164 The Journal of Forestry. 



to inaugurate a state and national system for economizing tlie forests 

 and increasing the product of valuable timber. No country is better 

 adapted to work out a system of practical forestry. By practical 

 forestry, I am not to be taken as meaning the limited system prac- 

 tised on private properties in Great Britain, but the more comprehen- 

 sive method carried out on the Continent. If the forests were divided 

 into blocks of size regulated according to the kind of tree, age, and local 

 circumstances, each block could be operated on in rotation. 



In reproducing forest timber two systems could be followed — the 

 natural and the artificial. The natural system implies simply the re- 

 plenishing of the ground from seed shed from standard trees specially 

 preserved for that purpose ; the artificial system is the plan well 

 known in Scotland of rearing plants in a nursery and removing them 

 afterwards to their final situation: the latter method must of course be 

 employed when it is found necessary to change the crop from 

 hardwood to coniferse or vice, versa. 



In all this, one thing is evident, America must very soon engage 

 the services of practical arboriculturists to perpetuate her forest 

 capital, or the consequence will prove most disastrous to the future 

 prosperity of the country. 



FOREST SONGS AND POETRY. 



Spenser, in the " Faerie Queene," thus enumerates the trees of that 

 era, 1590 :— 



" And foorth they passe, with pleasure forward led, 

 •Toying to heare the birds' sweet harmony ; 

 Which therein shrouded from the tempest dred, 

 Seemed in their song to scorn the cruell sky. 

 Much can they praise the trees so straight and hy, 

 The sayling Pine, the Cedar proud and tall; 

 The vine-propp Elme, the Poplar, never dry ; 

 The builder Oake, sole king of forests all, 

 The A spine, good for staves ; the Cypresse funerall. 

 The Laurell, meede of mighty conquerors 

 And poets sage ; the Firre that weepeth still, 

 The Willow, worne of folorne paramours, 

 The Eugh (yew) obedient to the bender's will 

 The fruitful Olive, and the Plantane round, 

 The carver Holme (lime) ; the Maple seldom inward sound." 



