282 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The writer says : 



But few experiments in arboriculture, except on the most limited scale, have been 

 attempted in Massachusetts ; but I will briefly describe the two most important, which 

 are of special interest, as showing what our unimproved lands are capable of, if judi- 

 ciously managed. 



Mr. Richard S. Fay commenced, in 1840, planting on his estate near Lynn, in 

 Essex county, and in that and the two succeeding years planted two hundred thousand 

 imported trees, to which were afterwards added nearly as many more, raised directly 

 from the seed ; nearly two hundred acres being covered in all. The sites of these 

 plantations were stony hill-sides, fully exposed to the wind, destitute of loam, their only 

 covering a few straggling barberry bushes and junipers, with an abundant undergrowth 

 of woodwax, always an indication in Essex county of sterile soil. He employed in his 

 plantations oaks, ashes, the maples, the Norway spruce, Scotch and Austrian pines, but 

 the principal tree planted was the European larch. No labor was expended on the land 

 previous to planting, the trees, about one foot high, being simply inserted with a spade, 

 and no protection has at any time been given them, save against fire and browsing 

 animals. I recently visited these plantations, twenty-nine years after their formation, 

 and took occasion to measure several of the trees, but more especially the larches. 

 Some of these are now more than fifty feet in height, and fifteen inches in diameter, 

 three feet from the ground ; and the average of many trees examined is over forty feet 

 in height, and twelve inches in diameter. During the past ten years about seven hun- 

 dred (700) cords of firewood have been cut from these plantations, besides all the fencing 

 required for a large estate. Firewood, fence posts, and railroad sleepers, to the value 

 of thousands of dollars, could be cut to-day, to the great advantage of the remaining 

 trees. 



The second experiment was made by Mr. J. S. Fay, the brother of Mr. Richard S. 

 Fay, of Essex county, on the extreme southwestern point of Cape Cod. A tract of 

 land 125 acres in extent, which is now covered with Mr. Fay's plantation, was, in 1853, 

 seemingly as little fitted for the purpose of tree culture as can be imagined. It was 

 fully exposed to the cold northwest winds of winter and no less baleful southwest 

 winds of summer, which come from the Atlantic loaded with saline moisture. 



The variety of trees used are similar, and the success equal, to his 

 brother, R. S. Fay. 



The Scotch pine has made the most rapid growth, and then the European larch. 

 Those taken from the nursery in 1853 are now forty feet high, and from ten to twelve 

 inches diameter, one foot from the ground. 



Enormously as the price of all forest products has advanced within the la-st t^venty- 

 five years, their future increase in value must be more rapid, as the supply becomes more 

 and more inadequate to the demand. The great timber districts of the northern hemis- 

 phere have now all been called on to supply the always increasing wants of the civilized 

 world ; while no provision has as yet been made, except in limited areas, and on an 

 entirely insufficient scale, to provide artificially the wood on which our descendants 

 must depend. 



In Europe, Norway and Sweden, Russia, Germany, and possibly Belgium, are the 

 only countries which yield more forest products than they consume; while the other 

 European countries, especially Great Britain and the extreme southern nations, are 

 enormous consumers of imported wood. 



In the United States, according to Mr. Marsh's estimate, Oregon is the only State 

 in which there is an excess of forest. New York and Maine, which were formerly the 

 chief lumber producing States of the East, now do not cut enough for the use of their 

 own inhabitants, and depend on Canada for a large portion of their su]5ply. And this 

 seems to be true of all the States of the Union, excepting Pennsylvania, Colorado, 

 Oregon, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. 



The annual forest destruction in the three last States is enormous, and they must 

 soon depend on extraneous sources for their domestic supply. How long the supply in 



