284 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



amount of valuable material, valuable alike for construction 

 and for fuel. 



Sj'lviculture on the waste lands of New England, as a 

 money-making enterprise, has been discussed in various 

 quarters of late; and many persons, while applauding the 

 planting of trees for sanitary or ornamental purposes, have 

 denied that the planter could ever expect, either for himself 

 or his children, a satisfactory money-return for his outlay. 

 It has been impossible to meet such statements directly ; for 

 American sylviculture is in its infancy, and has not yet 

 actually shown us, through frequent and carefully-conducted 

 experiments extending over many years, whether timber- 

 growing in this country is as profitable an employment 

 of money as it has proved to be in every country of 

 Europe. 



A single experiment worthy of record in this connection 

 has been brought to my notice : the number of years through 

 which it has extended, and the remarkable accuracy and 

 care with which all accounts of the disbursements and re- 

 ceipts of money in connection with it have been kept, make 

 it as powerful an argument in favor of the direct profit to 

 be derived from tree-planting as a single example can fur- 

 nish. 



This experiment, which I shall briefly describe, is of pecul- 

 iar interest. It was, without doubt, the first attempt at any 

 thing like sylviculture ever made in New England, and prob- 

 ably the first in the United States. Its value is increased, 

 too, by the fact that he whose broad intelligence and public 

 spirit prompted him in his early manhood to make a strange 

 and unpromising experiment is still alive, and with powers 

 as unimpaired as when, nearly sixty years ago, he planted a 

 worn-out hillside with trees, with no hope or expectation 

 beyond benefiting another generation. 



Previous to 1820, Mr. Zachariah Allen of Providence, R. I., 

 on the division of the estate of a relative, became pos- 

 sessed of a tract of land, forty acres in extent, situated in 

 the town of Smithfield, eight miles from the city of Provi- 

 dence. This land, which had been constantly used as a pas- 

 ture for nearly a hundred years previous to its coming into 

 Mr. Allen's hands, was at that time entirely worn out. The 



