[Footnote 2: Taxus Canadensis, or Canadian Yew, is a trailing evergreen shrub which covers the ground in places. Its stems are as strong as cart-ropes, and often reach the length of twenty feet.] CHAPTER XI. A CHAPTER ON CHOPPING. Imagine yourself, gentle reader, who have perhaps passed most of your days between the wearisome confinement of an office or counting-house, and a rare holiday visit of a few days or weeks at your cousin's or grandfather's pleasant farm in the country--imagine yourself, I say, transplanted to a "home" like ours. No road approaches within ten miles; no footpath nearer than half that distance; the surveyor's blaze is the sole distinctive mark between the adjoining lots and your own; there are trees innumerable--splendid trees--beech, maple, elm, ash, cherry--above and around you, which, while you are wondering what on earth to do with them, as you see no chance of conveying them to market for sale, you are horrified to hear, must be consumed by fire--yea, burnt ruthlessly to ashes, and scattered over the surface of the earth as "good manure"; unless indeed--a desperately forlorn hope--you may "some day" have an opportunity of selling them in the shape of potash, "when there is a road out" to some navigable lake or river. Well, say you, let us set to work and chop down some of these trees. Softly, good sir. In the first place, you must underbrush. With an axe or a strong, long handled bill-hook, made to be used with both hands, you cut away for some distance round--a quarter or half an acre perhaps--all the small saplings and underwood which would otherwise impede your operations upon the larger trees. In "a good hard-wood bush," that is, where the principal timber is maple, white oak, elm, white ash, hickory, and other of the harder species of timber--the "underbrush" is very trifling indeed; and in an hour or two may be cleared off sufficiently to give the forest an agreeable park-like appearance--so much so that, as has been said of English Acts of Parliament, any skilful hand might drive a coach and six through.