borhood unfolding before one, following upon the farms in sight these progressive steps in cultivation.
The pine stumps are probably the only mark of a new country which would be observed by a stranger. With us, they take the place of rocks, which are not common; they keep possession of the ground a long while—some of those about us are known to have stood more than sixty years, or from the first settlement of the country, and how much longer they will last, time alone can tell. In the first years of cultivation, they are a very great blemish, but after a while, when most of them have been burnt or uprooted, a gray stump here and there, among the grass of a smooth field, does not look so very much amiss, reminding one, as it does, of the brief history of the country. Possibly there may be something of partiality in this opinion, just as some lovers have been found to admire a freckled face, because the rosy cheek of their sweetheart was mottled with brown freckles; people generally may not take the same view of the matter, they may think that even the single stump had better be uprooted. Several ingenious machines have been invented for getting rid of these enemies, and they have already done good service in the county. Some of them work by levers, others by wheels; they usually require three or four men and a yoke of oxen, or a horse, to work them, and it is really surprising what large stumps are drawn out of the earth by these contrivances, the strongest roots cracking and snapping like threads. Some digging about the stump is often necessary as a preliminary step, to enable the chain to be fastened securely, and occasionally the axe is used to relieve the machine; still, they work so expeditiously, that contracts are taken to clear lands in this way, at the rate of twenty
