124 



four cows can be pastured to the acre, the owner is fortu- 

 nate. Planted with pines, these lands would be a valuable 

 inheritance to the third generation, and the second genera- 

 tion would have received a handsome amount from the 

 "thinnings," as it is termed, and which it would be neces- 

 sary to make in fifteen or twenty years. 



Is it not that our people take too little heed of the 

 morrow? Is it not that the few dollars expended in 

 planting is begrudged to the next generation? Our in- 

 stitutions are in some respects to blame for the spirit of 

 present selfishness with which our people grow up. We 

 cannot, in a country where all are free and equal, enact 

 laws which shall be as strict as those of European mon- 

 archies ; we cannot, where the land is cut up into small 

 lots, and owned by persons in many cases dependent on 

 its products, enact lawg which shall take from them what 

 the} r rightfully hold. But the state can remit taxes on 

 land upon wdiich trees may be planted ; they can offer 

 inducements to owners, great and small, to plant the 

 sterile land. And greatest and best of all, the people can 

 be educated to that knowledge of nature, and the balance 

 she requires between the trees and the open land, until 

 our people shall, of their own accord, keep that balance 

 true. 



The work of the department of aboriculture of the 

 Busse} 7 Institution, under the directorship of Mr. Charles 

 S. Sargent, who has himself published many valuable 

 treatises on this subject, is already beginning to be appre- 

 ciated. The leading newspapers of the State often devote 

 their editorial columns to notices of this institution and 

 its work ; but this is not enough, the local newspapers 

 should do more. These reach the country firesides where 

 they are carefully read and their contents discussed. 



These papers can, and ought, to devote many columns 



