CULTIVATION or FOREST LANDS. 329

Previous to commencing the cultivation of wood lands, the trees that are cut down, lopped, and cut into lengths, are, when the proper season arrives, generally in May, set on fire, which consumes all the branches and small wood. The logs are then either piled in heaps and burnt, or rolled away for fencing. Those who can afford the expense, use oxen to haul off the large unconsumed timber. The surface of the ground, the remaining wood, is all black and charred ; working on it, and preparing it for the seed, is as disagreeable probably as any labour in which a man can be engaged. Men, women, and children, how- ever, must employ themselves in gathering and burn- ing the rubbish, and in such parts of labour as the strength of each adapts them to. If the ground be intended for grain, it is sown, without tillage, over the surface, and the seed covered with a hoe. By some a triangular harrow is used, in place of the hoe, to shorten labour. Others break up the earth with a ' one—handled plough, (the old Dutch plough,) which has the share and coulter locked into each other, drawn also by oxen, While a man attends with an axe, to cutthe roots in its way. Little regard is paid in this case, to making straight furrows, the object being no more than to work up the ground. With such rude preparation, however, three successive good crops are raised without any manure. Potatoes are planted in round hollows, scooped four or five inches deep, and’about twenty in circumference, in which three or‘five sets are planted, and coveredwover with a hoe. Indian corn, cucumbers, pumpkins, pease, and