14 TREES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



only for ship-timber and lumber for house -building, but for 

 materials for tanning and dyeing, for carriage-making, basket- 

 making, plane-making, last-making, and for furniture and the 

 implements of husbandry. 



Even these foreign resources are fast failing us. Within the 

 last quarter of a century, the forests of Maine and New York, 

 from which we draw our largest supplies, have disappeared 

 more rapidly than those of Massachusetts ever did. In a quar- 

 ter of a century more, at this rate, the supply in many places 

 will be entirely cut off. In many parts of both those States, 

 which recently furnished the most abundant supplies, agricul- 

 ture is already taking the place of the lumber trade ; and the 

 disforested region, now changing into beautiful farms, will never 

 be allowed to resume its original wildness ; or, if the attempt 

 should be made, to restore the forests, the experiment would 

 require a hundred years. 



7. Another special use of the forests of the State, is in the 

 production of maple sugar. Great quantities are already made, 

 and the manufacture might be much more generally introduced. 

 This subject has already received considerable attention. It 

 deserves much more. In many favorable situations, the culti- 

 vation of the maple tree would cost only forethought. The 

 labor of planting the trees might be performed late in the year, 

 when the fall work was over, and the making of sugar be at- 

 tended to early, before the spring work had begun. 



Of minor importance, but of much more than is usually given 

 to it, is the production of nuts of various kinds, the fruit of 

 forest trees. The produce of the shellbark, chestnut, beech, 

 hazel, and acorn, already valuable, might be increased in value 

 almost indefinitely, by selecting the best native varieties, and 

 improving them by processes similar to those to which we owe 

 the fine varieties of apple and pear, and the cultivated varieties 

 of European nuts, and by introducing similar trees, such as the 

 pecan nut, the English walnut, and the European hazel. 



8. The most extensive and important use of the forest is in 

 the fuel it furnishes. Most of the fires, through the State, are 

 still chiefly fed from this source. The population, by the last 

 census, was something over 737,000. Now, it has been found 



