164 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



with a greenish color, but they generally assume a silvery 

 look ; then another specimen close l)y will have a bluish hue, 

 so much so that I denominate them blue spruce. I saw last 

 summer in Maine and in Canada, also along the St. John's 

 River in New Brunswick, some of the finest spruces I ever 

 saw, with limbs close down to the ground. I never saw a 

 Norway spruce so symmetrical and perfect as were those white 

 and blue spruces. I think they belong to one class, but they 

 assume that different-colored foliage. A week ago last Satur- 

 day I set out twelve hundred white spruces that came from 

 Prince Edward Island. November 20, they had been six 

 weeks in a box. We will know of success next July. 



The covering of our hills and waste lands with native forest 

 trees is not a difficult thing at all. Mr. John A. Hall, of Rayn- 

 ham, Mass., more than thirty years ago, set out a great many 

 acres of white pines, and they are growing now large enough 

 for board logs. I had a conversation with him in regard to 

 the matter, and he said he could plant them out for ten dollars 

 an acre, setting them ten feet each way. 



The Chairman. I suppose we are suflering to-day from 

 the loss of our forests. When I left home on Monday, the 

 weather was moderate, but I saw by the papers that there was 

 a cold wave coming from the mountains, and I began to shiver. 

 I knew that it would reach us before long, and in twenty-foui 

 hours we were in the midst of a Russian winter here. Why 

 was this? I do not believe the climate has changed; but the 

 difiiculty is, that instead of there being forests to intercept 

 and absorb the cold wave, or a portion of it, it all pours 

 right over upon us. If the old forests had not been cut down, 

 we should not have had that cold wave until this time, and it 

 would have been so modified that we should not have felt it. 

 But now, in the absence of those forests, it comes pouring 

 down upon us, and never says, "By your leave." Now, if we 

 will attend to what we have heard to-day, in twenty-five 

 years we shall not have these cold waves coming over us. 



The Board then took up the next subject upon the pro- 

 gramme. Cattle Husbandry, and Dr. Loring was called upon 

 to open the discussion. 



