282 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



At length I planted the ailanthus, or varnish tree, which succeeded in 

 completely binding the sand.' This result encouraged the proprietor to 

 extend his plantations over both dunes and sand steppes, and, in the course 

 of sixteen years, this rapidly-growing tree had formed real forests. Other 

 landholders have imitated his example with great advantage."^ 



There are thousands of acres of shifting sands and barren 

 soil along our seaboard, from Cape Cod southward, too poor 

 and too exposed to produce naturally any thing but a scanty 

 crop of beach-grass, on which the ailanthus would thrive, and 

 which, thus covered, would add enormously to the natural 

 products of the country. Such plantations would amply and 

 speedily repay their original cost, both in direct income, and 

 by the protection they would afford to more valuable land. 

 Valuable timber for purposes of construction might not grow 

 on soil so poor and exposed, but immense quantities of fuel 

 easily accessible to the great markets would be produced 

 from land now worse than useless to its owners. 



On almost every inland farm there is some old, neglected 

 gravel-bank, or stony knoll, too poor for cultivation, which, 

 if sufficiently distant from dwellings, might be profitably 

 planted with the ailanthus ; and these plantations would pro- 

 vide in a dozen years, more or less, a lai'ge amount of valuable 

 fuel, and might be cut over and over again indefinitely, as 

 there seems no limit to the powers of this tree to throw up 

 suckers from the root. Or, if permitted to grow from twenty 

 to forty years, such plantations, costing but little to make, 

 and occupying land good for no purpose but to pay taxes on, 

 would produce a valuable material for the cabinet-maker 

 and the builder, for which a ready sale and good prices could 

 always be obtained. 



A line extending from Boston, Mass., in the East, to St. 

 Louis, Mo., in the West, must be considered as about marking 

 the northern limit of the territory in which the cultivation 

 of the ailanthus can be safely undertaken, as, farther north, 

 it is liable to suffer in severe winters. It is to be expected 

 that the hardiness and rapid growth of this tree will particu- 

 larly adapt it for planting in some j)ortions of the treeless 

 regions of the West. An experiment was made in 1872 

 with the ailanthus at Ellis, and other points on the line of the 

 Kansas Pacific Railroad, in the extreme western part of the 



1 The Earth as modified by Human Action, p. 608. 



