FOREST TREES. 215 



low bushes, such as sweet fern ; or, if sown on on a waste, sterile 

 land, they must be sown with the seeds of some quick growing 

 shrub or tall grass, which will protect them for two or three 

 years. For the first two or three years these plants are of slow 

 growth ; but after the fifth, they grow very rapidly, and continue, 

 in favorable situations, to make one or two feet annually, until 

 they have reached twenty or thirty feet ; and in case of the 

 taller species, a much greater height. The roots, in most species, 

 penetrate at once, in the first or second year, to the depths of 

 one or two feet, but never much deeper. 



The evergreens are transplanted with less facility and success 

 than most deciduous trees. All the pines, are, however, suc- 

 cessfully transplanted, if sufficient care be taken not to injure 

 the roots nor heads, and to have a pit sufficiently large for all 

 the roots to be fully spread, and not to set them too deep. The 

 most difficult, are the white, and pitch pines. To insure success, 

 these should be transplanted in winter, the pits having been 

 formed and the plant to be moved having been surrounded by a 

 circular trench in the previous autumn. In this way, the whole 

 of the roots, with the frozen earth adhering, may be removed, 

 and set at once in the pit, and surrounded by loose earth kept 

 for the purpose.* 



On account of the very valuable qualities of the wood, the 

 hackmatack (American larch) deserves to be extensively culti- 

 vated, and there are thousands of acres of cold and swampy land 

 where it grew naturally, which are now unproductive, and which 

 might be clothed with it. It has, however, been found to be far 

 inferior, in rapidity of growth, to the European larch, which very 

 nearly resembles it in appearance and in the excellent qualities 

 of its wood. This, therefore, should be preferred, as likely to 

 produce, in the same time, a larger quantity of timber from 

 the same surface, and at the same expense. 



On favorable soils, the European larch is fit for every useful 

 purpose, in forty years' growth. Its annual rate of increase, in 



* White pines, ten or fifteen feet in height, hare been transplanted, in the 

 autumn, and with entire success, in the grounds of H. H. Hunnewell, Esq., of 

 West Needham. It is not so essential that transplanting be done in the winter 

 as it is that a large circle of earth be taken with the tree, thus preserving the 

 roots from injury. With this precaution, evergreens have been successfully- 

 transplanted in July. — Ed. 



