u 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



in demand. It will require half a million trees annually to sup^Dly 

 the decay on the lines now in use. 



The late civil war caused the destruction of much wood in all 

 the region of conflict. It was cut for fuel, for fortifications, to 

 hinder the movements of opposing forces, and to open the country 

 for military operations. Costly railroads with their bridges and 

 buildings were burned, — towns and farm buildings shared the 

 same fate. Some of the finest parts of Virginia are laid waste to a 

 degree such as to offer no attractions to immigrants. 



In their haste to bring land under cultivation, men cut and 

 burn large tracts of magnificent forests, while they could, with 

 great advantage to the crops and the general health and beauty of 

 the country, leave every field or every farm with a belt of timber 

 surrounding it. Much land in Maine and other States has been 

 cleared, which should have remained permanently in wood, by 

 reason of rocks and other obstructions — worth just nothing as 

 cleared land — in locations where the wood, if spared, would have 

 attained a permanent value of one hundred dollars per acre. 



There are several kinds of trees indigenous to these eastern 

 States, that now are, and must contin\ie to be far more valuable 

 in the arts than for fuel alone. The oak, hickory, and ash, in 

 particular, for purposes of carriage building, and for farm-tools, 

 implements and machines, are admitted to be superior to the 

 timbers of any other country ; and the care and culture of these 

 trees might in time give our country the markets of the world in 

 these departments of manufacture. 



Taking a comprehensive view of American forests, we find in 

 California no wood for a lever or a pick-handle, better in quality 

 than a pine limb. In the whole western half of our country no 

 timber is grown suitable to make a carriage, a wheelbarrow, or 

 any kind of farm implement. All these are supplied from the East. 

 As population spreads over our vast possessions lying west of the 

 Mississippi, and railroads are built through them, the one great 

 impediment to prospei'ity will be the want of trees. All the siir- 

 plus of timber now on the Pacific slope, and in Texas, will soon be 

 wanted on those vast plains. East of the Mississippi are the 

 prairie States, and now other considerable districts of country with 

 no wood to spare. The available forests now remaining to furnish 

 all the wood of commerce, are embraced in a few of the States. 



Having in this cursory manner passed in review the general 

 subject of trees, it remains to us to consider in the second place 



