AMERICAN FOREST PLANTATIONS. 8389 
Massachusetts on the propagation of forest-trees on seashore 
bluffs exposed to strong winds. This had been generally sup- 
posed to be impossible, but the experiments in question afford a 
gratifying proof that this is an erroneous opinion. Piper gives 
an interesting account of Mr. Tudor’s success in planting trees 
on the bleak and barren shore of Nahant. “ Mr. Tudor,’ ob- 
serves he, “has planted more than ten thousand trees at Nahant, 
and, by the results of his experiments, has fully demonstrated 
that trees, properly cared for in the beginning, may be made to 
grow up to the very bounds of the ocean, exposed to the biting 
of the wind and the spray of the sea. The only shelter they 
require is, at first, some interruption to break the current of the 
wind, such as fences, houses, or other trees.” * 
Young trees protected against the wind by a fence will some- 
what overtop their shelter, and every tree will serve as a screen 
toa taller one behind it. Extensive groves have thus been 
formed in situations where an isolated tree would not grow at all. 
The people of the Far West have thrown themselves into the 
work, we cannot say of restoration, but rather of creation, of 
woodland, with much of the passionate energy which marks 
their action in reference to other modes of physical improve- 
nent. California has appointed a State forester with a liberal 
salary, and made such legal provisions and appropriations as to 
render the discharge of his duties effectual. The hands that 
built the Pacific Railroad at the rate of miles in a day are now 
busy in planting belts of trees to shelter the track from snow- 
drifts, and to supply, at a future day, timber for ties and fuel 
for the locomotives. The settlers on the open plains, too, are 
not less actively engaged in the propagation of the woods, and 
if we can put faith in the official statistics on the subject, not 
thousands but millions of trees are annually planted on the 
prairies. 
These experiments are of much scientific as well as economi- 
cal interest. The prairies have never been wooded, so far as 
we know their history, and it has been contended that successful 
* Trees of America, p. 10. 
