FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.
Weeds, and larger growths, which interfere with cultivation or impoverish the ground, should be cut down or pulled up, before the seed ripens, in August, which prevents their growing in a following year. Weeds are the successful rivals of grain, garden vegetables, and grass.
Now is the BUILDING season. All our country houses and places for work, should be built on the south and west sides of swamps, marshes, ponds, and other fresh waters, on account of health; and not on the north or east sides of any such wet or watery places. The summer winds blow from the south and west, and carry the unwholesome vapours, exhaled from those fresh waters, from places on their south and west sides, to places on the north and east sides, preserving the people's health.
White covers of linen, cotton, or even paper, to the hats of people working in the fields, fishing, fowling, travelling, &c. protect them from morbid or sickening strokes of the sun. This is an old practice among the judicious Swiss.
Now, when all the waters are becoming low, we should observe the places for tapping swamps, marshes, and ponds. By cutting a drain to draw off the water in its low state, in August, we begin to reclaim our lands from the marsh and swamp.—The ground becomes firmer to haul off the wood and timber in the cutting season. Wet grounds should be drained, before they are cleared of their wood. For, if they are freed from trees, in their wet state, the sun produces sickening and often fatal evaporations. This is true in France, Germany, Holland, and the marshy parts of England, though several degrees further north than the United States.
Dry Rot.—This destructive enemy of building, which generally commences its ravages in the cellars, may be prevented or checked, by whitewashing them yearly, mixing copperas with it to give it a yellow hue.