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young trees, and it should be continued until the plants entirely shade the ground — a. 

 varying period, depending upon the character of the trees, and in part upon the breadth 

 of the foliage. 



Until the trees have attained sufficient size to protect themselves, it will be necessai y 

 to exclude all domestic animals — or, indeed, these should never be admitted to tl.e 

 plantations. 



The following papers refer to the proper care of forests, and the conditions which 

 favour their healthy development. 



THE PRESERVATION OF FORESTS FROM WANTON DESTRUCTION, 

 I AND TREE PLANTING. 



By Mr. John Dougall, Editor of the " New York Witness. " 



The greater part of the North American continent was covered with forests when jBrst 

 invaded by Europeans. These forests had stood for many ages undisturbed, except by 

 the slow decay of one generation of trees, if we may so speak, and the slow growth of 

 another. These operations had been going on simultaneously since the creation, or since 

 the last great convulsion of nature, and the annual falling of leaves and the gradual 

 decay of branches and trunks had covered the earth with a vegetable mould of consider- 

 able depth. 



A UNIVERSAL MINE OP WEALTH. 



This mould, possessing all the elements of fertility, was an immense treasure, every- 

 where abounding, and tempting the settler to clear away the trees and reap the benefit of 

 the virgin soil. When trees were cut down, a crop, which had prolDably required 

 several hundred years to grow, was reaped in a few weeks or years, thereby leaving the 

 earth bare, and the vegetable mould was used up by continued cropping in wheat, corn, 

 and potatoes. The writer knew an excellent bush lot which produced great crops at first 

 to be reduced in less than ten years to mere rocks and stones. And this process of ex- 

 hausting the vegetable soil went on everywhere as fast as settlements advanced. Of 

 course where the subsoil was good and was turned up in part to mix with the vegetable 

 mould fertility continued much longer, but, in course of time, all, except prairie lands, 

 were reduced so much in fertility as to require the application of fertilizers at great ex- 

 pense. Had the soil at first required these fertilizers the progress of settlement would 

 have been exceedingly slow, or more probably there would have been no progress at all. 



WAR AGAINST TREES AND ITS EFFECTS. 



The kbour of cutting down great trees, cutting them into short logs, and piling them 

 up in log heaps to burn, was however, so great, that a feeling of dislike to trees as the 

 settler's natural enemy became general, and the vengeance against them was so great that 

 in extensive regions the land was completely bared, and thus rendered not only unsightly 

 but unsheltered. Bleak winds had full play and droughts parched the earth. What was 

 even worse, the clearing away of trees on the hills and mountains by the settlers, the 

 lumbermen, and forest fires left the snow of winter exposed to the spring sun ; and the 

 sudden melting and running off of this accumulation of frozen water made dangerous 

 floods in the streams in early summer, and left those streams nearly dry in the hot season. 



CALLING A HALT. 



At length the evil results of the indiscriminate cutting down of trees began to be per- 

 ceived. The improvidence of previous generations was lamented, and efforts to conserve 

 what forests were left and to plant trees gradually became popular. The first class of 

 efforts was directed to preserving a few acres of tlie original forest in each farm where that 

 still could be done, and merely thinning the trees for firewood, fencing, etc., thus leaving 



