SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 395 



the power they possess of adding beauty and diversity to the landscape. How 

 dull and tame any landscape, even in a picture, without trees. As trees, either 

 single or in groups, add to the beauty of a lawn or park, so forest trees, 

 either in groups, masses, or wide areas, add to the beauty of more extended, 

 landscapes. 



One of the pleasantest views I have ever seen is that obtained by looking 

 across Nunda Valley, in western New York, from the east. As the farms rise 

 gradually on the other side, the blocks of forest that have been left for tim- 

 ber are clearly outlined in the midst of the cleared fields, and the whole valley, 

 with its thriving village embowered in trees in the center, forms a most inter- 

 esting and beautiful picture. There are some very pleasant views in Oakland, 

 Jackson, Washtenaw, and other counties in our own State. Whenever the 

 surface is at all uneven or hilly, the tracts of forest that have been left stand, 

 out more prominently, and give to the landscape a very pleasing diversity. 



No farm should be improved without leaving at least one-fifth or one-sixth 

 of the original forest for timber. Long strips are best for wind-breaks, but 

 have a less pleasing effect to the eye than more compact masses. They cut off 

 any extended view, and if the timber is thin, the long, narrow strips have a 

 ragged appearance. In case the original timber is very scattering, it is well to 

 cut out all the large trees, leaving the second growth to take their place. 

 This makes the mass symmetrical, and by judicious thinning it can be kept 

 even in growth, and made more and more beautiful as time develops the 

 natural characteristics of each individual tree. 



The landscape effect should be kept in view in leaving trees for shade upon 

 the farm. A single group of a dozen trees in each field is better than a dozen 

 single trees scattered about in different places to interfere with the working of 

 farm machinery. If possible, it is well to leave a group in the corner of each 

 field where four fields join each other. This makes a nice grove, and takes up 

 but little room from each field. 



We are clearing up our forests too close. The practical farmer is too apt to 

 admire large fields without a single obstruction to the working of his self- 

 binder and other farm machinery. But the time will come, even here in 

 Michigan, when we shall dread to see large areas without a single group of 

 timber. It seems a crime to utterly destroy the rich heritage that nature has 

 given us. We are apt to speak with pride of the progress we are making in 

 the subjugation of a continent. Too often, I fear, we are robbing it of wealth 

 that no effort of man can ever restore. 



In thinking of those old French voyageurs and explorers who first trod the 

 shores of our great inland seas, I envy them the pleasure they must have had 

 in wandering through the natural parks of this great continent, where man 

 had not destroyed a single tree — where virgin forest alternated with grassy 

 prairie in an endless succession of beautiful scenes. But these natural beauties 

 are gone forever. It only remains for us to preserve a reasonable amount of 

 the forests that yet are left to us, and study how we may improve the sur- 

 roundings of our homes by the judicious planting of trees, that seem so glad to 

 reoccupy the soil from which their forefathers have been ruthlessly torn. 



It seems a mistake, much to be regretted, that in the location of the capital 

 of our State, that not a single acre of the grand old forest, abounding in 

 giant oaks and elms and walnuts, was left as a sample of what the soil there 

 once produced. 



If it were yet possible, a whole county in the northen part of the State 

 should be reserved and left as a natural park, to remain inviolate from the 



