The great Prairies of the West, with a considerable portion of the valleys and plains of the Atlantic slope, expose no rock at their surfaces, and little beneath them, until the soil has been traversed, and the vicinity of the underlying rock in place fairly attained. To farmers inured to the perpetual stone-picking of New-England, and other hilly regions, this is a most welcome change; but when the pioneer comes to look about him for stone to wall his cellar and his well, to underpin his barn, and form the foundations of his dwelling, he realizes that the bowlders he had exulted in leaving behind him were not wholly and absolutely a nuisance; glad as he was to be rid of them forever, he would like now to call some of them back again. Yet, the Eastern farmer of to-day has fewer uses for stone than his grandfather had. He does not want his farm cut up into two or three-acre patches, by broad-based, unsightly walls, which frost is apt to heave year after year into greater deformity and less efficiency; nor does he care longer to use them in draining, since he must excavate and replace thrice as much earth in making a stone as in making a tile drain; while the former affords shelter and impunity to rats, mice, and other mischievous, predatory animals, whose burrowing therein tends constantly to stimulate its natural tendency to become choked with sand and earth. Of the stone drains, constructed through parts of my farm by foremen whose wills proved stronger than my own, but two remain in partial operation, and I shall rejoice when these shall have filled themselves up and been counted out evermore. Happily, they were sunk so low that the subsoil plow will never disturb them. Still, my confidence that nothing was made in vain is scarcely shaken by the prevalence and abundance of stone on our Eastern farms. We may not have present use for them all; but our grandsons will be wiser than we, and have uses for them which we hardly suspect. I reinsist that land which is very stony was mainly created with an eye to timber-growing, and that millions of acres of such ought forthwith to be planted with Hickory, White Oak, Locust, Chestnut, White Pine, and other valuable forest-trees. Every acre of thoroughly dry land, lying near a railroad, in the Eastern or Middle States, may be made to pay a good interest on from $50 up to $100, provided there be soil enough above its rocks to afford a decent foothold for trees; and how little will answer this purpose none can imagine who have not seen the experiment tried. Sow thickly, that you may begin to cut out poles six to ten feet long within three or four years, and _keep_ cutting out (but never cutting off) thenceforward, until time shall be no more, and your rocky crests, steep hillsides and ravines, will take rank with the most productive portions of your farm.