1888. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 39 
bardment of Paris was the destruction of trees in the Bois 
de Boulogne, but there the government is actively interested. 
Nothing impresses one so much, in riding through Paris, as the 
great avenues all lined with trees. The value of every tree is 
known to the authorities; every tree is numbered and registered; 
if one is sick it is cared for, and if it dies, it is replaced; so 
that the old city presents a scene of beauty that is always the 
same. The scarcity of trees in New York is a noticeable fact to 
strangers. ‘There is no doubt that health would be very largely 
promoted by the cultivation of trees, and this society could 
engage in nothing of more importance than the subject presented 
to-night. But before there can be any intelligent care or pro- 
tection for trees or forests, there must be first the growth of senti- 
ment among the people, and enthusiasm must be aroused. We 
ought to have a sense of reverence for a tree, when we think of 
the time that is spent in its growth, and of the inability of man 
to restore it. If we felt all this, we should be very loath to injure 
a tree. I have read of a nobleman in England who was showing 
a merchant through his park, and when they came to a magnifi- 
cent oak, the merchant, thinking only of money, said: ‘* Why 
don’t you cut that tree down?—you could build a ship with it.” 
““Cut it down!” replied the nobleman,—‘‘ I would rather get 
down on my knees and worship it.” 
Mr. W. H. J. Srepere said that he thought that sentiment 
had little to do with the case. The farmer thinks more of his 
dollars and cents than of the nobility and grandeur of his trees; 
and if this Association could succeed in showing a farmer that 
there is profit in trees,—that there is a way of gaining money 
from keeping his forests in a proper condition,—there would 
not be such waste and indifference, and he would care for his 
forest more intelligently. A farmer burns his trees down to 
get them out of the way and open the land for agriculture; if 
we can in any way demonstrate to him that by proper cultiva- 
tion of woods he can makeas much as by burning or cutting them 
down, he will spare the forest. We do not need so much to 
develop sentiment as to show these people where their practical 
interest lies; when that is done, we can succeed. 
Dr. HussarD made some further observations upon the 
