, 
and a good degree of exception from drouths. 
All that individuals can do in this matter is to 
preserve their own forest land in just propor¬ 
tion, and by underdraining, thus deepening the 
soil and giving it a porous spongy character, 
render the land capable of absorbing and re¬ 
taining as large a quantity as possible of the wa¬ 
ter that falls upon it, instead of allowing a large 
portion to flow off as is now generally the case. 
Our State Legislatures might, we think, with 
great propriety remit the taxes for 20 years on 
all land devoted to high forest, (not low woods 
for charcoal and hoop poles,) and tax land which 
might but does not carry a good growth of high 
or low woods at the rate its value would war¬ 
rant if properly improved. Forester. 
Improvement of Pine Plains. 
At the mention of the words “pine plains,” 
whose thoughts do not at once recur to such 
regions as Saratoga and Schenectady counties, 
some portions of Connecticut, Long-Island, 
New-Jersey, Virginia, and indeed other large 
sections of the country ? Can anything be done. 
to improve this land, much of which is like an 
ash-heap, and all of it comparatively sterile ? 
Experience shows that it can be ameliorated, 
yet not without labor skillfully applied. 
In many cases this soil has an underlying 
stratum of marl, which contains most of the 
ingredients necessary to restore its fertility. 
And wherever tjiis marl does not lie so near at 
hand, it can generally be obtained from other 
quarters at no great expense. We have been 
informed of its being applied to barren, sandy 
knolls, which produced no sort of vegetation 
whatever, and which blew about in the wind; 
the result was that these knolls yielded a 
crop superior to that on any other part of the 
field; these other portions being in good ordi¬ 
nary condition, but receiving no sort of manure. 
The application of marl serves to give tenacity 
and consistency to the soil, and prepares it to 
profit by the vegetable and other manures which 
should be applied in routine afterwards. 
The frequent practice of renovating these 
lands by clovering and plastering, is excellent 
and economical. The objection sometimes 
made, that the clover roots are thrown out by 
frost, may be removed, partially at least, by 
thorough harrowing after seeding, and then 
following with the roller. The usefulness of 
this last named implement on light soils, is not 
yet so fully appreciated as it should be. 
For lands of this sort, the best rotation is : 
clover turned in for winter wheat; Indian corn; 
and barley, oats, or spring wheat with which 
clover and timothy grass should be sown. Al¬ 
ways let the roller follow the seeding. It crushes 
lumps, fills up interstices, makes the surface 
compact and smooth, hastens the germination 
of seed, and causes the roots to strike deep in 
the soil. The next year after seeding the 
ground to clover, apply a good dressing of plas¬ 
ter, and devote the land to a hay crop. Next 
year, plaster again, and let the clover grow un¬ 
til about the last of June, when the sod may 
be turned under and the land devoted to a grain 
crop. As to the best method of preparing the 
ground for wheat, farmers do not quite agree. 
After the sod has once been turned under, some 
cross-plow and thoroughly break up the turf 
before seeding. Others do not disturb the in¬ 
verted sod,' but sow their seed on top of the fur¬ 
rows, harrowing it in and rolling smooth. Farm¬ 
ers are not all agreed whether wheat or corn 
should follow clover, nor whether the sod should 
be broken up in Fall or Spxing just before 
planting. This rotation of crops should be ac¬ 
companied with such annual dressings of marl, 
ashes, plaster, and such other manures as can 
be obtained. Muck or swamp mud strengthen 
the texture and enrich the soil. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Demolish Your Fences. 
The advice is somewhat radical for an ortho¬ 
dox conservative journal, you say. But perhaps 
the reader will not differ from the writer very 
much, when he comprehends our meaning fully. 
The most conspicuous feature of the northern 
farm, is its fencing. It must have been a ruling 
passion with our fathers, and one groans in the 
spirit to think of the weary days and months 
they spent in laying stone wall. We have be¬ 
fore us, as we write, a little patrimony of twelve 
acres, cut up into lots of one acre, 2 of an acre, 
1£ acres, Is acres, 2 acres, 1 acre, and the only 
reason why the balance was not still further 
divided was the fact that it is a swamp where 
stones were not convenient for building. This 
subdivision of land is only a little in excess of 
what prevails on a large class of farms, particu¬ 
larly those in rough or rocky lands. Farms of 
one, two, and three hundred acres are numerous, 
on which there is not a cultivated field of more 
than ten acres; while one, two, and three acre 
lots are numerous. Nothing but the pastures 
were left of tolerable size, and these only be¬ 
cause they were too rocky or wet even to admit 
of plowing. I know of a farm in Connecticut 
of one hundred and sixty acres that is cut up 
into twenty five separate lots, including wood¬ 
land and pasture. Excluding these, the fields 
would not average four acres each. The fencing 
upon this farm is much like that of the farms in 
the neighborhood, and is only mentioned be¬ 
cause I happen to be acquainted with it. Tak¬ 
ing only one half this as a fair average of the 
fencing of the improved land in this and the 
adjoining States, it makes a very formidable 
item in the expense of the farm. The fact is 
one that will not be disputed, that there are a 
great many pretty good farms in New-England, 
and New-York, at any rate, that will not sell for 
what the fences cost. An estimate of the cost of 
fences in the State of Ohio, made by the Board 
of Agriculture, amounts to 115,000,000 dollars. 
What the motives of our fathers were, in encum¬ 
bering the soil with so much fence, except where 
the land was to be cleared of stones, it is diflicult 
to conceive. If the idea, was to get rid of the 
surface stones, they signally failed, for what can 
be more in the way of cultivation than a stone 
wall on the four sides of eveiy acre of land ? 
Whatever the objects in view, they were no 
compensation for the manifold evils of small in¬ 
closures. The yearly expense of keeping these 
fences in repair is enormous. It is estimated 
that it equals the whole cost of renewal once in 
15 years. The cheaply built stone wall is soon 
thrown out of line by the frosts, and is thrown 
down. The stones often have to be put up every 
Spring, when the farmer wants his time for 
other purposes. They hinder cultivation more 
than any one would suppose, who had not prac¬ 
tical acquaintance with the evil. The loss of 
time to the man and team in turning round at 
the ends of an acre lot in plowing, harrowing, 
cultivating, mowing, etc., is very great. The 
loss of land is also considerable. If a wall is only 
four feet wide inclosing an acre, yet counting 
but half, it will occupy six square rods, or about 
four per cent, making one acre in twenty five. 
But beside the land actually taken up by the wall, 
there is a space each side difficult to plow. I 
have no hesitation in saying that three-fourths 
of our stone walls are a nuisance that call loud¬ 
ly for abatement. They are an eyesore upon the 
farm, and as much a blot upon our husbandry as 
they are upon the beauty of our landscape. 
But what shall be done with these walls, if 
we come to this sweeping conclusion ? That 
of course must depend somewhat upon circum¬ 
stances. "Where the land is worth forty dollars 
or more an acre for cultivation, I would say 
use them to construct stone drains. This will 
put them out of sight, and at the same time put 
them to a good use where they will pay a large 
interest upon the money spent in sinking them. 
A drain constructed with this object in view 
makes a market for a great quantity of stones; it 
carries off all surface water, and permanently 
benefits the soil for rods on each side. A case 
recently fell under my notice in which one of 
our best cultivators had dug ditches 3 feet deep, 
and 4 feet wide at the bottom, and made them 
the recipients of an immense quantity of stones. 
The increased yield of grass he estimates as pay¬ 
ing annually the interest on $300 per acre over 
and above the extra expenses of cutting and 
curing. But there are a great many poor farms 
worth on an average not more than ten dollars 
an acre, and the poorest part of them not worth 
five. What shall be done with the fences in this 
case? To sink the walls for underdraining 
would cost four or five times as much as the 
land is worth. If I owned such land I would 
either sell the most of it, or hire capital to im¬ 
prove it. In its present condition it hardly pays 
taxes, and the expense of working. We might 
remove the old fences, and underdrain thorough¬ 
ly, as far as we went. Clean smooth fields em¬ 
bracing about one-fourth of the whole farm are 
the desirable thing in husbandly. With the ex¬ 
ception of inclosures for the garden and orchard, 
and a small field or two near the barn, we would 
demolish all other fences as fast as we could. 
The expense of a boy and dog, or a regular 
herdsman on large farms, is not by any means 
so great as that of building and maintaining 
fences as we do throughout this country, to say 
nothing of the gain in land and other advan¬ 
tages. Cattle and sheep constantly herded and 
attended by some person, are docile to a sur¬ 
prising degree, and the ability to regulate their 
feeding so as to accomplish a saving of feed, by 
making their feed regularly over one part of the 
pasture at a time, of itself is said to pay the ex¬ 
pense of the herdsman. Connecticut. 
