"Cut down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to get the whole garden cleared, but Jim will be able to get a piece ready for us to sow some spring vegetables, not a large piece, but enough for us. The first thing to do will be to cut down those apple-trees. I'm afraid we shall have to cut down that walnut; nothing could grow beneath it. Did any one ever see such a mass of weed and briar? Yet it is only about ten years since we left Woodview, and the garden ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... the perseverance of the legionaries, who were inured to toil as well as to danger, and who felt themselves animated by the spirit of their leader. The damage was gradually repaired; the waters were restored to their proper channels; whole groves of palm-trees were cut down, and placed along the broken parts of the road; and the army passed over the broad and deeper canals, on bridges of floating rafts, which were supported by the help of bladders. Two cities of Assyria presumed to resist the arms of a Roman emperor: and they both paid the severe penalty ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... dearest: that some little sum, slender, perhaps, but as liberal as you could make it, may come in periodically when it is wanted, and seem like the gift of a thoughtful heart and a kindly hand which are far away. Yes, cut down your present income to any extent, that you may make some provision for your children after you are dead. You do not wish that they should have the saddest of all reasons for taking care of you, and trying to lengthen out your life. But even after you have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... one of the earliest, if not the earliest, of materials used by man for constructional purposes. With it he built for himself a shelter from the elements; it provided him with fuel and oft-times food, and the tree cut down and let across a stream formed the first bridge. From it, too, he made his "dug-out" to travel along and across the rivers of the district in which he dwelt; so on down through the ages, for shipbuilding and constructive purposes, ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... have been planted by M. Lemonnier, Professor of Botany in the Jardin des Plautes, etc., in his garden near Versailles. This garden was destroyed in 1820, and the dimensions of the tree when it was cut down were as follows: Height 70 feet, trunk 7 feet in circumference at 5 feet from the ground. The bole of the trunk was 20 feet in length and of nearly uniform thickness; and the proportion of heart-wood to sap-wood was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... the bulwarks. Our fellows fought to the last, but the odds were five to one against them. The skipper had been killed by a grapeshot, but the mate he led the men; and if fighting could have saved us the ship would not have been captured. But it was no use. In two minutes every man had been cut down or disarmed. I had laid about me with a cutlass till I got a lick over my head with a boarding pike which knocked my senses ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... several means. As a river system advances toward maturity the deepening and extending valleys of the tributaries lower the ground-water surface and invade the undrained depressions of the region. Lakes having outlets are drained away as their basin rims are cut down by the outflowing streams,—a slow process where the rim is of hard rock, but a rapid one where it is of soft material such ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... them completely off the scent! They haven't a notion! I can be very sly, you know, at times. Ellen, I think I should like to have that alder tree cut down. There is no boy now, ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... arrival the consuls read the following inscription posted at the entrance: "On August 10th monarchy in France was forever abolished; it will never be restored." By the 20th of February the inscription had disappeared. Besides, orders were given to cut down the two liberty trees which had been planted in the courtyard. On August 10 a large quantity of cannon shot had been lodged in the facade of the Tuileries, and around the shot were written these words: "Tenth of August." The cannon balls ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... then, "open the back door. Be ready. We must now make a dash for the rocks. You lead; I'll keep the rear. Mind, my lads," he said to the stanch group about him, "keep together. If you separate you are lost. You'll be cut down or prisoners before you can raise ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... to dig up these black caps, I began paying closer attention to the red raspberry. I noticed that the raspberries growing wild on my place grew mostly in places where big trees had been cut down and young trees had grown up, thus partly shading the plants. Having this fact in mind, I planted the raspberries as follows: I planted an orchard, having the trees in parallel rows, and between the trees in these same rows I planted the raspberries. By ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... France, which she had become attached to, and shut herself up in the villa of Maisons-Lafitte, letting old Vogotzine install himself there as a sort of Mentor, more obedient than a servant, and as silent as a statue; and this strange guardian, who had formerly fought side by side with Schamyl, and cut down the Circassians with the sang-froid of a butcher's boy wringing the neck of a fowl, and who now scarcely dared to open his lips, as if the entire police force of the Czar had its eye upon him; this old soldier, who once cared nothing ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... other vegetable products of Jamaica, which it owes likewise to a happy accident. The mango, for instance, which now grows in such profusion on uplands and plains, that if the groves should be cut down, the face of the country would seem naked, was a spoil of war, being brought from a French ship destined for Martinique, somewhere about 1790. At first it is said the mangoes sold for a guinea a piece, with the express stipulation that the seed should ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... marvellous that they would be thought too extravagant by the most daring writers of romance. That one captain with four hundred men, and another with two hundred, should each march against an extensive and populous empire, cut down their armies at odds of a hundred to one, put their kings to the sword and their temples to the torch, and after it all reap a harvest of gold and precious stones such as for quantity had never been heard of before—all this meets us not in the tales of Ariosto or of Dumas, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... will cut down every tree about the place, if you'll let him." And in that way he strove to talk about the affairs of ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... strangers that all the land from the walls of Bretton to those of Cannon Hall was hers; while on one occasion, when a dispute arose between herself and Mr Stanhope respecting a certain tree, she settled the question in a characteristic manner by causing this to be cut down in the night. ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... of the referendum of 1850 is shown on the map on page 685. The opponents of tax-supported schools now mustered their full strength, doubling their vote in 1849, while the majority for free schools was materially cut down. The interesting thing shown on this map was the clear and unmistakable voice of the cities. They would not tolerate the rate- bill, and, despite their larger property interests, they favored tax- supported free schools. The rural districts, on the other ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... at least one tree? Never mind what kind of a tree. We will talk about that in a minute but decide at the outset that you will have at least one tree growing this year. Your trees will be a legacy to posterity, a gift from the Girl Scouts to their country. For in this United States of ours we have cut down too many trees and our forests are fast following the buffalo. Nay, the bare face of the land has already begun to prove less attractive to the gentle rains of heaven and offers far too open a path ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... proud boast,—"Is not this great" Rome, "that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, that didst weaken the nations!... Is this the man that did make the earth to tremble,—that did shake kingdoms,—that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... front, unable indeed to retreat, were cut down by the heavy axes. Those behind recoiled, and after but a few minutes' fighting, some began to leap down the hatchways; and although the fight continued for a short time, isolated groups here and there making resistance, the battle was virtually won in five minutes after ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... too, were put down for ever by Nebuchadnezzar, and he came home puffed up with the pride of conquest. Then came another warning dream, of a tree, great and spreading, the rest and stay of bird and beast, till a watcher and a holy one came down and bade that it should be cut down, and only a stump to be left, to be wet with the dew of Heaven until it should recover. It was no wonder that Daniel was astonished for one hour ere he explained the vision, which bore that the great conqueror ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Ferishta, {49} we learn, that Yeas ul deen Tuglick Shaw, king of Dilli, in the year of Christ 1322, on returning from an expedition into Bengal, was passing near the hills of Turhat, (Tirahut,) when the raja of these parts appearing in arms, was pursued into the woods. Having cut down these, the royal army arrived at a fort surrounded by a wall, and by seven ditches filled with water. After a siege of three weeks the place was taken, and the government of Turhat conferred upon Achmet Chan. That this ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... toiling, onward effort, a struggling slow progress, accomplished amid a sea of faces all turned one way. The dream vision was not more prodigiously improbable than the waking fact—life, comfortable and secure, suddenly stripped of its garnishings, cut down to a single obsessing issue, narrowed to the point where the mind held but one ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... for him that he is not,' said my father; 'but you do not talk wisely, the world is a field of battle, and he who leaves the ranks, what can he expect but to be cut down? I call his present behaviour leaving the ranks, and going vapouring about without orders; his only chance lies in falling in again as quick as possible; does he think he can carry the day by himself? an opinion of his own at these years—I confess I am exceedingly uneasy ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... groan ran through the crowd—Colonel Moultrie had struck his flag! "Forward!" cried one among them, and they marched to the water's edge to fight for their homes. Within the little fort one William Jasper, a sergeant, saw that a ball had cut down the flag and it had fallen over the rampart. "Colonel," he said to his commander, "don't let us fight without a flag." "What can you do?" demanded Colonel Moultrie, "the staff is broken." Sergeant Jasper was a man of few words and many deeds. He leaped through an embrasure, walked the whole length ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... this epithet as a reproach to them for their mean birth); [Sidenote: B.C. 255 (a.u. 499)] consequently they had constructed their camp in a heedless fashion. While the Romans were in this situation, Xanthippus assailed them, routed their cavalry with his elephants, cut down many and captured many alive, among them Regulus himself. This put the Carthaginians in high spirits. They saved the lives of the captives in order that their own citizens previously taken captive by the Romans ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... crossed and self-fertilised plants had been taken, they were sometimes cut down close to the ground, and an equal number of both weighed. This method of comparison gives very striking results, and I wish that it had been oftener followed. Finally a record was often kept of any marked difference in the rate of germination of the crossed and self-fertilised seeds,—of ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... destruction of all who were not of his faith, and the institution of religious unity. "Do not pretend," he says, "that the power of God will accomplish it without the use of your sword, or it will grow rusty in the scabbard. The tree that bringeth not forth good fruit must be cut down and cast into the fire." And elsewhere, "the ungodly have no right to live, except so far as the elect choose to grant it them."[248] When the Anabaptists were supreme at Muenster, they exhibited the same intolerance. At seven in the morning of Friday, 27th February 1534, they ran ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... in possession of the coal-mines of the Don, the fuel question became urgent. Smolny shut off all electric lights in theatres, shops and restaurants, cut down the number of street cars, and confiscated the private stores of fire-wood held by the fuel-dealers.... And when the factories of Petrograd were about to close down for lack of coal, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet turned over to the workers two hundred ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... picked the scent up again either on this side or the other. We tried them for four or five hours before we took them home. The next morning, while the place was being thoroughly searched, we came upon the spot where these bullrushes had been cut down, and we found them caught in the low boughs of a tree, drifting down ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... made were remnants of log cabins, a number of which had been built and occupied more than half a century before, but by whom I do not know. Field remarked that the finding of these old rotting logs there was another "God send," as we then had neither ax, hammer, nor any tool of iron with which to cut down a tree. I bound these logs together with long strips cut from the hide of the dead horse. Paddles and poles were also provided. The mule was with difficulty driven ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... the sceptical, the Merced couldn't keep always tilted; in time it would cut down to a level and slow up; then the sand and gravel it was carrying would settle, and the stream stop its digging. Again, if the stream-cut valley theory is correct, why isn't every ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... this proposal, and some went to work with swords and knives to cut down the alder and hawthorn bushes which grew by the side of the sluggish stream, many of which were sufficiently decayed and dried for their purpose, while others began to collect them in a large stack, properly disposed ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... Great Britain had their Imperial taxation cut down in the nineteenth century by one-half, that of the Irish people was doubled. Every year that passes without radical change in the relations between the two countries makes it more serious, and makes the changes more drastic which will be required ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... of thoughtfulness and determination. When she appeared at a ball, men's eyes lingered on her neck, and even more on her white back, with its firm, smooth skin, and fine play of the muscles; for if she did not allow very much of her young bust to be seen, her dress at the back was cut down nearly to her belt. Her voice was a deep contralto, and she knew how to assume an expression of profound gravity and reflection. But she captivated most by her attentiveness. When a young man whom she wished to attract ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... Inverlochy so unexpectedly, that when Argyll, by an ignominious flight in one of his boats, made himself secure, he had the well-merited reward of personal cowardice and pusillanimity of witnessing fifteen hundred of his devoted adherents cut down, among whom were a great number of the leading gentlemen of the clan, who deserved to fight under a better and less cowardly commander. Among those who fell were Campbell of Auchinbreck, Campbell of Lochnell, his eldest son, and his brother Colin; Macdougall of Rara, and his eldest son, Major ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... tell you about a pet squirrel I had. My uncle was having some trees cut down, when the men found three young squirrels in one of them. One of the squirrels got killed, and one ran away, but my uncle caught the other and put it in his pocket, and forgot all about it. After a while he put his hand in his pocket for something, and the squirrel bit him. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... was when the coupe de l'annee was being made. Parts of the woods were cut down regularly every year, certain squares marked off. The first day's work was the marking of the big trees along the alleys which were to remain—a broad red ring around the trunks being very conspicuous. ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... leg on the other, a hatchet, and a basket of short stakes with which to mark the points, ten feet apart, where the longer leg, in front on all down grades, rested when the spirit-level, strapped on the rod, showed the rod to be exactly horizontal. Trivial inequalities of surface were arbitrarily cut down or built up and covered with leaves and pine-straw to disguise the fact, and whenever a tree or anything worth preserving stood in the way here came the loaded barrow and the barrowist, like a piece of artillery sweeping into action, and a fill undistinguishable from nature soon brought ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... easy, but I won't promise about the war-shirts. That's pretty much a case of following the pattern of your own coat, with the front in one piece, but cut down just far enough for your head to go through, instead of all the way, and fixed with tie-strings at the throat and fringes at the seams and at the bottom; it hain't easy to do. But any one kin larn to make moccasins. There is two styles ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Psalmist as a "flying away." "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." Psa. 90:10. The physical being is cut down, or comes to dissolution, and we (the souls) fly away, when redeemed by the blood, to our eternal home ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... Indeed, a considerable number of trees have been felled within the southern part of the enclosure. In the mounds themselves trees are abundant, and there are many in the moat or ditch between. The stumps of those which have been cut down are so many chronological facts, from which the age of the fort may be conjectured with some approach to accuracy. A maple within the enclosure exhibits 242 rings of annual growth. It was probably ...
— The Country of the Neutrals - (As Far As Comprised in the County of Elgin), From Champlain to Talbot • James H. Coyne
... of trees which hid the view of the hills in the distance, have been uprooted and cut down; pretty paths, covered with gravel, wind over the vast lawn; one in the direction of the valleys at the right, another towards the mountains at the left; a third leads to a tall mimosa, whose topmost boughs and dense foliage spread out like a parasol. A wooden ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... preacher. He declared on the floor in debate that he was pledged to his constituents to endeavor to retrench the expenses of the General Government, to diminish the army and navy, to abridge the number of civil and diplomatic officials, and, above all, to cut down the pay of Congressmen. He made speeches in support of all these "reforms," but did not succeed in securing the discharge of a soldier, a sailor, a diplomatist, or a clerk, neither did he reduce the appropriations one single cent. The erratic Mr. David Crockett ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... then went up on Haleakala, and saw that the Sun in its course came directly over that mountain. He then went home again, and after a few days went to a place called Paeloko, at Waihee. There he cut down all the cocoanut-trees, and gathered the fibre of the cocoanut husks in great quantity. This he manufactured into strong cord. One Moemoe, seeing this, said tauntingly to him: "Thou wilt never catch the Sun. Thou ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... Hill, a mile or two south of this rock, and at the eastern base of the mountain, that Robert Keyes cut down the forest, and made a home for his little family. The spot is picturesque and sightly. To the north, and seen through the clearing, nestles Lake Wachusett among its woody banks; while far in the horizon are seen ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... dirt and mire, Able, I think, both man and horse to tire. On Dunsmoor Heath, a hedge doth there enclose Grounds, on the right hand, there I did repose. Wit's whetstone, Want, there made us quickly learn, With knives to cut down rushes, and green fern, Of which we made a field-bed in the field, Which sleep, and rest, and much content did yield. There with my mother earth, I thought it fit To lodge, and yet no incest did commit: ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... gloom swore again, and then broke into a jolly laugh. "No," it said; "I've really got to cut down this fence somehow; it's spoiling all the plants, and no one else here can do it. But I'll only carve another bit off the front door, and then come ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... beautiful period of her life when all seems hallowed, so that the heart turns to her in her loveliness, beauty, innocence, and purity, and venerates her as a gem of virtue and a true heroine;" and he adds, "We are apt to regret that one so deserving should be cut down so young." And all who contemplate the life of Grace Darling must feel the same. And yet we need not suppose that the prayers of her friends were unheard or unanswered. If that which we call death were really ceasing to live, then indeed we might well pray to ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... degradation; overgrazing; deforestation (much of the remaining forests are being cut down for ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... place, sat down. Now after Kamar al-Zaman's departure fire flamed in the jeweller's heart and suspicion was sore upon him and he said to himself, "Needs must I get up and go look for the knife and cut down doubt with certainty." So he rose and repaired to his house and went in to his wife, snorting like a dragon;[FN425] and she said to him, "What mattereth thee, O my lord?" He asked, "Where is my knife?" and she answered, "In the chest," and smote hand upon breast, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... the forest, for he thought, "If anyone can help me, it is the little gray man." When he arrived at the spot where he had cut down the tree, there stood a man with a very ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... for three mortal hours they cruised about the scene, setting off rockets, firing guns, sounding the whistle, listening intently with lowered boats, but never heard a sound from the wreck, never until two days after knew the fate of the vessel they had cut down. At last the first officer, fearful for his precious freight, bade his four oarsmen to pull for shore, his little pocket compass pointing the way. At dawn they heard the signals of a steamer through the dripping mist, and raised their voices ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... import the timber for the last, hereafter, or splice such sticks as we have;—and our ideas of liberty are equally mean with these. The very willow-rows lopped every three years for fuel or powder,—and every sizable pine and oak, or other forest tree, cut down within the memory of man! As if individual speculators were to be allowed to export the clouds out of the sky, or the stars out of the firmament, one by one. We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... never havin' been a tree, so's to remember it, I ain't able to say," returned the old man, in a dry voice; "but, mebbe, lookin' at it on general principles, it ain't no more painful for a tree to be cut down into a railroad-sleeper than it is for a man to be ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... said Mrs. Wheeler, when he had finished. "Pore feller, and cut down suddenly like that. I s'pose he 'adn't made any ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... them, and be prepared to march, they did cook them, and eat them if possible, so as to avoid the labor of carrying them. It was not such an undertaking either, to eat three days' rations in one, as frequently none had been issued for more than a day, and when issued were cut down ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... at me like Christians, and my lord told me I was a fool for my pains, for the Elliots were hard upon us, but I could not leave him to be a mark for them, and I was up with the rest in time, though I had to cut down ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... carrying out my principles. Would it were so! I found myself inferior in courage and fortitude to the occasion. I knew not how to bear the havoc and anguish incident to the struggle for these principles. I rejoiced that it lay not with me to cut down the trees, to destroy the Elysian gardens, for the defence of Rome; I do not know that I could have done it. And the sight of these far nobler growths, the beautiful young men, mown down in their stately prime, became ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... we might burn the fr. 200 dress clothes in the back garden for a bonfire; or what would be yet more expensive and more humorous, get them once more expanded to fit you, and when that was done, a second time cut down for my ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and form are collected. The size which they assume increases more and more. M. Galy relates an extraordinary account of a dog. It was about three years old when a tumour began to be perceived in the flank. Some sharp-pointed substance was felt; the veterinary surgeon cut down upon it, and a piece of iron, six inches in length, was ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... neighbours' knees, and have not cut off their own horses' heads instead of their enemies', find themselves, they know not how, either running away or being run away from—not one blow in ten having taken effect on either side. And even so Raphael, having made vain attempts to cut down several Moors, found himself standing on his head in an altogether undignified posture, among innumerable horses' legs, in all possible frantic motions. To avoid one was to get in the way of another; so he philosophically sat still, speculating on the sensation of having his brains ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... easier to cut down an evil tree than to climb up and lop off it branches; besides the branches will grow again if the stock is left undisturbed. It is easier to destroy the mother of vipers than it is to chase after, catch and kill her poisonous ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... their mother sent the children into the wood to collect faggots. They found there a large tree, which had been cut down and lay on the ground, and by the trunk something was jumping up and down, but they could not tell what it was. As they came nearer, they saw that it was a dwarf, with an old withered face, and a snow-white beard a yard long. The end of the beard ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... had been cut round the bark, which, by stopping the circulation of the sap, soon kills the tree. We were informed that this is commonly the first thing a pioneer does; as he cannot in the first year cut down all the trees which cover his new parcel of land, he sows Indian corn under their branches, and puts the trees to death in order to prevent them from injuring his crop. Beyond this field, at present imperfectly traced out, we suddenly came upon the cabin of its owner, situated in ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... owed two dollars one year to the church, an' he wondered how in the world he was to git out of payin' it. Durin' the summer a Sunday-school picnic was held on his place back in his grove, an' fer one of the games the parson cut down four little beeches about as big as canes. Thar was thousands of 'em growin' around, an' wasn't worth a postage-stamp. But old Reeker saw 'im cut 'em, an' the next day he went to the parson an' told ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... All the men are to be hanged, their houses burned, and all the women are to be tarred and feathered." I said, "Madam, if I believed them capable of such a vile threat, even, much less the execution, I would see them cut down without a feeling of compassion" (which is not true), "and swear I was a Yankee rather than claim being a native of the same country with such brutes." She has a long tongue; when I next hear of it, it ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... make all the other strikes we've had here look like fifty cents. Didn't I say that? Hammond, our president, backed me up, and Rogers of the wool people. You remember? You were the man who stood out against it, and they listened to you, they voted to cut down the pay and say nothing about it. Wait until those first pay envelopes are opened after that law goes into effect. You'll see what'll happen! You'll never be able to fill that Bradlaugh order ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... standards were beheld, a murmur spread from front to rear of the Samnites, that, as they had feared, "the Romans were coming out to oppose their march; that there was no road open, through which they could even fly thence; in that spot they must fall, or else cut down the enemy's ranks, and make their way ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... gracefully; they are too small to have any grace in them; and a pair of sham cotton epaulettes, or large unmeaning wings, are supposed, by a pleasing fiction of the military tailors, to adorn their shoulders. Now, this garment, we contend, is neither ornamental nor graceful: were it cut down into the common jacket, it would be better; were the excrescences at the shoulders removed, it would be more seemly; it has no warmth in it, and offers little or no protection against the rain. No soldier, who has been reduced to his coatee in a campaign, but must have sighed after his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... climbed over by the help of two stools which he made from some of the largest trees in the Royal Park, trees nearly seven feet high, which he was allowed to cut down for the purpose. By putting one of the stools at each side of the wall Gulliver was able to step across. Then, lying down on his side, and putting his face close to the open windows, he looked in and saw the Queen and all the young Princes. The Queen smiled, and held her hand out of one of the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... chamber of little ease," Carlyle travestied Goethe's "worship of sorrow" till it became a pride in pain. He forgot that rude energy requires restraint. Hercules Furens and Orlando Furioso did more than cut down trees; they tore them up; but to no useful end. His power is often almost Miltonic; it is never Shakespearian; and his insistent earnestness would run the risk of fatiguing us were it not redeemed by his humour. But he errs on the better ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... the home of another owl, similar in shape, but smaller, and differently marked. This was the barred owl, so called because of its markings. Here, again, the nest was up quite a ways, and difficult to get to. After much trouble we cut down a small tree and hoisted it into the larger tree so that it came near the hole where the nest was. This enabled me to get above the nest, so that I could swing down to the hole by a rope and get a view of the nest and contents. ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... this yesterday," she explained. "A party of boys went to the woods to cut down Christmas trees. He brought me this cunning little tree and all this ground pine and holly. ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... the place was making great alterations. The house was almost rebuilt. The trees which stood about it were cut down; my mother's flower-garden was thrown into a lawn; all was undergoing a change. I turned my back upon it with a sigh, and rambled to another part of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... the very one I want!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "My hat is in a high tree and I can't get it. With your strong teeth, just made for cutting down trees, will you kindly cut down this one, and ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... There's nothing in it about the amount of power, but it gives me the sole rights to all the power privileges on the Company property. You see, when Greenfield tried to change the line of their canal so as to cut me out, Abe and I had begun to figure that some day the water from the spillway might cut down the channel and give us a little more drop. But we never counted on this, of course. I simply figured that I might just as well make the new ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... and boiling water. When this is lukewarm add the yeast cake dissolved in luke-warm water. Sift in flour gradually, beating with a spoon. Toss on a floured board and knead until smooth. Allow it to rise over night in a moderately warm place or until it doubles its original size. Cut down or knead and allow it to rise until light, then form into loaves or biscuits. Allow these to rise until light, then bake. The amount of yeast used will depend on the length of time the bread is ...
— Food and Health • Anonymous
... who came to this well have left some trace of their footsteps. I have been surprised to detect encircling the pond, even where a thickwood has just been cut down on the shore, a narrow shelf-like path in the steep hillside, alternately rising and falling, approaching and receding from the water's edge, as old probably as the race of man here, worn by the feet of aboriginal hunters, and still from time to time unwittingly trodden by the present ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... little change. The fuel had been cut down for a while, but the ship didn't hold its course. Every tube had been fired to hold the direct route for Jupiter. They were constantly cutting into the meager supply that remained—and had to ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... dangerous guard-duty on the parapets is performed with the usual alacrity and promptitude, some of us perhaps not realizing the near presence of the enemy. There is great activity on every hand to perfect the defences, and guard against sharpshooters. Squads of men are sent out to cut down trees and destroy whatever may afford cover to an enemy. A lady-resident sends up word that she does not wish to have the trees about her house cut down, as she intends to stay, and wants the trees to protect her against the shot. Our engineer, without arresting ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... fair fight when Tarleton's men rode in upon Tom Sumter's rest camp at Fishing Creek and cut down this little maid's father whilst he was naked and bathing in the stream? Was it fair fight when King George's Indian devils came down in the dead of night upon our defenseless house at Northby? Never talk to me of fairness, sir, whilst all ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... became keener, what would the champions of Free Trade do to meet it? They would say: 'We must sell our manufactures, or you will get no food. To sell our manufactures we must reduce the price. To reduce the price we must reduce the cost of production. To reduce the cost of production we must cut down wages.'"[787] "Free Trade means laisser faire all round, not only in regard to inanimate commodities, but in respect to that most important commodity of all—human labour power. Chinese, Japanese, Indians, negroes are all permitted under complete Free ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... The vein dips, and those that cut down on it where it is horizontalish will get a little; we, that nick it nearly verticalish, will get three times as much out of ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... as harmless a thing as he can do. So here I stay and mind the helm, and write these notes. I can only trust in God and wait till the fog clears. Then, if I can't steer to any harbour with the wind that is, I shall cut down sails, and lie by, and signal for ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... higher up, answered the old man. 'If I were not about to die, Piet, and therefore under a need to judge not, lest I be judged, I would cut down your oxen and sheep for that. Go out; I will say what I ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... fruit of that work. Terribly hard work it is too. Swinging an axe all day among the great giants of the forest requires knack as well as strength, and when a man first starts that game he quickly finds he is as weak as a baby till his muscles get hardened to it. When cut down the trunks are dragged to any stream, or creek, as they call them here, to be drifted down to the coast. It is a wonderful sight to see a river about half a mile wide literally covered with tree trunks wedged against one another from bank to bank. When the ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... French, and as the French passed them in flank, the mitrailleuses opened fire; at the same moment the Germans suddenly fired a scattering rifle volley. Attacked in front and on the flank, every Frenchman but one was hit, and sixty dead still lay in a row across the field as if cut down by a mowing machine. The sole survivor of the fatal cross-fire was a boy with a tiny black moustache. Undaunted, he had charged alone in among the Germans and had received many bayonets in his heroic body. He lay ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... was pious, courteous, learned, but he left the monastery much in debt, so that some possessions had to be sold and some timber to be cut down. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... tiny dash of red at the waist and on the head. For an instant he wondered if Smiles and his little namesake had already reached the house. Then he caught sight of them, still on the beach. There was fully a quarter of a mile of water between him and the shore, but the distance was being cut down bravely by the race-about, whose specialty was going to windward in a blow. Steadied by her racing keel, she cut through ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... given an education to fit him for his future place in the world. But that was not "the wicked lord's" way. He paid no attention to the little boy in Aberdeen. Indeed, it is said that he hated him, and that he cut down his trees and despoiled Newstead as much as he could, in order to leave his heir as poor a heritage ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... of our departure arrived, and several friends came to bid me farewell. My son told them of all the great things he had determined to achieve—how he would crush the heads of scorpions, and with his sword cut down trees or ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... a year was ended Perseus hired Phoenicians from Tyre, and cut down cedars, and built himself a noble galley; and painted its cheeks with vermilion, and pitched its sides with pitch; and in it he put Andromeda, and all her dowry of jewels, and rich shawls, and spices from the East; and great was the weeping when they rowed ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... inhabiting the neighbourhood of Cachemire, whose name was hardly known two years ago, have beaten Abdaly and the Patanes whom he commanded.' Modern Cockneys would stare to read a paragraph like this: 'A great deal of grass hath been cut down ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... the heart, that we could scarcely get one sound or serviceable in a dozen; and what in our situation was a very great misfortune, we had not as yet found one piece of timber that would float in water. The wood is so exceedingly heavy, that when a large tree was cut down, in order to clear a piece of ground, it would sometimes take a party of men three or four days to dispose of it, or move it ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... Some, on the other hand, were fitted with Belgian caps picked up on the battle-field, evidently for the purpose of inducing Belgian troops to approach for a closer look before firing. Most of the big trees along the road had been cut down, and many houses razed to the ground so as to have a cleaner sweep for the artillery. At Dieghem, the German pilot-car picked up a naval officer who was to accompany us as far as the outposts and to inspect his men on ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... involves some alteration in the balance of social forces, it behooves those who advocate and those who oppose social change to maximize acceptance and minimize opposition in order to take advantage of the gains and cut down the losses incident to ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... climbed up a pine and over to the extreme end of a bough; she seemed slow and stupefied in her motions, as if she had drunken of the turpentine and had lost her intelligence. The soft cones of the larch could be easily cut down the centre with a penknife, showing the structure of the cone and the seeds inside each scale. It is for these seeds that birds frequent the fir copses, shearing off the scales with their beaks. One larch cone had still the tuft at the top—a pineapple in miniature. The loudest sound in the ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... of the inordinate conversion to a mutable good. In like manner omission deserves not only the pain of loss, but also the pain of sense, according to Matt. 7:19, "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire"; and this on account of the root from which it grows, although it does not necessarily imply conversion ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... France—"Fort de la Reine," or Queen's Fort. But he could not forget "The Forks"—the Winnipeg of to-day—and so gave instructions to one of his lieutenants to stop with a number of his men at the Forks, cut down trees, and erect a fort for safety in coming and going up the Assiniboine. The Frenchmen worked hard, and on the south side of the junction of the Red River with the Assiniboine, erected Fort Rouge—the Red Fort. This fort, built in 1738, was the first occupation ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... Tsar went out on to his balcony, and looked forth over the country where the hostile army lay; and when he saw that it was all cut down and destroyed, he called to him the false Ivan, and thanked him for having saved his kingdom; he rewarded him with a rich present and promised soon to give him his daughter ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... Ward the hangman threw down the ladder upon which M'Lane was stretched on his back, with the cord round his neck made fast to the beam of the gallows....'He is quite dead,' said Dr. Duvert, when the hangman cut down the body at the end of about twenty-five minutes....The spectators who were nearest to the scaffold say that the hangman then refused to proceed further with the execution...and it was only after a good supply of guineas ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... perhaps therefore preferable. But strew, I incline to think, is properly a regular verb only, though Wells and Worcester give it otherwise: if strewn has ever been proper, it seems now to be obsolete. EXAMPLES: "Others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way."—Matt., xxi, 8. "Gathering where thou hast ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... been time to hide the military stores, so the British could not get at those. But they cut down the liberty-pole, set fire to the court-house, spiked a few cannon, and emptied ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... kept more steadily in use through company ownership or rental. It may be remarked here, again, that the Prussian Government is also assisting agricultural organizations to buy motor plows. The supply of fertilizers has also been cut down by the war. Nitrate has just been mentioned. The authors recommend that the Government solve this problem by having many of the existing electrical plants turn partly to recovering nitrogen from the atmosphere. This, they say, could be done without reducing the present production of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the next day, which did be the twelfth, I took the Diskos, and on that day I cut down six of the trees; and alway the Maid did bring her plaiting, that she be near me; and when I had cut the six trees, she had me to cease, lest that I risk to open any wound. And truly they to have ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... tell us about very small men who lived a long time ago in Africa. They were called pygmies. They were only one foot high, and they built their houses with eggshells. They lived in holes in the ground. They had goats and sheep which were much smaller than themselves, and they had corn which they cut down with axes, as we ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw
... look at the plants and bushes clothing an entangled bank, we arc tempted to attribute their proportional numbers and kinds to what we call chance. But how false a view is this! Every one has heard that when an American forest is cut down, a very different vegetation springs up; but it has been observed that the trees now growing on the ancient Indian mounds, in the Southern United States, display the same beautiful diversity and proportion of kinds as in the surrounding virgin forests. What a struggle ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... idea of beauty. Monsieur and Madame de Sainfoy would have no rest till their stately old chateau was framed in this kind of landscape gardening, utterly out of character with it. It was only Monsieur Urbain's experience which had saved trees from being cut down in full leaf, to let in points of view, and had delayed the planting in hot September weather of a whole forest of shrubs on the sloping bank, where the moat had ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... the constant search of beauty, and forever feeling the hopeless need of expressing what cannot be expressed and doing what can only be dreamed, it is to Nature, as to the home of the ideal, that they must turn. But how can they? By what magic will they be able to do so? Man has cut down the forests, has conquered the seas, and the clouds that hover over the cities are produced by the smoke that rises from the chimneys. But, say others, do not his mission and his glory consist in going forward and attacking the work of God, and encroaching upon it? ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... the well-known creek or torrent in the park near the city, which meant putting our horses through a fairly swift and broad though not deep stream, and then passed through what had once been a largish plantation. The trees had, however, been cut down a year or two before. This we negotiated at a gallop, the President leading. I admit that it was an exciting performance. Not only was it almost dark when we reached the wood or ex-wood, but the wood-cutters had ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... thy fellow Will. is taken dead out of some horse-pond, and Dorcas cut down from her bed's teaster, from dangling in her own garters, be not surprised. Here's the devil to pay. Nobody serene but Jack Belford, who is taking minutes of examinations, accusations, and confessions, with the significant ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... handsome gratifications from them, so that I came to consider myself ill-used when I did not pocket a hundred or two rupees over a transaction involving some thousands. But in the course of a few weeks, as I began to understand the trade better, and to cut down their exorbitant demands, these men marvellously abated their complaisance. Some of them, even, who had professed to know no English, suddenly showed themselves to be conversant with it, and chose ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... and the word was given to "split and squander." Each shifted for himself, but a bold dragoon attached himself to pursuit of Rob, and overtaking him, struck at him with his broadsword. A plate of iron in his bonnet saved the MacGregor from being cut down to the teeth; but the blow was heavy enough to bear him to the ground, crying as he fell, "Oh, Macanaleister, is there naething in her?" (i.e. in the gun). The trooper, at the same time, exclaiming, "D—n ye, your mother ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... caused the body of Balder to be removed to Breidablik, and he directed the gods to go to the forest and cut down huge pines wherewith to ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... fledglings came to the home-nest, to be cared for, trained up, and fitted for their peculiar niches in life. But in 1815, a new sorrow came to the fireside; the angel reaper Death cut down the little Elizabeth, the seventh child, nearly five years of age, and the special darling of the band. Her illness was very short, scarcely lasting a week; but even during that illness her docile, intelligent spirit exhibited itself in new and more endearing phases. ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... committed came to our remembrance with a painful reality. All along the river-side, houses, once occupied by officers, lay in ruins as the mutineers had left them. We observed flowers blooming here and there in the gardens, planted by those who had been so ruthlessly cut down. We visited all the places made memorable by the sad events of 1857. We went to the Sabadha Kothee, as it was called, the house on a slight elevation from which the Nana directed the siege of the entrenched camp. It was well remembered ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... head of 18,000 men (September, 1665) overran a considerable part of Drente and Overyssel and laid it waste. There was at first no organised force to oppose him. It had been the policy of Holland to cut down the army, and the other provinces were not unwilling to follow her example. No field-marshal had been appointed to succeed Brederode; there was no army of the Union under a captain-general, but seven small provincial ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... is no proper authority for the statement that the fig-tree which stood in front of the temple of Saturn was cut down in the year 260 (Plin. H. N. xv. 18, 77); the date CCLX. is wanting in all good manuscripts, and has been interpolated, probably with reference to Liv. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... preacher, and, entering into themselves, renounced their errors and idolatrous practices. Hereupon St. Barbatus gave them the comfortable assurance that the siege should be raised, and the emperor worsted: which happened as he had foretold. Upon their repentance, the saint with his own hand cut down the tree which was the object of their superstition, and afterwards melted down the golden viper which they adored, of which he made a chalice for the use of the altar. Ildebrand, bishop of Benevento, dying during the siege, after the public tranquillity was restored, St. Barbatus ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... malt liquors. They pay about three shillings a barrel for cider." It was freely used even by the children at breakfast, as well as at dinner, up to the end of the first quarter of the present century, when many zealous followers so eagerly embraced the new temperance reform that they cut down whole orchards of thriving apple-trees, conceiving no possibility of the general use of the fruit for ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... won't be able to live in it unless we stop that ruffian. Chimneys and smoke, the trees cut down, piles of pots. Every kind of abomination. There! [He points] Imagine! [He points through the French window, as if he could see those chimneys rising and marring the beauty of the fields] I was born here, and my father, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
