94 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



preparations of fencing, clearing (where that was necessary), 

 making roads, and procuring plants from different nurserymen, 

 occupied the time till October, 1825, when the planting com- 

 menced, and was carried on in such good earnest, that the whole 

 was finished by December, 1826." 



"The planting of this forest appears to have terminated the 

 labors of the duke in planting." He and his predecessors had 

 planted more than fourteen millions of larch plants, occupying 

 over ten thousand English acres. It has been estimated, that 

 the whole forest on mountain ground, planted entirely with 

 larch, about six thousand five hundred Scotch acres, will, in 

 seventy -two years from the time of planting, be a forest of tim- 

 ber fit for building the largest ships. Before being cut down 

 for this purpose, it will have been thinned to about four hundred 

 trees to an acre. Supposing each tree to yield fifty cubic feet 

 of timber, its value, at a shilling a foot, (one-half the present 

 value), will give £1000 an acre, or in all, a sum of £6,500,000 

 sterling. Besides this, there will have been the value of the 

 thinnings, and the increased value of the whole ground for 

 pasturage. 



This effect upon the land in improving it for pasturage is 

 very important. If the larch trees are planted close, they will 

 choke the bushes and natural grasses. This may be effected 

 in ten or fifteen years. After this, gradual thinnings may be 

 accompanied by the introduction of all the most valuable cul- 

 tivated grasses, which, under the cover of the larches, will 

 flourish "with the foliage possessing a softness and luxuriance 

 not posessed in other situations." 



There are large surfaces, particularly in Essex and Bristol 

 counties, of bleak, rocky, barren hills, or wet plains, not so 

 exposed as that spoken of above, but almost equally useless, 

 which might doubtless be redeemed by a similar process. We 

 have now to send to the southern states and to New York and 

 Maine, for a great portion of our ship-timber. Of this the live 

 oak and white oak alone are superior to larch, and for many 

 purposes they are only equal to it. In seventy years, the ship- 

 yards on Mystic River and on Buzzard's Bay, might be sup- 

 plied with timber from the neighboring shores, if the land suit- 



