Ko. 112.] 751 



transportiag it to tlie deposits on the shores of the lake. A large 

 amount of funds is thus annually diffused through all classes of 

 the community by the labors of usually an unpropitious and idle 

 season. The quantity of wood in Fssex county, consumed for 

 manufacturing purposes, is immense, and can only be ,computed 

 by a rough approximation. It probably should be estimated by 

 hundreds of thousands of cords. In extensive districts of the 

 county wliere the wood has been cut exclusiveh' for coaling, and 

 the land is not required for agricultural pursuits, a second spon- 

 taneous growth rapidly shoots up, soon mantling the earth with a 

 luxuriant product, which in the term of fifteen or twenty years, 

 yields a heavy burthen of w^ood and timber. This growth rarely 

 contains plants ot the original forest, but is usually composed of 

 trees of a totally dissimilar character. Pine is usually succeeded 

 by hardwood, and the site of a forest of the latter is occupied by 

 evergreens. Different sections of the county produce in this aspect, 

 irregular and various results. The aspen, yellow poplar, white 

 birch, and oaks, gf^nerally succeed the pines j but in the vicinity 

 of the Adirondac works, the small red cherry is almost tlie exclu- 

 sive second growth succeeding the stately hard wood forests. The 

 dry and loanjy plains contiguous to the Elba works, of a past ge- 

 neration, which were cut over to supply them with fuel, are now 

 clothed with forests of spruce. The latter fact is remarkable and 

 "worthy of reflection, as the habits and peculiarities of the spruce 

 in its natural position, adapt it to a totally different soil. This 

 recuperation of the woodland, which nature thus bountifully 

 provides, will in connection with the waste and broken territory, 

 aff(n<l, by judicious economy and management, a certain and 

 permanent sujiply of fuel, to all the purposes of the arts for 

 many ages. 



I observed in my investigations relative to this second growth, 

 clrcu:n.'<tanc*^s that excitrd my attention, and which I deem enti- 

 tled to considt ration. In the fa<tnt'sscs of the Adirondacs I per- 

 ceived entire groves of the young cherry trees, loaded with a 

 l)lack excrescence, similar in appearance to the disease which has 

 been so destructive in our plum orchards. In other sections of 

 the county, I noticed large tracts of the black cherry and birch, 

 dead and dying, and presenting in their blackened and blasted 



