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telligence with which they direct the culture of other farm crops, they will find an equally 

 ready response to their efforts. The farmer who should leave his field of corn or potatoes 

 to shift for itself, or suffer his cattle and hogs to ramble through it at will, would be 

 justly sneered at by his neighbours and punished by the loss of his crop — and trees have 

 no more capacity for self-management than corn or other vegetables, and are quite as 

 ready to profit by judicious culture, and to yield returns corresponding to the care 

 bestowed upon them. They are not liable to be utterly destroyed, as corn is, by the in- 

 cursions of live stock, but they do suffer serious injury from the trampling and rooting 

 up of the ground. I have seen beautiful groves of oak in Iowa full of dead and dying 

 trees, and, on asking the cause, have been told that the native woods " can't stand civili- 

 zation," but always die out when cattle begin to run in them ; and I am told that, in 

 Kentucky and elsewhere in the South, the young growth is found to contain only the 

 inferior varieties of oak, as the swine running in the woods seek and greedily eat the 

 acorns of the white oak, on account of their superior sweetness. Has anyone ever 

 estimated the cost of raising hogs on such food^ 



I have endeavoured in the preceding pages, to confine myself to the special features 

 of forest growth which need to be regarded in the effort to develop and improve a native 

 wood, wherever it may be. The planting and culture of an artificial forest is quite 

 another affair, and I have made no allusion to it because my special object has been, if 

 possible, to urge the fact, and arouse attention to it, that we still have vast resources of 

 latent wealth on every side, susceptible of development by proper management, which we 

 are everywhere suSering to run to waste. The work of planting and rearing artificial 

 forests cannot indeed be urged too strongly, and there is no danger of its being overdone. 

 But the conviction of its necessity can be more readily and forcibly impressed upon the 

 popular mind by an illustration of the possibilities of forest culture, when applied to our 

 native woods, than by any other means. The need of further progress by artificial 

 planting will speedily become obvious, and will follow in natural course. 



It has been asserted, and with truth, that it is idle for us to establish schools of 

 forestry, because there is no demand for foresters, and consequently no stimulus to the 

 acquirement of knowledge of the theory and practice of the art. It will be time enough 

 to establish such schools, it is said, when we have evidence that there are people who de- 

 sire to avail themselves of the advantages they offer, and that will not be till there is a 

 demand for the services of those who have done so. This is true, so far as it goes, but 

 the next consideration is, how to create the demand. There was no demand a few years 

 ago for telegraph operators, and when I was a boy there was no demand for railroad 

 employes, for there were no railroads. How was the demand created? By showing the 

 importance of the results. Think of the time and labour expended by Morse and his 

 associates before they could get permission to demonstrate the value of the electric tele- 

 graph by a line from Washington to Baltimore. No general interest was felt in the 

 scheme till its advantages were thus made manifest, because there was no realizing corir- 

 miction of its truth. And to-day we are in a similar position in reference to the question 

 of forestry. The impending danger of the diminishing supply of timber is acknowledged 

 by all who are familiar with the subject, but there is no realizing sense of it in the 

 popular mind, and there is a want of confidence in the practicability of any of the pro- 

 posed measures of relief. The first and most important thing to do, therefore, is to 

 stimulate popular interest by showing what can be done. To create a popular demand of 

 any kind, it is essential first to demonstrate the value of its object. The men who are 

 familiar with forest culture, know, as well as Morse knew the capability of the telegraph, 

 that the wealth of the nation may be enormously increased by the proper development 

 of the native woods already standing, but they can point to no evidence of the truth of 

 their assertion, and the fact that it has not been done is regarded as proof of its impossi- 

 bility. There is no such thing in the country as an illustrative example of what may be 

 accomplished by timber culture, and very few of our citizens who visit Europe can 

 appreciate the works which have there been achieved. They go abroad to study works 

 of art, with the idea that we have nothing to learn in regard to natural productions, and 

 the comparatively small number who grasp the conception of the grand possibilities of 

 development which our forests offer to the exercise of such artificial culture as may there 



