260 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



remembered that the poverty of the soil and the severity of the 

 climate preclude profitable agriculture from a large portion of 

 Massachusetts, and that the waste lands at least can only be 

 made profitable through sylviculture. 



Any fears that the production of such plantations will be 

 greater than the demand, are groundless, as Massachusetts, 

 from her geographical position, can always secure a market 

 for any excess of lumber she can produce beyond the wants 

 of her inhabitants. There is no soil within the State too 

 poor or too exposed, it must be remembered also, to resist the 

 fertilizing eflfects of fifty years of forest covering ; and the 

 fact that properly managed forests, especially when formed of 

 certain trees, have so great an influence in enriching the soil 

 beneath them, should always enter largely into any considera- 

 tion of the expediency of forest culture. 



But few experiments in arboriculture, except on the most 

 limited scale, have been attempted in Massachusetts, but I 

 will briefl}^ describe the two most important which are of 

 special interest, as showing what our unimproved lands are 

 capable of, if judiciously managed. Mr. Richard S. Fay 

 commenced, in 1846, planting on his estate near Lynn, in 

 Essex County, and in that and the two succeeding years, 

 planted two hundred thousand imported trees, to which were 

 afterwards added nearly as many more, raised directly from 

 the seed, nearly two hundred acres being covered in all. The 

 sites of these plantations were stony hillsides, fully exposed 

 to the wind, destitute of loam, their only covering a few 

 struggling barberry bushes and junipers, with an abundant 

 undergrowth of wood-wax (Genista tinctoria, L.), always a 

 certain indication in Essex County of sterile soil. He em- 

 ployed in his plantations, oaks, ashes, maples, the Norway 

 spruce, Scotch and Austrian pines; but the principal tree 

 planted was the European larch. No labor was expended on 

 the land previous to planting, the trees, about one foot high, 

 being simply inserted with a spade, and no protection has 

 been at any time given them, save against fire and browsing 

 animals. I recently visited these plantations, twenty-nine 

 years after their formation, and took occasion to measure 

 several of the trees, but more especially the larches. Some 

 of these are now over fifty feet in height, and fifteen inches 



