^ Woods and Woodlands. 869 



more use to us than that of the western States. Professor Sargent has 

 given us some of their experience, which I will use here. 



Near Lynn, a plantation of about 200 acres was begun in 18-iO, 

 some 200,000 imported trees being planted in three years, and nearly as 

 many more added later, raised from the seed. This was on poor, stony 

 hill-sides, fully exposed to the wind. Many species were used, but more 

 of the European larch than any other ; but oak, ash, maple, Norway spruce, 

 Scotch and Austrian pine were also planted. Professor Sargent says that 

 when he A'isited the plantation last year, twenty-nine years after the first 

 planting, that of the larches some are over 50 feet high and 15 inches in 

 diameter at three feet from the ground, and that the average of many trees 

 examined is over 40 feet in height and a foot in diameter, and that the 

 broad-leaved tre(!S have made a similarly good growth. The plantation 

 is now very valuable, and the experiment considered successful. 



Another experiment is near Wood's Hole, begun in 1853, also on a tract 

 good for little else — a bleak, stony, poor place. This, too, has been suc- 

 cessful. Professor Sargent gives the sizes of the trees : — Larches and 

 Scotch pines, .40 feet high, &c. He makes the significant remark that 

 " the foreign species, as was to be expected from the situation, have been 

 most successful." Of this plantation perhaps one-fourth of the trees were 

 imported, or procured in this country and sent out, " but fully three- 

 fourths of the whole plantation was made by sowing the seed directly on 

 the ground where the trees were to stand." 



In the newspapers I have seen accounts of pitch pine plantations on 

 Cape Cod, and articles in the Keports of the Agricultural Department 

 at "Washington speak of them as successful ; a thousand acres of land now 

 covered with thrifty pines from seed sown on "land which but for this 

 protection would have been a waste of drifting sand." 



On the island of Nantucket considerable tracts were planted with 

 American pine. This has not been successful so far as getting a thrifty 

 growth is concerned. The ground is covered, but the trees are stunted, 

 at least such portions of the plantations as I visited five years ago. The 

 Boston and Providence Railroad will plant some of their unoccupied land 

 in the spring to grow ties. 



Some years ago I understand that the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 Society offered a prize of a thousand dollars for the best ten acres of 

 white oak raised from acorns planted where the trees were to stand. Au 

 exposed hill-side was so planted near Newburyport, and the premium piaid, 

 as there was no competition. The method was bad, and Professor Sargent 

 writes me that he thinks the success indifferent. 



I ought here to say that after a careful consideration of the subject 

 Professor Sargent thinks " the white ash (Fraxiniis Americana) is the most 

 valuable of all our native trees for this State " (Massachusetts). As I 

 read this 1 remembered some magnificent large trees of this species I saw 

 in the eastern parts of our own State a few years ago, which had been 

 planted by the street in a little town. 



I have already said there had been considerable tree-planting in the 

 west, but while there is much written on the matter their experience 

 is of little immediate value to us, because of the diflference of soil, climate, 

 and markets. 



Where trees are planted, or, ^ve may say, transplanted, it is possible for 



- them to thrive well, and yet never become naturalized. That has been the 



case with the Lombardy poplar as an ornamental tree here, and is even more 



marked with the linden in England, which has been there no one knows 



how many centuries, is common enough there now, yet it never seeds. 



VOL. I. 3 P 



