14 NOTES ON THE BALD CYPRESS. 



It seems to me not unreasonable to estimate that an area of planted 

 cypress would yield not less than one adult tree annually to each two 

 acres of surface, besides the immature trees removed in thinning ; and that 

 the economic value of the trees is likely to be as considerable as those of 

 our white-pines. Including the young trees, I believe that our swamps, 

 after twenty-five years of care in securing the planting of the cypress seeds, 

 could easily be made to yield an average return of two dollars per acre; 

 and if a large area were controlled by one management, the exjDense of plant- 

 ing and care would be very small. 



There is a general belief that the cypress tree exercises a destructive 

 influence on the malarious exhalations of the swamps Avhere it plenti- 

 fully abounds. By the peculiar impenetrability of its shade, which is 

 far denser than that made by any other of our American trees known to 

 me, it greatly diminishes the evaporation of the swamps where it abounds, 

 and thereby serves to keep the waters of the morass nearer the same 

 level throughout the warm season. Where they grow very thickly their 

 knees, their plentiful and slowly decaying leaves, and the falling debris 

 of bark and limbs, make a sponge that retains the water throughout the 

 year, so that decay takes place very slowly, and a thin peaty mass is 

 formed. It is a well known fact that peaty swamps, owing to the 

 absence of decay or to the antiseptic vegetable acids developed in such 

 swamps, or to other causes, are rarely, to any great extent, malarious. 

 The great peat swamps of the North are wholesome, while a new-drained 

 pond may give ague germs in abundance. I am therefore disposed to 

 think, that, as this cypress favors the formation of peaty matter in the 

 swamps, its extensive planting would do much to diminish the malaria 

 of those areas. INIoreover, in common with all our coniferous trees, the 

 cypress exhales a certain balsamic vapor that perhaps serves, to a certain 

 extent, to better the quality of the air for man's use. This purifying 

 power seems to extend to the roots as well; for while the water from an 

 ordinary earthy swamp is unfit to drink, that from a cypress swamp is 

 exceedingly potable, and is sought for use on ships, as it does not putrefy 

 as seemingly purer Avaters do. 



It may be too much to hope that the malarious nature of the swamp 

 lands along the "Western and Southern rivers may be, at least in jjart, taken 

 away by the careful extension of this tree; but I am satisfied that it is the 

 only American tree to Avhieli we can look for any considerable amelioration 



