INCREASE OF FORESTS. 167 



If it were so, why in the world did our ancestors find them- 

 selves compelled to record so many cold winters? The 

 climate was as variable, and the cold as great then as it is 

 now. 



Now, one word with regard to the drying up of the streams 

 in these modern days. The Connecticut is as large a river 

 to-day as when the country was discovered. The Merrimack 

 is as large a river now as it was then. I think the Mississippi 

 is as great a river as it was in olden times. There is no 

 doubt about it. More than all that, — for these dire fore- 

 bodings of cold and drought are terrible, and I wish to 

 encourage the oreutlemen a little who are sitting around here 

 pallid with fear at the thought that they are to be frozen to 

 death or dried up, — more than all that, I say, there are more 

 forests to-day in Massachusetts than there were twenty years 

 ago. There is more woodland in Massachusetts to-day than 

 there was twenty years ago ; and (I am sorry on account of 

 the cattle to say it) there is not half as much pasture left. 

 That is a fact. The trees are increasing everywhere. They are 

 increasing, as a matter of taste, everywhere. They are being 

 planted by everybody. The gentlemen who have preceded 

 me have all told us what an increasing taste there is for plant- 

 ing trees here, so that the day has come when every farmer 

 is ornamenting his estate. I am sorry to say, however, that 

 the time seems to have gone by when there was an ambition 

 to plant that one solitary monumental tree, the old American 

 elm, standing now beside the decaying homes of our ances- 

 tors ; — that tree which, when those homes have passed away, 

 will be looked upon by the investigator of after generations, 

 as the monument of men unequalled for their sturdy independ- 

 ence and their strong arms and determined zeal in defending 

 their rights and their opinions, — that American elm, un- 

 equalled in its magnificence, and unequalled in all its historic 

 associations ! 



The planting of trees has become a national duty here, a 

 national business, and a taste among the people. There is 

 no necessity, therefore, for encouraging that, for it is every- 

 where ; and when we have discovered the law by Avhich trees 

 can be planted, and planted well and profita])ly, we shall then 

 have learned another branch of agriculture, as well as culti- 



