PLANTING FOREST-TREES. 285 



situation was an elevated one, and completely exposed to the 

 wind, the forty acres occupying the summit of a high hill, 

 of granite formation. The surface was marked with ledges, 

 cropping out in projecting cliffs, with intervals of loamy soil, 

 covered with a scanty herbage, and supplying nourishment 

 to a few struggling white birches and the other hardy plants 

 which still too clearly mark our barren pastures. 



It was found impossible to lease the land for pasturage, so 

 exhausted had it become ; and the owner, pressed by the 

 absorbing duties of an active and useful life, had neither the 

 time nor the inclination to devote himself to restoring the lost 

 fertility to his new possession by the rapid and expensive 

 methods known to the agriculturist. So he determined to 

 try the experiment of planting the whole of the forty acres, 

 or that portion of them where the rock did not come to the 

 surface, with the seeds of forest-trees, both because the 

 trees, once established, would require but little future care 

 and attention, and because he saw that such an employment 

 of his land would bring some time or other, and if not to 

 him to some one else, a certain though slow return. 



The planting was done in 1820 ; and seeds of the chestnut, 

 different oaks, the hickories, and the locust, were planted. 

 On those portions of the land where a plough could be used, 

 shallow furrows were run, ten feet apart, and the seed 

 planted in the furrows. On the rougher parts of the hill-top 

 the seed were put in by hand, wherever soil enough to cover 

 them could be found. The whole cost of planting was but 

 forty-five dollars. The following statement is taken from 

 Mr. Allen's ledger, on which all charges against his Smithfield 

 estate, and all the receipts from it, have been faithfully and 

 minutely entered during a period of fifty-seven years. The 

 price of the land, fifteen dollars per acre, is what it was 

 appraised at on the division of the estate, and is higher 

 than the value as shown b}'- the taxes, which for years, were 

 under two dollars and a half per annum for the whole forty 

 acres. 



A lower valuation of the land would have greatly increased 

 the actual profits of the plantation, although the account, as 

 it stands, must be a strong argument for the money profit to 

 be derived from New-England sylviculture. The valuation of 



