Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1872-09-11

and stones to pile. What IS to be done with
this spare time2 Is il to be given to stupid
idleness, to fast horses, to driving to games
and to lounging at the villages A part may
be given to more reading, but part must
also be given to making farm life more at
tractive and farm houses more worthy sensi-
bic man and woman in civilized age, or YER
mont will not only fail Of her greatest pros
perity and refinement, but she will be posit-
lively disgraced and more and more depopu-
lated and converted into sheep pastures and
dirty manufacturing villages where rags and
ruffains will abound. Every one knows how
little there now is, generally, about Vermont
farms, to attract any taste but that of mere
rude industry and plodding dollar-making
and every one who has travelled or lived
among her hills and mountains knows how
lavish nature has been Of all the natural
beauties of landscape, to which taste and
skill might lend inexhaustible attractions
This has been done in Wales and in Switzer-
land, and the effect has been not only to keep
at home tens Of thousands of their sons and
daughters, who might otherwise have emigrat-
ed but also TO draw to them the lovers OF
such beauty from all the cities and villages
and from foreign countries.
BY such visitors their productions are con-
sumed at home at the highest prices, and their
horses and carriages are employed and their
hotels and stores are supported. | have not
the slightest doubt that if there was the same
taste displayed in Vermont, if her hotels were
as comfortable and her villages and country
resorts we're made as attractive, there would
be an immense increase in the sums she would
receive from the travelling public. No other
New England State is so beautiful or has so
3 iue summer climate, and her interest in this
development may be measured by hundreds
of thousands of dollars annually in all time
to come Tho time is past when, without
both loss and discredit, she can have village
taverns as barren and unattractive as barn,
D and country houses for summer travellers
situated at the dirty corners of dusty roads,
instead Of in shady groves and by the side Of
I clear, rushing waters have visited several
3 Welsh villages, the taste and comfort Of
which, consisting Of the particulars have
mentioned would attract thousands Of travel
6 lers every year; and one of their hotels
would take away all the guests Of most Of the
hotels at any one Of the country resorts in
? Vermont
! Trees are yet more important. The Welsh
take great care Of them, preserving groves
r and also planting plots and whole fields Of
D trees Such, too, is the case in Scotland,
!. Germany and Switzerland How much, in
$ our hotter climate would add to the comfort
= and attractions Of a farm house to have grove
Of twenty, FIVE, or even of three trees, near it
s How grateful such shade to man and beast
e alike in our hot days How soon, if they
] were fine, would such trees become en1eared
e to our memory and be cherished among the
r most pleasing associations of home. If any
g section Of the State now had fine trees as a
S rule along its roads and around its farm
9 houses, it would be an object Of public inter-
: est and venture to say the farms would
r be greatly increased in value and that the
children would be more attached to their
homes. Let now any farmer properly plant
naples, elms, beeches and other trees around
t his house and along his paths and roads, and
he will make an investment which will more
5 increase the value of his farm than any other
D Of the same cost he can make believe we
I have cut away far too much Of our timber
: and that our children, as is now the case in
$ so many sections Of Europe, will have to pro-
7 cure fuel at a ruinous cost and to suffer
from streams dried up and soil made arid and
barren. From such causes, Spain and Greece
) cannot now support half their ancient popula-
ton and in portions Of France the people
, are obliged to spend vast sums in restoring
trees. am persuaded that our pastures,
now so parched in midsummer, would yield
far more food for our stock if there were
: from five to ten shading trees to every acre
We have no pastures made less productive BY
excess Of shade but great portion of them
are dried too much by excess Of sunshine.
J. In England, Switzerland, Germany and the
: Iyrol, where land is so much more valuable
D where agriculture is most scientific, where
, there is more rain and less heat aud sun.
light than with us, there are far more
trees, not only in the pastures but 10 the titled
fields and they are no loss, but great gain.
1t is incredible folly to compel our cattle
sheep and horses to 60, sometimes nearly
/ mile, to gain shade from the scorching sun.
| believe our drier pastures would bear much
more grass if a third or a fourth of the ground
was shaded with trees.
5 We began with destroying all trees, fish
e and birds; we have got wise enough to enter
D upon restoration Of the latter; and soon, |
trust, we shall be wise enough to appreciate
the blessing Of more trees. Our waning
brooks our dried-up springs, our attenuated
: rivers, our laud-slides our decreasing rains,
b our fuel growing steadily more scarce and
costly, the fearful rush of waters from
our barren hills and the meager grass upon
them, alike commend to us the wisdom of
u Wales, and warn us Of the folly and danger
J of our own methods of dealing with the
trees. But must stop | did not suppose
the condition of Wales would suggest so many
reflections. You may think | have found
much fault; and SO | have But it is be.
cause desire to see my native State wise in
everything, and excel in everything. No
| portion of the earths surface, l believe, is
blessed with more intelligent, more manly
and more yirtuous agricultural population,
and none other unites with these qualities
so great measure of intellectual vigor and
honorable ambition. A proportional cult
walton Of taste and beauty in the direction of
landscape and household adornment, would
give to the agriculture Of Vermont uurivalled
excellence and attraction. If her agricultu-
raj societies would give this subject its due
attention, am sure the State would derive
inestimable benefit.
Vermont can never be commercial State,
nor ia her situation very favorahle for mann,