Report of the Secretary of Agriculture ...

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U.S. Government Printing Office, 1865
 

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Page 442 - Killingworth, In fabulous days, some hundred years ago ; And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth, Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow, That mingled with the universal mirth, Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe; They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words To swift destruction the whole race of birds.
Page 447 - Partridge between the First Day of February and the First Day of September...
Page 442 - Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these? Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught The dialect they speak, where melodies Alone are the interpreters of thought? Whose household words are songs in many keys, Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught! Whose habitations in the tree-tops even Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!
Page 23 - ... gradually formed in which all kinds of plants grow with the greatest luxuriance. This fertility is owing to the alkalies which are contained in the lava, and which by exposure to the weather are rendered capable of being absorbed by plants. Thousands of years have been necessary to convert stones and rocks into the soil of arable land, and thousands of years more will be requisite for their perfect reduction, that is, for the complete exhaustion of their alkalies.
Page 442 - The robin and the bluebird, piping loud, Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee; The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be; And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd, Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly, Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said: 'Give us, O Lord, this day, our daily bread!
Page 533 - Ussher, who has written the bulk of the present volume, and who has devoted the greater part of his life to the study of the history and habits of his well-beloved Irish birds.
Page 442 - You slay them all! and wherefore? for the gain Of a scant handful more or less of wheat, Or rye, or barley, or some other grain, Scratched up at random by industrious feet, Searching for worm or weevil after rain!
Page 442 - The Summer came, and all the birds were dead; The days were like hot coals; the very ground Was burned to ashes ; in the orchards fed Myriads of caterpillars, and around The cultivated fields and garden beds Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found No foe to check their march, till they had made The land a desert without leaf or shade.
Page 51 - Norway and white pines that could be hewn or sawed into square timber, from forty to fifty feet in length, suitable for the frames of large houses, barns, and other buildings. There were some dead trees on the two acres thinned at an early day, but they were only small trees shaded out by the large ones. On the part left to nature's thinning, there was a vastly greater number of dead trees — many of them fallen and nearly worthless. Of the dead trees standing, cords might be...
Page 5 - ... leaving off now the old barbarous unkempt shock head of hair, and comb their abundant locks in the more cleanly and becoming mode of the Pakehas. They have generally small and wellshaped hands and feet. The custom of tattooing is now falling out of fashion amongst the rising generation of both sexes, and it is to be hoped that before many years have passed, the nickname of " Blue-lips" will no longer be applicable to the native girls of New Zealand.

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