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PRESERVATION OF FORESTS. 

 By Cassius M. Clay, White Hall, Kentucky, 



When I speak of the preservation of forests, I propose to consider the conditions 

 which have surrounded myself, and to give my own experience and observations, rather 

 than any attempt at scientific generalization. When Kentucky was first visited by the 

 white man, it was unbroken forest and prairie. The central parts of the State were 

 covered with the finest trees — among which were the yellow poplar or tulip tree, black 

 and white walnut, sugar maple, coSee-bean, oaks, wild cherry, etc. In places there were 

 undergrowth, cane and wild flowers, with wild grape vines in unlimited extent. In the 

 southern or Green River region prairies were frequent, and the growth mostly beech and 

 oaks. Mounds, earth works, flints, pottery, and other evidences of Indian occupancy in 

 ancient times existed everywhere, but for long centuries it had ceased to be the fixed abode 

 of any tribe ; but all the tribes of the contiguous States used it for a common hunting 

 ground. The game was mostly bufialoes, elks, deer, the black bear, wolves, foxes, etc. 

 The rivers were full of fish, and the waters frequented by wild fowls. The wild turkey 

 and pheasants were also found here. The better portions of the State are underlaid with 

 limestone, clay, iron ores, and debris, wafted in primitive times by the flow of northern 

 waters, leaving all the elements of plant growth in minute particles on high rolling and 

 alluvial grounds ; salt, silica, etc., also abound. Upon such a soil in this genial clime 

 with a good annual rainfall, grew the finest forests in many respects in the world. 



The early hunters cared for little but game, and the forests began to be cut down to 

 any great extent only when the agricultural class followed the hunters. The method was 

 to find a good spring of lasting water, and there to build the log hut. To prevent injury 

 from storms and the falling of trees, a " clearing " was generally made, and the house and 

 the cultured fields were in one enclosure. The habit was to girdle the trees, destroy their 

 lives, and as the limbs and trunks rotted and fell, to burn them, and then cultivate. 

 After awhile fruit trees were introduced by seeds and stones. The birds, the woodpecker 

 tribe especially were plenty, bored the dead trees for nests, and lived upon the larvae of 

 insects, there also nesting themselves. The result was fine fruit of all kinds, and 

 unscathed vegetables. When fruit trees began to be later imported, there were brought 

 with them those many insects, which infest all vegetable growth, and the birds following 

 the destructive axe of the pioneer westward, and falling under the deadly shotgun, leave 

 us to an unequal war with the smaller insects, now man's most destructive enemies. 



As a wealthier and more refined class of immigrants succeeded the first two classes, 

 frame, brick, stone, and hewed log houses were built, and some trees began to be preserved 

 from the omnivorous axe. Then trees began to be planted in the place of the original 

 ones — mostly black locust, catalpa, the crooked variety, Lombardy poplars, China trees, 

 and all that class of imported stock, all inferior to the first native growth. 



My first recollections were of two rows of Lombardies on the two fronts of our early 

 brick house, flanked on the gable views with out-building.s, and scattering cedars and half- 

 filled lines of yellow pines, with occasional native trees left for their especial size and 

 beauty. The black locust also figured along the fence borders ; all in military style ! 

 Outside the cleared fields were dense forests of untouched growth with fifty feet or more 

 of shafts with arched tops, excluding the sun ; and from the fallen leaves sprang many 

 most delicate wild flowers, with here and there clumps of pawpaws and long snaky grape 

 vines reaching to the top of the highest trees. The cattle and sheep ranged in common,, 

 feeding upon scant wild grass, shrubs and limbs of the large growth. 



Grasses. 



The earliest exotic grass was the English greensward poa pratensis* now the cele- 

 brated blue-grass of central Kentucky. It followed civilization, like the honey bee, west- 



* The Mason County, Ky., Historical Society lately said that the poa pratemit or English grass was, 

 indiginous here — a mistake. 



