The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1878-01-10

crowned with their forest wealth.
to meet demands now coming NJ
from all the world ; demands that
we, In shiftless prodigality, will
soon be unable to meet. Even the
pine forests, covering the broad
belt Of a territory thought TO be
too poor for cultivation, and them
selves thought 20 be e1haustless,
are stripped Of their charm OF N
yincIbility, and under a tireless ra-
pacity, must before another gener-
alton passes away, cease to give
North Carolina claim to one Of its
most MAGNIFICENT characteristics.
No farmer in middle North Car
DINA will deny that he suffers from
the rockies. prodigality Of his fore
fathers F; that he suffers in fact from
his own w~astcfulness. Choice tim
Der trees are hard to get now. The
special woods for which the coun-
try once had a fame, naples. cher
~, walnut, popular and others, are.
obtained with difficulty. Even
fencing has become a question Of
serious consideration. and the old
fashioned worm fence. once light
" valued as an item of cost, is not
undertaken without serious consid-
Grafton. Nothing more significant
of the extent of wanton waste can
be furnished than in the growing
demand for fence-or rather-no
fence laws. Necessity, absolute
want of material with which to
construct fences compels men to
invite a system, the mere mention of
which they would not have tolera-
ted a generation ago.
These considerations ought to.
induce to "A change ought to lead
to serious plans for preserving the
forests that remain, TO protect grow
timber that is replacing that,
which is being used, and might
lead eventually to the system prac-
ticed in Europe for the creation OF
f,rootc T., +Io ,,.o
ure Of landed property with as
where, upon the death or indebted
ness of the head of the family.
might pass into the bands Of
strangers, there was little temp
tation to provide for the future or
for a remote %posterity. But what
the laws of primogeniture have
lone for Great Britain, the new
homestead laws may do for us !; for
they have some of the effects of
creating permanency of possession
and encouraging improvements
looking far into coming years. But
even if this security do not justify
the planting out of new forests for
generations yet unborn to enjoy, as
/, 50 largely done in England and
Scotland, yet enough interest may
be aroused by it to save from waste
and destruction the remains Of the
once grand wilderness of forest,
verdure and preserve it as a bank
which to draw regular and
stated interest, not as a fund to
waste in one ruinous debauch.
As We write one eye falls upon "a
paragraph quoted from the veneer
able Elias Fries by Rev. Charles
in his my pleasant Win
ter in the Tropics :"
Before him lay Nature in her
wild and sublime beauty. Behind
him he leaves the desert, a deform-
ed and ruined land ; for childish
desire of destruction or thoughtless
squandering of vegetable treasures
have destroyed the character of
Nature, and, terrified, man him
self flies from the arena of his ac-
tons, leaving the impoverished
earth to barbarous races or arrivals
so long as yet another spot in vir-
gin beauty smiles before him. x
i Thus did cultivation.
driven out, leave the East, and per-
haps the deserts formerly robbed
of their coverings like the wild
hordes of old over beautiful Greece.
thus rolls the cOnouest with faar