Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/223

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FARMING OPERATIONS.
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other side of the room, each carrying a grain of the sugar: these are so minute that you scarcely notice them; but by treading, burning, and scalding, I have nearly banished them.

Dined to-day with Mr. Burgess on a "wallabee," the result of our own chase; it was roasted whole, and stuffed, and tasted not unlike hare. We have some artichokes looking strong and luxuriant, much more so than any I recollect to have seen at home. Beans are podding well, though the general opinion here is that they will not succeed with us as a crop.

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29th.—Yoked my team this morning and harrowed the wheat in the flat ground, which had been rather roughly broken up. I think it will answer, though it appears a rude process to subject grown wheat to. I have two, or perhaps three acres ready for the plough, that is, cleared from black boys (dwarf grass trees), which are grubbed out of it; the root of these is a knobby woody hemp, with roots very like heather.

I have just finished dinner (one o'clock)—every thing at table was the produce of the farm; corned mutton, green peas, new potatoes, sugarloaf cabbage, radishes, and lettuce. Afterwards I superintended the burning of trees on the ground, which we shall commence to plough on Monday. Our practice, after the trees have been consumed, is to plough the ashes in, and let