INSTANCES OF FOREST CULTURE. 261 



in diameter three feet from the ground, and the average of 

 many trees examined is over forty feet in height and twelve 

 inches in diameter. The broad-leaved trees have also made 

 a most satisfactory growth, and many of them, on the margins 

 of the plantation, are fully forty feet high. During the past 

 ten years, about seven hundred cords of firewood have been 

 cut from the plantations, besides all the fencing required for 

 a large estate. Firewood, fence-posts and railroad sleepers, 

 to the value of thousands of dollars, could be cut to-day, to 

 the great advantage of the remaining trees. The profit of 

 such an operation is apparent, especially when we consider 

 that the land used for these plantations did not cost more 

 than ten dollars an acre, and probably not half that amount. 



The second experiment was made by Mr. J. S. Fay, a 

 brother of Mr. Fay, of Essex County, on his estate at Wood's 

 Holl, in Barnstable Countv, on the extreme south-western 

 point of Cape Cod. A tract of land, one hundred and twenty- 

 five acres in extent, which is now densely covered with Mr. 

 Fay's plantations, was, in 1853, seemingly as little fitted for 

 the purpose of tree-culture as can well be imagined. It was 

 fully exposed to the cold north-west winds of winter, sweeping 

 down across Buzzard's Bay, and to the no less baneful south- 

 west winds of summer, which come from the Atlantic loaded 

 with saline moisture. 



In answ^er to an inquiry as to the nature of the soil on 

 which his plantations are made, Mr. Fay writes me : " My 

 land is made up mainly of abrupt hills and deep hollows, 

 sprinkled over with bowlders of granite. The soil is dry and 

 worn-out, and what there is of it, is a gravelly loam. The 

 larger part consisted of old pastures, and on the one hundred 

 and twenty-five acres not a tree of any kind, unless an oak, 

 that sprang out of the huckleberry bushes here and there, 

 barely lifting its head above them for the wind, and when 

 attempting to grow, browsed down by the cattle ranging in 

 winter, could be called a tree." 



Thirty-five thousand trees were imported and set out, 

 besides a large number of native trees procured in this coun- 

 try ; but fully three-fourths of the whole plantation was made 

 by sowing the seed directly on the ground where the trees 

 were to stand. A large variety of trees, both native and 



