146 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



in that region, and the effect has been to restore the original 

 purity of the atmosphere. Large forests have been planted 

 in some places, and the region has in consequence become 

 perfectly healthy, so that the ancient towns and villages 

 which had been deserted are again repeopled. The same 

 thing has been found in various other parts of Europe, and 

 also in this country. In Washington, a gentleman who had 

 paid some attention to this subject, said : " Here is a region 

 which the soldiery have occupied, and found very unhealthy. 

 If you will give me leave, I will plant it with sunflowers." 

 He planted a great number, several rows, and the effect was 

 immediate. The very next season, that region, protected by 

 the sunflowers, became healthy. The sunflowers have been 

 continued, or something else put in their places — trees and 

 plants of various kinds ; and that region is now one of the 

 most healthy in Washington. The lives of hundreds of our 

 soldiers and others who are obliged to live in Washington, 

 have undoubtedly been saved by that device of the sunflowers. 

 So, I say, you may render every farm in Massachusetts more 

 healthy, as well as more pleasant, by planting trees. 



There is another thing. I have no doubt that many of you, 

 gentlemen, are aware of cases where streams which, in your 

 early boyhood, were large and constant, have dried up. In 

 my native town, two little streams at a distance of two or 

 three miles from the sea, passed directly across the road along 

 which I often went to see some of my relatives, and over 

 which I went on my way to college. Those streams, when 

 I first knew them, ran throughout the year ; on both of them 

 there were mills, — on one a saw and a grist mill ; on the other 

 a saw-mill, with good substantial dams. These mills were 

 serviceable throughout the year, — even in July and August. 

 Year after year I saw these streams becoming smaller and 

 smaller, as the forests about their sources and on their banks 

 were cut away. The water, which had originally flowed 

 equally every day in the year, came down in a great torrent 

 in the spring, and in midsummer almost ceased to run. 

 The last time I passed by, the mills had been long carried 

 away, even the ruins of the mills and of every thing about 

 them were gone, and the two beautiful streams which I 

 had seen flowing so charmingly for so many years, had 



