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ECONOMIC TREE PLANTING.

BY
B. G. NORTHROP, LL.D.

NEW YORK:
Par O8anGEe Jupp ComMPANY.
245 BROADWAY.
1878.

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NEW YORK:

Tort ORANGE Jupp CoMPANY.
245 BROADWAY.
1878.

This paper is reprinted from the Report of the Connecticut State
Board of Agriculture. A few local allusions are retained to show
the original aim of the writer and the application of kindred facts
and plans to other fields.

An enlarged edition will soon be published under the title of
“Tree-planting, Economic and Ornamental, and Village Improve.
ment.” | |

Public interest in rural adornment is rapidly increasing in
Connecticut. This good work should go on till not a school-house,
dwelling, or street is left without the simple and grand adornment
of shade trees. A little foresight will show that no community
can afford to be without a Village Improvement Association. In
many towns such organizations have already done incalculable
good in cultivating public spirit, quickening social and intellectual
life,-ahd ‘enhanging; the value of ‘real estate. I shall be happy to
co-operate “with ‘publicspirited citizens who are moving in this
matter,.and ; will, Jegture-on this subject without charge either for
services or éxpenses in ‘any town in*Connecticut.

p
U. 8. Dept. Agri,
? p ‘03

———

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ECONOMIC TREE-PLANTING.
BY HON. B. G. NORTHROP.

Being neither a scientist nor farmer, I have made no origi-
nal investigations or practical experiments in forestry. Lest

- I may seem presumptuous in attempting to instruct others on

a great subject in which Iam myself a novice, reference is
made to my opportunities for learning the matured views of
those who, devoting their lives to this study, have made inves-
tigations and experiments on a broad scale. Three months
of last summer were occupied in visiting “ the Foresters,”
forest schools, and forest plantations of Europe. The letter of
Governor Hubbard,* and one from Hon. Wm. M. Evarts, Sec-
retary of State, bespeaking the codperation of our ministers
and consuls, whose aid might be needed, gave free access to
all desired sources of information, especially the official
“‘ Departments of Forestry,” forest schools and their professors,
forest plantations, national, communal, or private, and their
managers, and the parks and gardens on the Continent and in
England. With note-book always in hand, I conferred with
numerous authors in this department, as well as practical
foresters. Gathering facts from so many experts, and con-
densing statements from so many sources, it is impracticable
in this address to formally quote their language, which I have
freely modified and abridged. In addition to the professors
of the forest schools visited, and to many diplomatic agents, I

* EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Hartrorp, Conn.,June 12, 1877,

I have signed these presents for the purpose of duly accrediting the Hon.
B. G. Northrop, of the Board of Education of this State, who is commissioned
by said Board to visit the Schools of Forestry and Forest Plantations, and the
Industrial Schools of Europe, and report the results of his observations for the
benefit of the schools and people of this State, and especially to encourage the
reclamation of waste lands by the propagation of trees. I beg to commend Mr.
Northrop to the courtesies and co-operation of all persons to whom these pres-
ents shall come, and particularly to those who are managers of the institutions
above named, and are interested therein. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto
set my hand. RICHARD D. HUBBARD.

4

am especially indebted to Hon. George P. Marsh, the Ameri-
can Minister to Rome, Captain Campbell Walker, Conserva-
tor of State Forests in New Zealand, J. C. Brown, Lik. D., long
Colonial Botanist at Cape of Good Hope, and J. McGregor,
Forester of the Duke of Athole, for information given in per-
sonal interviews as well as for that derived from their pub-
lished works.

The literature of forestry, already large, is now rapidly
increasing by the codperation of professors in forest schools,
and government officials specially commissioned to investi-
gate different branches of the subject, and many other writers.
A German catalogue gives the titles of 1,815 volumes on
forestry issued prior to 1842, and the titles of 650 works pub-
lished in the six years prior to 1876. On an average, over
one hundred new books on forestry appear annually in the
German language. One of the Spanish Commissioners to the
Centennial Exposition, Sefior Morera, published a list of
1,126 volumes on forestry in the Spanish language alone.

Little attention has been given in this country to sylvicul-
ture. Nature has been* wonderfully bountiful in the magnifi-
cent forests which once adorned this land, but our people
have been recklessly prodigal in wasting this rich inheritance.
As if they were the enemies of man, forests have been con-
sumed without a thought of renewing them, and fire has been
made to help the axe in destroying what it required ages to
produce.

The progress of a nation may be measured to a large extent
by its consumption of wood. Extensively as brick, stone, and
iron may be substituted for wood in building, and coal used for
fuel, the timber demand for purposes of utility and ornament
will everywhere increase as civilization advances. The rail-
ways are enormous consumers of wood. Says Professor C. S.
Sargent: ‘* Suppgsing the life of a sleeper is seven years, the
85,000 miles of track in the United States consume annually
34,000,000 sleepers, or thirty years’ growth on 68,000 acres
of the best natural woodlands. Atleast 125,000 miles of fencing
are required to enclose the railroads of the country, costing
not less than $43,000,000, with large expenditures for annual

5

repairs. For the construction of 65,000 miles of telegraph
lines in the United States, 2,000,000 trees for poles were
required, while the annual repairs must call for 250,000 more.”
A late Agricultural Report of Illinois says: ‘‘ The fences of
the United States cost more than any other class of property
except real estate and railroads; the total amount being esti-
mated at eighteen hundred millions of dollars, with an annual
expense of ninety-eight millions for repairs.’? Desirable as
may be live hedges, stone walls or ditches, wooden fences are
likely to be long used.

But aside from the need of fencing, and the demands for
railway and telegraph companies, there are nearly seventy
occupations enumerated in the last United States census
which in whole or in part use wood as their raw material
for manufacture, employing more than one million of
artisans, such as carpenters, cabinet-makers, chair-makers,
coach-makers, coopers, boat and ship builders, wheelwrights,
manufacturers of brooms, brushes, matches, furniture, agri-
cultural implements, machinery and the like. There are
63,928 establishments manufacturing articles made entirely
of wood, employing 893,387 persons, and using materials
worth $309,921,403 annually. There are, besides, 109,512
establishments in which wood is an important material, as for
example, in pianos, carriages, bridges and ships, employing
700,915 persons, and using materials worth $488,530,844.
With these facts before us, there need be no fear of an over-
production of wood. It is estimated that in our whole coun-
try over three million acres of wood-growing land are cleared
annually, and this usually without any proper plans for refor-
esting them. Favorably situated as Connecticut is, in the
midst of these industries and near the great market centers,
and with new calls for exportation, there is sure to be a grow-
ing demand for all desirable lumber.

George Peabody, who did so much to encourage schools and
learning, originated the motto, so happily illustrated by his
own munificent gifts to promote education: “‘ Kducation—the
debt of the present to future generations.” We owe it to our
children to leave our lands the better for our tillage, and we

a

6

wrong both ourselves and them if our fields are impoverished
by our improvidence. But much as foresight is admired
when its predictions are realized and its achievements made,
all history too plainly tells that the mass of men are not
easily persuaded to provide for exigencies far in the future.
It was more than two centuries after the death of Bernard
Palissy, the famous “ Potter of the Tuilleries,” and after
many sad lessons of devastating mountain torrents resulting
from excessive forest denudation, before France learned to
heed his earnest warning. Expressing his indignation at the
folly of such general destruction of the woods he said: “ I call
it not error, but a curse and a calamity to all France. When
I consider the value of the least clump of trees, I marvel at the
great ignorance of men who do now-a-days study only to break
down, fell and waste the fair forests which their forefathers did
guard so choicely. 1 would think no evil of them for cutting
down the woods, did they but replant some part of them
again, but they care naught for the time to come, neither
reck they of the great damage they do to their children.” In
1680, the eminent French statesman, Colbert, said to Louis
XIV.: “France will perish for want of wood.”

It was not, however, till 1859 and 1860 that stringent laws
were passed for the protection of existing woodlands and the
formation of new forests. The former of these laws passed
the Assembly by a vote of 246 against 4, and the latter with
but a single negative voice. The unanimity with which these
laws were enacted, though they seriously interfere with the
rights of private domain, shows at last the strength of the
popular conviction that the protection and extension of forests
were matters of national interest and necessity, and would
arrest the devastations of mountain torrents and river inun-
dations. The law of 1860 appropriated 10,000,000 francs,
at the rate of 1,000,000 a year, in aiding the replanting of
woods. In 1865 a bill was passed for securing the soil in ex-
posed localities by grading, and the formation of greensward.

This measure, proved to be beneficial in France, Mr. Marsh
highly recommends for adoption in the United States. The
leading features of this system are marking out and securing

T

from pasturage and browsing a zone along the banks of ravines,
which is carefully turfed and planted with shrubs and trees;
consolidating the scarps of the ravines by grading and wattling
and establishing barriers of solid masonry, or more commonly
of fascines, or other simple materials across the bed of the
stream, and cutting narrow terraces along the scarps. Many
hundred ravines, formerly the channels of formidable torrents,
have been secured by barriers, and by grading and planting,
and the success of the system has far surpassed all expectation.
The plan of ctreling, long used in this country, is now adopted
in France. This plan prevents the wash of the surface, and
provides irrigation by running horizontal furrows along the
hill-sides, and thus cheaply securing a succession of small
terraces, checking the rapid flow of the surface water, obvi-
ating one cause of inundations, and greatly fertilizing the
lands thus irrigated.

The evils of widespread forest denudation both as regards
climatic changes, uniform flow of springs and streams, devas-
tation by mountain torrents, and the exhaustion of once fertile
lands, have been long and sadly felt in the Old World. Many
rich and fertile countries have become arid wastes when
denuded of trees. The Mediterranean coast of Africa is a
case in point. ‘Tunis and Algiers were once fertile regions,
supporting a.dense population. Their decadence is traceable
largely to the destruction of their forests. Rentzsch ascribes
the political decadence of Spain almost wholly to the destruc-
tion of the forests.

Mr. George P. Marsh says: “There are parts of Asia
Minor, of Northern Africa, of Greece, and even of Alpine
Europe, where causes set in action by man have brought the
face of the earth to a desolation as complete as that of the
moon, and yet they are known to have been once covered with
luxuriant woods, verdant pastures, and fertile meadows; and
a dense population formerly inhabited those now lonely dis-
tricts. The fairest and fruitfulest provinces of the Roman
empire once endowed with the greatest superiority of soil,
climate, and position, are completely exhausted of their fer-
tility, or so diminished in their productiveness as, with the

8

exception of a few favored cases that have escaped the general
ruin, to be no longer capable of affording sustenance to civil-
ized man. If to this realm of desolation we add the now
wasted and solitary soils of Persia and the remoter East, that
once fed their millions with milk and honey, we shall see that
a territory larger than all Europe, the abundance of which
sustained in by-gone centuries a population scarcely inferior to
that of the whole Christian world at the present day, has been
entirely withdrawn froém human use, or at best is inhabited by
tribes too few, poor, and uncultivated to contribute anything
to the general, moral, or material interests of mankind. The
destructive changes occasioned by the agency of man upon the
flanks of the Alps, the Appenines, the Pyrenees, and other
mountain ranges of Central.and Southern Europe, and the
progress of physical deterioration, have become so rapid that
in some localities a single generation has witnessed the begin-
ning and the end of the melancholy revolution. A destruction
like that which has overwhelmed many once beautiful and
fertile regions of Europe awaits an important part of the ter-
ritory of the United States, unless prompt measures are taken
to check the action of the destructive causes already in
operation.”

Indeed we have already a great Sahara in Connecticut pro-
duced by improvidence and neglect. The local traditions tell us
that the ‘“sand-blow,” covering so large an area in the towns
of North Haven and Wallingford, which, with its clouds
of dust, is a literal eye-sore to all travelers on the New Haven
& Hartford Railway, was once finely wooded. Here and
there clumps of low cedars aud pines, the lone relics of a
former growth, still resist the drifting sands. So general is
the conviction that this sand blow is utterly irreclaimable
that it has long since been abandoned to hopeless sterility.
I shall be happily disappointed if my plan for utilizing it is
not regarded by many farmers as visionary and impracticable.
The feasibility of reclaiming the barren sands of Connecti-
cut, even the wastes of Wallingford and North Haven, is
proved by many facts. While agent of the Massachusetts
State Board of Education I visited every town of that State,

9

and found thousands of acres in Plymouth and Barnstable
counties—once sandy plains—covered with fine forests. The
common pitch pine has there been most generally used for the
reclamation of sand barrens. Recently the Scotch pine has
been widely planted. The seeds were sometimes sowed broad-
cast, and sometimes dropped in furrows. The cost was trifling,
and the profit has been satisfactory.

Hummel attributes the desolation of the Karst, the high
plateau lying north of Trieste—until recently one of the most
parched and barren districts in Europe—to the felling of its
woods, centuries ago, to build the navies of Venice. The
Austrian government is now making energetic, and thus far
successful efforts for the reclamation of this desolate waste,
having planted over half a million of young trees, and sown
ereat quantities of seed. In the vicinity of Antwerp less than
fifty years ago was a vast desolate plain. Looking to-day in
the same direction from the spire of the cathedral, one can
see nothing but a forest, whose limits seem lost in the horizon.
Forest plantations have transformed those barren lands into
fertile fields. French writers point with pride to an experi-
ment begun eighty years ago on the very crest of a peninsula
in Dauphiny, where stands a long stretch of fine forest, and
where it had been confidently affirmed trees could not be made
to grow.

On the Adriatic, Baltic, Mediterranean, Biscayan, and other
coasts, the disastrous encroachments of the sea have been
checked by forest plantations. Extensive plains, once barren
sands south of Berlin, about Odessa and north of the Black
Sea and vast steppes in Russia, are now well wooded.
R. Douglass & Sons of Waukegan, Illinois, who have been
the pioneers in promoting economic tree planting in the West,
began four years ago the experiment of reclaiming barren sand
ridges near the shore of Lake Michigan, trying pitch pine,
white pine, Austrian pine, and Scotch pine. Here, as on
Cape Cod, the Scotch pine proved the best for reclaiming
sandy barrens. With these facts from abroad and at home it
cannot be denied that even the poorest soils in Connecticut
may be reclaimed. The Pinus maritima, which proved best

10

for the sandy soils in France, is not adapted to the climate of
New England. It has been amply tried, and though growing
rapidly for a season or two, is likely to winter-kill. But our
native pitch pine, and still better the Scotch pine, are specially
adapted to sandy barrens.

Daniel Webster planted many pines at Marshfield, and
induced farmers in Plymouth and Barnstable counties to try
the same experiment. This has been done very extensively
by Mr. J. S. Fay, in Falmouth, near Wood’s Hole. In visit-
ing Falmouth I was happily impressed with the beauty and
remarkable growth of his tree plantations. There, is a tract
of over one hundred and twenty-five acres now densely coy-
ered with fine trees. When purchased by him, Mr. Fay
says, ‘It was a barren waste, the soil dry and worn out.
On a hundred acres there was not a tree of any kind, unless
an oak sprang out from the huckleberry bushes here and
there, but hardly lifting its head above them. Indeed, when I
bought my place in 1853, except a few stunted cedars on Par-
ker’s Point and in the swamps, there was not an evergreen
tree within three miles of my house, and hardly any tree of
any kind in sight of it. It was maintained that trees could
not be made to grow there. The seeds sown were of the
native pitch pine with some white pine, the Austrian, Scotch,
and Corsican pine, the Norway spruce, and the European
larch—in all about thirty-five thousand imported plants, and
many thousand native pines. As to the kinds which have
done the best, the Scotch pine from the seed, including
prompt germination, has proved the best grower, and very
hardy. The Norway spruce and English oak have done well.
The larch did not start well from the seed, but from the nurs-
ery or as imported it has grown remarkably. The hardy
Scotch pine does finely either from the seed or the nursery.
All these imported trees have done better than the native pitch
pine. The larches are about forty feet high, and fourteen
inches in diameter one foot from the ground. Some Scotch
pines from seed sown in 1861, well situated and in good soil,
are thirty feet high, and ten inches through, a foot from the
ground. As to profits,one thingis sure. The land, originally

11

poor, has been enriched by the deposit of thousands of loads
of leaves upon it, and by the shade afforded, while the soil has
been lightened and lifted by the permeation of the roots of
the trees; and though no present profit has been yet realized,
(which already might have been by sales of the wood,) it
should be considered as an investment for future results.
Considering the position of my place, on a coast exposed to
violent sea winds permeated with salt spray, the vigorous
growth and promising appearance of my forest plantations are
very encouraging to those more favorably placed. Not only
may the destruction of our forests be partially remedied at a
cheap cost, but the waste and sterility of our land by long cul-
tivating be replaced with fertility by the simple process of
nature.”

The Scotch fir or pine, which Mr. Fay so highly commends,
is a native of the Highlands, a hardy tree, and the most rapid
grower of all the evergreens suited to our climate—the [uro-
pean larch, a still more rapid grower, being deciduous. It will
thrive in the most dissimilar soils and on poorest sands where
most other evergreens will not flourish, and makes an excel-
lent wind-break. Its timber is not duly appreciated in this
country. In England it is as highly prized as the best Baltic
pine, and regarded as superior to our white pine for general
purposes. While skeptical on this point, we must at least ad-
mit that it is harder, more durable, and more resinous than
the white pine. It is light, stiff, and strong, freer from knots
than any other fir, easily worked, and well adapted to all kinds
of house carpentry. It is extensively used for masts and in
naval architecture. In England it yields large quantities of
tar, turpentine, and resin. Next to the larch it is the tree
most commonly planted in Great Britain. It should be ex-
tensively used in Connecticut in reclaiming lands too poor for
the larch. It proved a great success in the sandy wastes of
Kincorth and Culbin in Scotland, which are now thriving
forests.

Among the foresters of largest experience in Europe, I found
the planting out system growing in favor, in place of sowing
the seed, whether in furrows or broadcast in the fields where

12

the trees are to remain. If sowing is adopted, the land, ex-
cept on sand barrens, must be well prepared. The general
practice abroad is to sow the seed in beds, as beet or onion beds
are prepared with us. The Germans speak of the scedlings
while in the nursery beds as “in the school,” and this phrase
happily suggests how they should be treated. The aim is here
to start, harden, and root the young plants in a small area
where they can be sheltered with brush or otherwise from the
scorching sun, and watered if need be in case of drought.

If the seedlings are to be put out close by the garden, they
may be planted direct from the mother bed at the end of one or
two years. But when they are to be removed to any distance
or planted as forests, they should be transplanted at the end
of the first or second year and planted for forests one year
later. The larch and Scotch pine are usually planted perma-
nently, two years from sowing in beds and one year from the
planting, that is three years from the seed. The direction
is constantly repeated to let the trees grow up very thickly for
a few years, a8 they will at first thin themselves on the
theory of the survival of the fittest, and after the ‘fifth year
the value of the poles will pay for the further thinning re-
quired. When planted, the rows should not be more than
three feet apart, and the plants stand two feet apart in the
rows, giving some seven thousand to the acre, varying with the
kind of trees. At the outset the trees are planted more thickly
- in Europe than in America.

Will it pay the average farmer of Connecticut to plant
trees? Certainly not if early profit is essential. The answer
depends on various circumstances, such as the size of one’s
farm, its soil and situation. But in an ordinary Connecticut
farm of from sixty to one hundred acres and upwards, I answer
yes. If you are looking ahead and seeking an investment for
future profit, “ trees will make dollars, for they will grow in
waste places where nothing else can be profitably cultivated.
A soil too thin and rough for cereals may be favorable for
trees. Hillsides and plains exhausted and worn out by the
plow have often been reclaimed by planting forests. Ravines
too steep for cultivation are the favorite seats of timber, and

13

wherever a crevice is found in a rocky ledge, the root of a tree
will burrow and spread, taking a hold so firm as to defy the
storm, and acting mechanically to disintegrate the rock and
change its constituent elements into useful products. By the
road-side, the river-bank, along the brook, and on the over-
hanging cliff, a tree may be always earning wealth for its
owners, both in our densest settlements and in the waste
places of our most valuable lands.”” In no way can we ulti-
mately enrich Connecticut more than by planting the choicest
trees on our exhausted and unproductive lands. In such situ-
ations forests will yield a large percentage of profit. This ig
a duty we owe to ourselves and to our children.

In many positions forests are of great service as wind-breaks;
even narrow strips of trees afford a needful shelter to fruit trees
and to various crops, as well as a shield to cattle from piercing
winds. Evergreens serve best for screens, as deciduous trees
are leafless when their shelter is most needed, especially for
stock and around farm buildings. The evergreens most suit-
able for this purpose are the Norway spruce, white pine, Scotch
pine, and Austrian pine; and next to these are the American
arbor vite, hemlock, and spruce. Sheltered orchards are
most productive and less likely to lose their fruit prematurely
by violent winds, and the farmer with proper wind-screens
consumes less fuel in his house and less forage in his stables.
Stated in the order of their obvious advantage to individual
farmers, the benefits of tree-planting would be, first, direct
profit in timber and fuel; second, the reclamation of waste
land; third, shelter; fourth, climatic gain and hygienic influ-
ence; and fifth, ornamentation.

The climatic influence of forests has been of late the subject
of extensive investigation in Europe, and much evidence gath-
ered showing that forest denudation may result in detriment
to the health and welfare of a community. The influence of
forests on rainfall, climate, and water supply, has been freely
discussed in the schools of forestry and in scientific circles.
It is not proved that extensive denudation will cause a marked
decrease in the total rainfall of any large country. While this
is still an unsettled question, recent observations in France,

14

made with great care and complete sets of instruments at
different stations, seem to establish the facts, first, that
throughout the year six per cent. more rain falls in the forests
than in the open fields ; second, that of the total rainfall ten
per cent. in the forest is caught by the leaves and reaches the
earth very gradually, or not at all; and, third, that the evap-
oration in the open country is five times as great as ina
forest.

But on the question of the influence of forests on climate
and the permanent water supply, there is a growing unanimity
among practical foresters and professors in the forest schools
of Europe. Their theories and observations plainly show
that the wholesale clearing of forests has an injurious effect
on both, while the extensive planting of trees on arid regions
has ameliorated the climate, prevented mountain torrents, and
rendered the water supply more permanent. These investi-
gations show that the general destruction of forests has ren-
dered the climate dryer, more changeable and trying, and that
forests on the one hand tend to lower the general temperature
of a country and promote the fall of rain at more regular in-
tervals, and on the other hand they ward off sudden meteor-
ological changes which result in heavy falls of rain and
disastrous floods.

It is well known that houses too closely surrounded by trees
are damp. Beautiful and healthful as shade trees are, they
may stand too near the house. Dense evergreens growing so
close as to shut out all sunlight, are harmful. It is an old
Italian proverb, that “where the sunlight cannot come the
doctor must ;”? and sometimes the wisest direction of the
physician to his rheumatic patient is, to cut down the tree
which too densely overshadows the house and excludes all
sunlight. The wetness of roads completely overshadowed by.
trees, shows how forests affect the humidity of the ground
they cover. Mr. Marsh says: ‘‘ One important conclusion at
least is certain and undisputed, that within their own limits
and near their own borders forests maintain a more uniform
degree of humidity in the atmosphere than is observed in
cleared grounds.” Speaking of the indiscriminate clearing in

15

America, he says: “ with the disappearance of the forest, all
is changed. At one season, the earth parts with its warmth
by radiation to an open sky, and at another receives heat
from the unobstructed rays of the sun; hence the climate be-
comes excessive, and the soil is alternately parched by the
fervor of summer and seared by the rigors of winter.”

Wm. Cullen Bryant says: “Our summersare becoming dryer
and our streams smaller. Take the Cuyahoga as an illustra-
tion. Fifty years ago large barges loaded with goods went up
and down that river. Now, inan ordinary stage of the water,
a canoe or skiff can hardly pass down the stream. And from
the same cause—the destruction of our forests—other streams
are drying up in summer.” Almost every work on forestry
abounds in evidence that extensive forest denudation has
everywhere diminished the flow of springs. The case of the
famous spring in the Island of Ascension is often cited, which
dried up when the adjacent mountain was cleared, but reap-
peared in a few years after the wood was replanted. Several
lakes in Switzerland showed a depression of their level after a
general devastation of the forests. Siemoni says: ‘“ Ina rocky
nook in the Tuscan Apennines there flowed a perennial stream
from three adjacent springs. On the disappearance of the
woods around and above the springs the stream ceased, except
in rainy weather, but when a new growth of wood again shaded
the soil, the springs began to flow.” Marchand says: ‘* The
river that from time immemorial furnished ample water-power
for the factory at St. Ursanne dwindled so much when the sur-
rounding woods were cut that the factory was at last obliged to
stop altogether.” President Chadbourne says that Salt Lake
contains nearly twice as much water as it did when the Mor-
mons came, and that the water supply is increasing throughout
the territory, not by an increase of rain, but cultivation
and extensive groves of trees have checked the influence of
drying winds and lessened evaporation.*

* Near my residence (Woburn, Massachusetts,) there is a pond upon which —
mills have been standing since the early settlement of the town. These have
been kept in constant operation until within thirty years, when the supply of
water began to fail. The pond owes its existence to a stream which has its
source in the hills stretching some miles to thesouth. Within the time mentioned,

16

I visited the planted forests of the Duke of Athole—whose
estates, beginning near Dunkeld in Scotland, extend forty
miles by ten—in company with Captain Campbell Walker,
now the Conservator of State Forests in New Zealand,
who was long employed in the same service in India. He
said he had personally observed the drying up of springs and
decrease of the average amount of water in some of the
mountain forests in India, in which extensive clearing had
taken place, and that such clearing had unquestionably less-
ened the regular supply for springs and permanent flow in
the streams and rivers. While I was in England, the terrible
famine in India resulting in the starvation of over seven
hundred and fifty thousand people—more than the entire
population of Connecticut and Rhode Island—was a promi-
nent theme of public thought and talk and sympathy. Cap-
tain Walker, Dr. J. C. Brown, and other foresters expressed
the view that forest denudation, diminishing the springs and
lessening the former sources of artificial irrigation, was the
leading cause of this terrible calamity. Under the early rule
of the East India Company, there was a wide-spread devasta-
tion of the forests, and in later years the construction of
extensive railway and telegraph lines have created a new
demand for timber. Recently the English Government has
adopted energetic measures for re-foresting the mountains,
and placed the remaining forests under the supervision of
competent foresters.

In a paper read to the Vienna Geographical Society in
1875, Herr Wex, Counsellor of State, and Director of the
Government Works for the regulation of the flow of the
_ Danube, affirms that in the last fifty years the decrease in
the average level or comparison of the highest and lowest
flow of the Elbe and Oder has been seventeen inches, the
Rhine twenty-four, Vistula twenty-six, Danube at Orsova, fifty-
five. These measurements, embracing the greatest flood

these hills, which were clothed with a dense forest, have been stripped of trees,
and what was never heard of before, the stream itself has been entirely dry.
Within the last ten years a new growth of vood has sprung up on the land
formerly occupied by the old forest, and now the water runs through the year.
Dr. Pirer—Tvees of America.

17

heights, the lowest flow, and the medium average flow, show
that the floods are unquestionably higher than in former
years, and the contrast between the highest and lowest flow
is greater, and that these higher floods are no compensation
for the diminution of the medium and low flood, and that many
manufactories built during the last fifty years have experi-
enced a marked diminution in the water supply of their
streams, and steam-engines have been employed to meet the
deficiency of water-power, once ample to do the same work.

The cause of this remarkable phenomena lies in the exten-
sive clearing away of the forests, especially in the mountains,
where deluges of rain occur more frequently ; for, in lands
devoid of trees, the rain water sinks less into the soil, .
but more speedily reaches the brooks, streams, and rivers,
and fills and overflows these water-courses, and results
in disastrous floods. The correctness of this conclusion is
sadly attested by the now frequently recurring inundations in
Italy, in the south of France, Hungary, Bohemia, and in
many other lands. It may be worthy of inquiry whether the
general clearing of the mountain forests around Salisbury,
Connecticut, to meet the growing demand for charcoal for the
furnaces, had any connection with the desolating flood which
occurred in that town four years ago. A resident of Salis-
* bury, whose farm lies near the base of the mountain skirting
‘that town, says that a stream on his land, formerly never fail-
ing, has dried up every summer for the last twenty years.

By several learned societies—like the Royal Academy of Sci-
ence of Vienna, and the Imperial Academy of Science of St.
Petersburg—commissioners were appointed to report upon the
paper of Wex, and their reports substantially confirm his
views, and say: “ Forests exercise a beneficial influence which
can hardly be estimated too highly in an increased humidity
of the air, a reduction of the extremes of temperature, a
diminution of evaporation, and a more regular distribution of
the rainfall, while the injurious effects of their destruction is
seen in an alternation of periods of drought at one time with
wasting floods at another.” The forests serve as storehouses
of moisture, both from their leafy canopy which shuts out the

2

“IB

sun, and the myriads, or rather millions, of leaves cover ing
the soil and acting like a sponge, soaking up and retaining the
rain and regulating its distribution, while the roots act as ver-
tical drains, favoring infiltration and promoting the descent of
the water into the lower strata of the earth, there to nourish
the springs.

Among the works of Dr. J. C. Brown on Ror pstee anal
most voluminous writer on this subject in the English lan-
euage—is one on “‘ Reboisement in France,” or the replanting
of the Alps, the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees, to arrest and
prevent the destructive consequences of torrents. He clearly
shows from official documents what fearful inundations
resulted from the over-clearing of forests, and describes the
remedial measures now in progress, which are to extend
through many years and to cost over twelve millions of francs.
But the loss of property by the terrible inundations in the
south of France in 1875 was estimated by the government at
seventy-five millions of francs, besides the loss of over three
thousand lives. This was the work of a single year. The
sad lessons of other torrents and other years have now at
length led to systematic efforts to re-clothe their mountains.

The benefits that may accrue to our country from the dis-
cussion of tree-planting, were strikingly exhibited two hundred
and fourteen years ago, when Sir John Evelyn published his
‘celebrated work, entitled, “‘ Sylva; or, a Discourse on Forest’
Trees and the PropagationofTimber.”’ It wasat once received
with great public favor, and honored with royal commendation.
He had remarkable success in awakening general interest in
sylviculture. It was written while he was employed in an
entirely different branch of public service, but, as he says,
“from an earnest desire to support the credit of the Royal
Society, and to convince the world that philosophy was not
barely an amusement, fit only to employ the time of melan-
choly and speculative people, but a high and useful science,
worthy the attention of men of the greatest parts, and capable
of contributing in a supreme degree to the welfare of the
nation.” He was one of the founders of the Royal Society,
and wrote this book at its special request, and that society

19

has originated few books in the last two hundred years more
useful than this which still survives in its grand results,
although his other works on painting, sculpture, architecture,
and medals have long since been forgotten. In many ways
England has recognized her great obligations to the man who
worked so lovingly and effectively for the good of his country-
men.

Disraeli, in his “ Curiosities of Literature,” fittingly says:
“Had Evelyn only composed the great work of his Sylva,
his name would have excited the gratitude of posterity. The
voice of the patriot exults in the dedication to Charles II,
prefixed to one of the later editions, in which he says: ‘I
need not acquaint your Majesty how many millions of timber
trees, besides infinite others, have been planted throughout
your vast dominions at the instigation of this work, because
your Majesty has been pleased to own it publicly for my
encouragement.’ Surely, while Britain retains her situa-
tion among the nations of Europe, the Sylva of Evelyn will
endure with her triumphant oaks. It was a retired philoso-
pher who aroused the genius of the nation, and who, casting
a prophetic eye towards the age in which we live, contributed
to secure our sovereignty of the seas. The present navy of
Great Britain has been constructed with the oaks which the
genius of John Evelyn planted.”

- What trees shall we plant in Connecticut? One of the
most valuable of our native trees is the white ash, and, all
things considered, it is one of the most profitable for planting.
Combining lightness, strength, toughness, elasticity, and
beauty of grain in a rare degree, it is in great and growing
demand for farming tools, furniture, interior finishing of
houses and railroad cars, the construction of carriages,
for oars and pulley-blocks, and many other purposes. The
excellence of our ash is one secret of the preference given
abroad to American agricultural implements. It is hardy,
will bear the bleakest exposure, is a rapid grower, and attains
large size, but will not thrive on poor lands. It is every way
superior to the Huropean ash, much as that has been cultivated
and lauded abroad. It is now found widely in the nurseries

20

and young plantations attached to the forest schools of
Europe. Director-General Adolfo Di Béranger, President of
the Royal Instituto Forestale at Vallombrosa, pointed me to
his plantations of Fraxinus Americana with a tone which
implied that is the tree of which Americans may well be
proud.

' The ash is a fine ornamental tree for private grounds,
public parks, or for the way-side. When planted closely
for timber they grow straight and free from low laterals,
and early reach a size that makes the thinnings valuable
for poles and fencing. Mr. Budd, a tree grower of Iowa, says:
““A grove of ten acres thinned to six feet apart, containing
twelve: thousand trees, at twelve years were eight inches in
diameter and thirty-five feet high, the previous thinning pay-
ing all expenses of planting and cultivation. Ten feet of the
bodies of these trees were worth, for making bent stuff, etc.,
forty cents each, and the remaining top ten cents, making a
total of $6,000 as the profit of ten acres in twelve years, or a
yearly profit of $50 per acre.” Mr. Edward Norton of Farm-
ington has about sixteen thousand white ash plants, raised
from last year’s seed, now in rows to be planted next spring.
They are very thrifty, and average about one foot in height.
_ Very few of them died during the summer. He has gathered
seed enough for about one hundred thousand plants, which he
intends to start next spring.

The seeds of the ash are abundant, ripening by the first
of October. They may be easily gathered after the first
frost. If sown in the fall they should be covered with
three inches of straw. If to be sown in the spring the seed
may be mixed with damp sand. With all seedlings care
should be taken to keep down the weeds. In some of
the nurseries connected with the forest schools, I noticed
the seed-beds were protected by green bushes during
_ the hottest and dryest part of the summer. For field planting,
the land should be plowed and made mellow in the autumn,
that the trees may be planted early in the spring. A little
over five thousand plants will be required to the acre, where
they are set in rows four feet apart, and two feet apart in the

21

rows. The weeds can be kept down for three years with a
cultivator, when the ground will be sufficiently shaded to
require no further cultivation.

Connecticut is rich in its variety of native trees, having
nearly sixty species, of which about forty are sizable for tim-
ber. Among the native trees worthy of cultivation may be
named the white ash, white oak, sugar maple, chestnut, hick-
ory, butternut, white pine, willow, and the elm. The latter, |
when growing under favoring-conditions, has been pronounced
“the most magnificent vegetable of the temperate zone.”
Much as the willow has been used as an ornamental tree, its
economic value has not been appreciated in this country. The
white willow is especially commended by experienced arborists.
While most at home in low grounds and beside streams, it is
hardy and will grow, though not as thriftily, on dry uplands
and in poor soils. Professor William H. Brewer says: “In
England, where it is often sixty or seventy feet high in twenty
years, there is no wood in greater demand than good willow.
It is light, very tough, soft, takes a good finish, will bear more
pounding and knocks than any other wood grown there, and
hence its use for cricket bats, for floats to paddle-wheels of
steamers, and brake-blocks on cars. It is used extensively for
turning, planking coasting vessels, furniture, ox-yokes, wooden
legs, shoe-lasts, ete. Its charcoal is used for making gun-
powder, its bark for tanning, its sprouts for withes and bas-
kets. In some sections of Europe it has been planted from
remote times as one of their most valued trees.” Starting
from cuttings and growing rapidly it can be very easily prop-
agated. Fuller says: ‘It groweth incredibly fast—it being a
by-word that the profit by willows will buy the owner a horse
before that by other trees will pay for the saddle.” Mr. Sar-
gent says: “As willow timber could be produced far more
cheaply than that of-any of our native trees, it should soon
come into general use here for the purposes requiring light-
ness, pliancy, elasticity, and toughness—qualities which it
possesses in an eminent degree, and for which more valuable
woods are now employed. Less than one-third of the willow
used in the United States for basket making is produced here,

22

the remainder being imported from Great Britain, France,
Holland, and Belgium, at an annual cost of five millions of
dollars. The osier proper, the product of Salix viminalis and
its allies, can be grown without trouble in any wet, undrained
soil, capable of producing little else of value; but the better
sorts of basket willow are only successfully produced with
careful cultivation on rich, well-drained soil. Under such
conditions it is a profitable crop, capable of netting at least
$150 a year to the acre, and well worth the attention of our
farmers.’”? ‘The experiment of raising willows is worth trying,
though I do not anticipate so large profits as Professor Sar-
gent promises.

For the reclamation of our pastures and waste lands aban-
doned to hard-hack, sumac, and other worthless brush, the
European larch deserves to become a favorite. A native of
the Alps, Apennines, of the Tyrol and Carpathian Mountains,
it is a very hardy tree, and at home in a variety of well-
drained soils, especially on rough, rocky, or gravelly ground,
and the most rugged ravines. There are in our State large
tracts of bleak hill-sides and mountain declivities or summits,
now practically worthless, where the larch, thickly planted,
would soon choke out brush, weeds, and grasses.. As an orna-
mental tree it grows finely even in deep and rich loam, but its
extraordinary qualities for timber may be impaired when
grown on the rich prairies of the West or the best lands of
the East. When raised under right conditions it combines
the two qualities of rapidity of growth and durability of wood
more than any other tree. This wood was in high favor with
the Romans for the building of ships and bridges. Julus
Cesar spoke strongly of its strength and durability.

Last summer I heard a lumber-man in Venice say that its
durability was amply attested there, as most of the houses of
the city are built upon larch piles, many of which, though in
use for centuries, show no signs of decay. In a large Doge’s
palace, now used as a hotel, he showed me some very ancient
larch window-casings which are still sound. For gondola
posts in the canals adjoining the houses the larch is preferred.
In wharves and many other positions in England where there

23

is an alternation of wet and dry with the tide, the larch has
stood this most trying test far better than oak. In England
it is regarded as the best timber for railway ties. Monville
says: ‘‘In Switzerland, the larch, as the most durable of
woods, is preferred for shingles, fences, and vine-props. These
vine-props remain fixed for years, and see crop after crop of
vines bear their fruit and perish without showing any symp-
toms of decay. Props of silver fir would not last more than
ten years.” Hvelyn says: “It makes everlasting spouts and
pent-houses, which need neither pitch nor painting to preserve
them.” Michie affirms that “ For out-door work it is the most
durable of all descriptions of wood. I have known larch posts
that have stood for nearly fifty years.” Professor Sargent
expresses the opinion that “For posts it will equal in dura-
bility our red cedar, while in the power to hold nails it ig
greatly its superior.”” The chestnut railway sleeper loses its
power to hold iron in about seven years, though the tie itself
may not so soon seriously rot. The larch, while it holds iron
as firmly as oak, unlike the latter, does not corrode iron.

The Boston & Albany Railway have larch ties in use for six-
teen years which are stillsound. The president of the Illinois
Central Railway, having examined the vast planted forests of
larch in Europe and learned its remarkable fitness for railway
ties, offers to transport the young plants free of charge to any
point on their lines or leased lines, provided they are to be
planted in the vicinity of the same. It is, however, an experi-
ment which time alone can determine, whether the larch will
retain its durability when planted in the level, deep, vegetable

mould of the prairies, with their retentive sub-soil. That it
will grow there rapidly and luxuriantly is amply proved, but
its history for many centuries shows that élevated lands suit
it better than low grounds, and side-hills and mountain slopes
better than flats. In the rich river flats of Kew Gardens and
in the vicinity of London the larch does not thrive. The
specimens found in that remarkable collection of all known
trees are puny. The Kew arborist informed me that in the
two hundred and seventy acres appropriated to the arboretum,
no spot had been found suited to the larch. Mr. James Brown,

24

an experienced forester of Scotland, attributes the disease,
which has of late prevailed in many larch plantations in that
country, to planting it, both in the nursery and the field,*in
uncongenial soil.

No other tree has been planted so extensively in Scotland.
It attains maturity long before the oak, and serves well for
nearly all purposes for which oak is used. Larch trees thirty
years old are sometimes sold for fifteen dollars each, while
oaks of the same age are not worth three dollars each.
According to Newlands the strength of larch timber is to that
of British oak as 103 to 100; its stiffuess as 79 to 100; while
its toughness is as 184 to 100. As the larch grows erect, with
short and slender laterals, it may be planted much thicker
than the oak. According to Loudon ten acres of larch will
furnish as much ship timber as seventy-five acres of oak. Its
large timber yield per acre is one source of its popularity in
Britain. It was first planted on the estate of the Duke of
Athole, in 1741. Some stately specimens over one hundred
and thirty years old may be seen near the cathedral at Dun-
keld. Mr. McGregor, the duke’s forester, informed me that
on this one estate have been planted over twenty-seven millions
of larch trees, covering over sixteen thousand acres, some of
which was formerly worth only from one to two shillings per
acre. |

Dr. James Brown says he has seen matured crops of larch of
sixty-five years’ standing sold for from $750 to $2,000 per acre,
when the land was originally worth only from $2 to $4 per
acre. Mr. Sargent, director of the Botanic Garden and
Arboretum of Harvard College, gives a detailed estimate of
the profits of a plantation of European larch of ten acres to
last fifty years, calculating the cost for land, fencing, plants,
labor, taxes, and interest, and makes the net gain to be
$52,282.75, or about thirteen per cent. per annum for the
entire fifty years, after retaining the original capital, and he
adds: ‘*There are in Massachusetts fu!ly 200,000 acres of
unimproved land which could, with advantage, be at once
covered with larch plantations, and if so planted their net
yield, according to my estimate, in fifty years would be

25

$1,045,660,000. Supposing that these 200,000 acres will, in
the natural course of events, produce, during the same time,
one hundred cords of fire-wood to the acre, worth six dollars
a cord, amounting to $120,000,000, and subtracting this sum
from the net yield of the larch, we have left, as created wealth, .
the respectable suni of $925,000,000.”

Mr. Sargent, however, admits that this is farming on paper,
and that considerable allowances should be made for such
contingencies as fire, tree diseases, insect attacks, and other
dangers now unforeseen. Robert Douglas of Illinois, who has
had far more experience in larch planting than any other
American, writes me that the larch in this country is remark-
ably free from all disease and insect depredations.

My special aim has been to encourage the recuperation of
sterile lands by tree planting. The experiments of thus
reclaiming barren tracts, which have been tried on a large
scale in many European countries, prove the superiority of the
larch for this purpose over all other evergreens, because if is
deciduous. Grigor says: ‘No tree is so valuable as the larch
in its fertilizing effects, arising from the richness of its foliage,
which it sheds annually. The yearly deposit is very great;
the leaves remain and are consumed on the spot where they
drop.” Trees also enrich the soil by a curious chemistry
which disintegrates even the rocks, and transmutes their par-
ticles into forms of life and beauty. The radicles and rootlets,
in their underground laboratory, secrete acids which dissolve
the very sands and stones.

The frequency of forest fires is urged as an objection to
tree-planting. Here is a real discouragement; but forests are
no more likely to be burned than are our barns and dwellings.
More property is consumed every year by the burning of
stores and houses in this country than by forest fires. This
danger, therefore, should no more prevent tree-planting than
house-building. But such views need to be spread among all
classes of the American people as will produce the general
conviction that the interests of all classes are concerned in
the protection and conservation of forests. The schools of
forestry have made this sentiment wellnigh universal in

4

26

Germany, and all classes there appreciate their value and the
need of protecting them. Browsing and pasturage in certain
limits are prohibited, and yet the forests are not fenced. Simple
marks designate where cattle may pasture and where they
may not, and an intelligent public sentiment is a better
guardian of the national or communal forests than official
watchers or national police.

In some portions of Germany the law formerly required
every landholder to plant trees along his road frontage.
Happy would it be for us if the sovereigns of our soil would
make each such a law for himself. Happy, also, if the law
of usage, fashion, or interest here, as did the civil law there,
required that every young man before he married should
plant a tree. In some of our Western States tree-planting
by the road-side is encouraged by a bounty from the State
treasury, and in the fields by both a bounty and exemption
from taxation for a term of years. The law in Minnesota
provides that ‘‘ every person planting, protecting and cultiva-
ting forest trees for three years, one-half mile or more along
any public highway, shall be entitled to receive for ten years
thereafter an annual bounty of two dollars for each half-mile
so planted and cultivated, to be paid out of the State treasury ;
but such bounty shall not be paid any longer than such line
of trees is maintained.’”’. If I may be pardoned for repeating
a personal allusion, the maples which I planted, when a mere
boy, before the old homestead in Litchfield county, are now
beautiful and stately trees. As Ihave often said, they have paid
me a thousand-fold for the work they cost, and added new
charms to that beautiful spot, to which I count it a privilege
to make an annual visit. Among the memories of my boy-
hood, no day has recurred with such frequency and satisfaction
as that then devoted to tree-planting. My interest in the
subject is due to this incident (or perhaps accident) of my
boyhood. I should be thankful if I could help put a similar
incident, and an equally grateful experience, into the child-
hood of our boys of to-day. In this good work may I earn-
estly bespeak the codperation of the farmers of Connecticut.

In tree-planting, the economic and ornamental touch at so

27

many points that the cases are rare where they really diverge.
Nothing, for example, can add so much to the beauty and
attractiveness of our country roads as long avenues of fine
trees. I saw this beautifully illustrated in France, last sum-
mer, where, for over a hundred miles on a stretch, the road
was lined with trees. In many ways the first Napoleon’s inter-
est in arboriculture proved a benefaction to France. No time
should be lost in securing the same grand attraction to the
highways of Connecticut. Growing on land otherwise running
to waste, such trees would yield most satisfactory returns.
The shade and beauty would be grateful to every traveler,
but doubly so to the owner and the planter, as the happy
experience of many Connecticut farmers can testify. A
grand work in this direction is already well started. No
class can contribute so much to the adornment of our public
roads as the farmers. They have already in abundance the
very best trees for the roadside, such as the elm, maple, ash,
American linden (or bass), oak, and in some localities the
walnut. The hard maple will thrive in dry and gravelly soils,
while the elm and red maple are specially desirable for moist,
low ground. As the maples should be planted twenty-five
feet apart, and the elms from forty to fifty, poplars or willows
or trees growing rapidly from scions, may be placed between,
to be cut down when their statelier neighbors require the
room for their full development.

Tree-planting is fitted to give a needful lesson of forethought
to the juvenile mind. Living only in the present and for the
present, too often youth will sow only where they can quickly
reap. A meager crop soon in hand, outweighs a golden
harvest long in maturing. Youth should learn to forecast
the future as the condition of wisdom. Arboriculture is a
discipline in foresight—it is always planting for the future,
and sometimes for the distant future. Says Washington Iry-
ing, ‘* There is something nobly simple and pure in such a
taste for trees. It argues a sweet and generous nature to
have this strong friendship for the hardy and glorious sons of
the forest. There is a serene majesty in woodland scenery
that enters into the soul, dilates and elevates it, and fills it

28

with noble inclinations. There is a grandeur of thought
connected with this heroic line of husbandry. It is worthy
of liberal and free-born and aspiring men. He who plants
an oak, looks forward to future ages and plants for posterity.
He cannot expect to enjoy its shelter, but he exults in the
idea that the acorn which he has buried in the earth shall
grow up into a lofty pile, and shall keep on flourishing and
increasing and benefiting mankind long after he has ceased
to tread his paternal fields.”’ It was the trees of his own
planting at Sunnyside-on-the-Hudson, more than the beauty
of the surrounding landscape, that led Irving to say, ‘“* After
all my wanderings, I return to this spot with a heartfelt
preference for it over all others in the world.” It was the
simple beauty he had created at Marshfield,—the grassy
lawns, the shaded approaches, the hundreds of trees of his
planting,—that bound Daniel Webster so strongly to that
sequestered spot. The charm of Abbotsford, the grand Mecca
of Scotland, comes mainly from its beautiful ivy and shrub-
bery and the thousands of trees planted by the hand of its
illustrious proprietor. Says Sir Walter Scott, “My heart
clings to this place I have created. There is scarce a tree in
it that does not owe its being tome. Once well planted, a
tree will grow when you are sleeping, and it is almost the
only thing that needs no tending.”

Any wealthy citizens of Connecticut, who desire to become
public benefactors, can hardly find a more inviting field for
their liberality than by offering prizes for sylviculture. A
few thousand dollars placed in the hands of the Connecticut
Board of Agriculture would widely stimulate tree-planting,
and greatly enrich the State. The Massachusetts Society for
Promoting Agriculture, offer three thousand dollars in the
following prizes:

First. For the best plantation of not less than five acres,
$1,000; for the next best, $600; and for the next best, $400.
For these prizes the European larch must be planted, except
in Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket counties, where the
Scotch pine or Corsican pine must be used, as best adapted
to sandy plains. Only plantations made on poor, worn-out

29

land, or that which is unfit for agricultural purposes, and
containing at least 2,700 trees to the acre, can compete for
these prizes.

Second. For the best plantation of American white ash, of
not less than five acres in extent, $600; for the next best,
$400. Plantations originally of less than 5,000 trees to the
acre, cannot compete for these prizes.

The following directions for tree-planting are condensed
from the recommendations given by the trustees of the prize
fund. For planting larch and pine, shallow furrows four feet
apart should be run one way across the field. Then by plant-
ing in the furrows four feet apart each way, 2,720 plants will be
required to the acre. On hilly, rocky land which cannot be
plowed, it will be only necessary to open with a spade, holes
large enough to admit the roots of the plants. The larch
must be planted as early in the season as the ground can be
worked. No other tree begins to grow so early, and too late
planting is a common cause of failure. The Scotch and Cor-
sican pines can be planted up to the first of May. The roots
should be exposed to the wind and sun as little as possible.
Carelessness in this particular is often fatal to the young
plants. The trees should be carried to the field in bundles,
covered with wet mats, and not be removed till they are re-
quired for planting. The roots should be carefully spread
out in the holes or furrows prepared for them, and the soil
worked among them with the hand, and finally pressed down
with the foot. A cloudy or rainy day is especially favorable
for this work. All young plantations must be protected from
browsing animals, the greatest enemies, next to man, to young
trees and the spread of forest growth.

If the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad reclaim
the strip of land bordering their line through the “ sand-blow,”
the example would be a benefaction to the State as a demon-
stration of what may be accomplished under the most un-
favorable circumstances. If that desert can be reclaimed,
surely all other barrens in Connecticut may be fertilized by
forests. This enterprise will require time, faith, patience,
and money. For the first four years the young trees may seem

30

to barely struggle between life and death, after which they
are likely to grow rapidly. As this scheme will be regarded
as chimerical by those who have not investigated the subject,
I give below extracts from letters which I have received from
practical tree-planters on Cape Cod and elsewhere, embody-
ing interesting facts and practical suggestions.

John Doane, Orleans. (Mr. Doane, now eighty-six years of age, is the oldest
living sylviculturist in Barnstable County.) Ihave p'anted one hundred acres
in Orleans and seventy in Brewster. The whole plantation in Orleans is about
five hundred acres ; in Eastham seven hundred acres; in Wellfleet four hundred ;
in Truro six hundred; in Chatham, Harwich, Dennis, and Yarmouth, about four
hundred each; and in Barnstablesix hundred acres. In regard to the other towns
on Cape Cod [have no definite information, though trees have been planted inmany
towns on the Cape. Ihave made a machine for planting the seed, that I have
lent to the tree-planters in five of the neighboring towns. The land I have
planted with pines was not worth over fifty cents per acre before planting, and I
have sold some since covered with young pines, for fourteen dollars per acre. I
consider it a good investment.

John Kenrick, South Orleans.--My experiments in tree-planting have been
made on over a hundred acres now covered with trees from one to thirty-five
years old, chiefly pitch pine. Iam now trying Scotch and Corsican pine, and
European larch. My first aim has been to cover my worn-out lands with beauty
and verdure, and it has proved a successful and economic experiment. The seed
of the pitch pine is worth from one to two dollars a pound, the higher price
being in the end the cheapest. Fresh seeds, curefully gathered, are as sure to
vegetate as corn, but obtained from seedsmen, they are very unreliable in germi-
nating. European nurserymen take far greater pains in gathering forest tree
seeds, and understand the art of curing them better than Americans. I have
tried every method of tree planting, transplanting trees from the smallest to
those that are two feet high. This is a costly plan, but may be adopted when
one wishes to save time, and desires a few trees asa wind break or otherwise. In
transplanting trees immediately from my own nursery to the field, my favorite
time is just as the buds begin to startin the spring. Ihave planted seeds both
with a planter and by hand. On our light sands a man and boy will plant three
acresina day. Dropping six seeds in a hill, it will take about half a pound of
seed to the acre. This is my favorite method, and is more satisfactory in results,
though more costly than that of using the plow and planter. When the ever-
greens are about two feet high I would thin them, leaving one thrifty plant in
each hill. I do not trim till they get large, and then cut off only the dead
branches.

Tully Crosby, Brewster. In our small town about fifteen hundred acres of old
waste land have been planted with pitch-pine. The Norway pine has not proved
a success with us. Many old fields bought for fifty cents per acre, and planted
with pine twenty-five years ago, are now worth from ten to twenty dollars an acre.
The pines grow well for twenty-five or thirty years, and when cut off a second
crop springs up immediately, and this crop does better than the first. The pitch-
pine takes root and grows on our barren beach sand where no soil is perceptible. Our
people are now planting trees every year. I have recently planted twelve acres.
Two years ago I cut off a lot planted thirty years since, and the land is now
full of young pine trees growing from the seed scattered by the first growth. A
man with atwo horse team can plant ten acres in a day, and three pounds of
seed will do the whole.

E. Higgins, Eastham. Thirty years ago twenty acres of condemned tillage
Jand, worth one dollar per acre, was planted with pitch pine. The present value
of this land is fifteen dollars per acre. Prior to 1870, two hundred and twenty-
five acres more of the same sort of land was thus planted, the present value of

31

which is eight dollars per acre. About one hundred and fifty acres of sandy
land, utterly barren and not worth fifty cents to the acre, have been planted, the
present value of which is seven dollars per acre.

John G. Thompson, North Truro. About six hundred and fifty acres have been
planted in this town. ‘The price of pitch pine seed for the last few years has been
one dollar and fifty cents per pound. Thirty years ago land in this town could
be bought for twenty five cents per acre for tree-planting; now the same kind of
barren Jand sells for two dollars per acre¢for tree-planting. I find the expense
of planting the pines to be two dollars and twenty-five cents per acre.

S. B. Phinney, Barnstable. Large tracts of worn-out lands in this county, that
were worth comparatively nothing, have been planted from the seed of the pitch-
pine. These experiments have proved successful. I know of no way in which
the light sandy lands in this section can be made so valuable as by planting them
with the pitch-pine. Our experience proves that the cultivation of forest trees is
feasible and profitable in New England seaport towns. In 1845 I planted in this
town a ten-acre lot with pitch-pine seed, much as corn is planted, dropping three
seeds in a hill and covering them with half an inch of soil. To-day many of these
trees will girth more than a man’s body. Hundreds of acres in this section are
being planted annually.

J. E. Crane, Bridgewater. The most profitable tree we have planted in this
region is the white pine, with which about two hundred acres have been planted
on old worn-out pasture and light sandy soil. ‘The cost of planting, that
is, setting out young trees twelve to eighteen inches high, is about eight dollars per
acre. Properly set out, scarcely one in fifty will fail. There is in this victhity
an acre that was set out thirty-five years ago, that has just yielded in cash for
the wood and lumber, $350. On another acre, planted twenty-eight years ago,
there is estimated to be from eighty to ene hundred cords. These are unusual
specimens, but fifty cords per acre in twenty-five years, is a low estimate on land
natural to pine, and pine is the most valuable growth of wood in the Old Colony.

F. Collamore, Pembroke. Forty years since, Hon. Morrill Allen, “the model
farmer ” of Plymouth county, planted white pines which grew rapidly, and have
proved very valuable for the manufacture of wooden packing-boxes. His exam-
ple has been followed to a limited extent. Every one believes in the profit of it,
but we are in a well-wooded region, and when a lot is cut off it soon starts up
again.

Robert Douglas and Sons, Waukegan, Illinois. We have propagated the Euro-
pean larch for nearly twenty years. For a numberof years, and until the finan-
cial collapse, we sowed over one thousand pounds of larch seeds annually, averaging
five to seven thousand plants to the pound of seed. The Jarch grows finely and
rapidly in the New England States, in northern Illinois, lowa, Minnesota, and
Wisconsin. It grows nearly as fast, and makes more durable timber on poor
lands than on very rich lands. There is no land so poor, except blowing sands,
but that it will make a rapid growth after it is once fairly established. Itisa
tree adapted to a northern climate, and does not thrive in Kansas, southern IIli-
nois, and south of Pennsylvania. We are growing the native cherry (Cerasus
seratina) in large quantities, as it is healthy, transplants well, grows rapidly on
land far from rich, and the timber is very valuable. We willsend our catalogues,
giving fuller information, to any party in Connecticut on application. The Euro-
pean larch should be planted as early as possible inthe spring. It should never be
planted on low wet ground. Set out early, no tree will bear transplanting better.
Scotch pine and larch do well mixed. We recommend planting a few rows of
the admixture on the margin of the plantation. When planted four feet by four,
as we advise, they can be worked both ways with the cultivator for two or three
years, when the branches will shade the ground so deusely as to destroy the
undergrowth. When the trees are received from the nursery, the boxes should
be immediately unpacked and the roots dipped into a puddle made of rich, mellow
soil about the thickness of paint, and kept in a shaded place till ready to plant,
but the tops should be kept dry. Set the trees a little deeper than they stood in
the nursery. After treading the earth firmly about the roots, draw a little loose
earth up to the trees to prevent the surface from baking.

32

Francis Skinner, Brookline, a Trustee of Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agri-
culture. I will receive and transmit orders for any number of trees for plantations in
Connecticut to Douglas & Sons, Waukegan, Illinois. By arrangement with themy
such orders transmitted through you are subject to fifteen per cent. discount from
the catalogue prices, and such orders can be transmitted up to April Ist, except
for European larch, for which the closing time will be March Ist. We are filling
our Massachusetts orders from Douglas & Sons in preference to mmporting from
England, as they are cheaper when ordered in large quantities, and the chances
of their success far greater. American white ash, one or two years old and about .
one foot high, are from $3 to $5.50 per thousand ; European larch from +4 to $8
per thousand. As this duty is undertaken solely from a desire to facilitate tree-
planting, and not for the purpose of any personal gain, I cannot be held respon-
sible in any way for the results.

A. W. Holley, Salisbury, Conn.—The consumption of wood in this and sur-
rounding towns has been very great in supplying charcoal to our numerous iroa
works. Some of the mountains have been stripped of their trees three times
within the last century. The second growth was rapid. Hach subsequent one
has been less vigorous and less rapid. Other varieties, aided by artificial means,
such as seeding, placing cuttings, or transplanting the young trees, might soon
render our mountains valuable again for the production of forests. Our land-
owners have not paid sufficient attention to the propagation of trees. The
denudation of the mountains in Calisbury have lessened our streams. In the
season of rain there is a more rapid rise and a greater flood than formerly when
the forests were standing and the foliage and falling limbs lay quietly covering
the*earth beneath. Many smaller streams which flowed continuously through
the entire season forty or fifty years ago, fail altogether in the summer, and the
larger ones are proportionately diminished. Your suggestions in regard to fer-
tilizing our sandy plains are practical, and should be carried out.

Experiments are now in progress to fix the dunes or sand
hills which threaten the Suez Canal, by planting the maritime
pine and other trees. Last summer I visited the celebrated
forest of Fontainbleau, in France, which covers an area of
sixty-four square miles. The soil of this wide tract is com-
posed almost entirely of sand, and apparently as dry as the
sand plains of Wallingford. Jules Claré, a student of forest
science of world-wide fame, says: ‘‘The sand here forms
ninety-eight per cent. of the earth, and it is almost without
water; it would bea drifting desert but for the trees growing
and artificially propagated upon it.” What has been done
with signal success at Fontainbleau shows the practicability
of reclaiming the worst deserts that can be found in our
State. Many other facts might be cited were it necessary,
both from home and foreign fields, to prove the feasibility of
this plan of reclaiming sterile lands. If one is to be com-
mended who makes two blades of grass grow where but one
grew before, how much more the farmer who makes forests
thrive where nothing now grows.

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