210 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



basket-maker will want young white oaks, ash and willows ; the 

 plane-maker, beech ; the last-maker, maple ; the piimp-maker, 

 oak, chestnut and pitch pine ; the bucket-maker, white and red 

 cedar and pine. 



The tanner will continue to want the bark of the black, the 

 white, and the chestnut oak, the hemlock and the birch ; in 

 regard to all which there has hitherto been great wastefulness. 

 And the dyer will want quercitron, or black oak, sumach, bay- 

 berry root, in addition to foreign stuffs, for some of which he 

 might substitute the bark of alder, birch, and some other native 

 shrubs and trees. 



Many acres now under cultivation, and poorly repaying the 

 labor spent on them, might be advantageously sown or planted 

 with pines. Oaks, birches and pines are often found growing 

 among rocks, where no soil can be seen. The rock chestnut- 

 oak, the black birch, the red cedar, and the hackmatack, flour- 

 ish in such situations. Of sedgy marsh and swamp, tpo wet and 

 cold to be cultivated, without extensive and costly draining, 

 many acres, in the eastern part of the State, have been sown, by 

 a natural process, with the seeds of the white cedar. The seeds, 

 when shed, float upon the water, and are carried by spring tides 

 and freshets, and left upon the surface of the ground. In the 

 summer, they spring up in countless multitudes. What has 

 been done, in these instances, by nature, indicate the process by 

 which similar grounds may be reduced or restored to the con- 

 dition of forest. 



Much is to be done for the improvement of the woodlands 

 now existing. In some cases, they are managed with great 

 care. The best means of thinning, pruning and felling are 

 studied and practised. But, in many cases, indeed, in most 

 instances, they are left in utter neglect. The principle on which 

 thinning and pruning should be conducted, is a very plain and 

 intelligible one. It is that every tree and branch should be 

 allowed to have ample supply of air and light. When, there- 

 fore, two trees are so near that their branches extensively inter- 

 mingle, one should be removed ; and generally, it should be 

 that one which is much taller or shorter than the neighboring 

 trees. In pruning, that branch should be shortened which 

 encroaches on other branches of its own, or another tree. 



In many hard wood trees, shoots spring vigorously from the 



