30 A Change and Succession of Crops recommended^ 



jestically flourish among the fallen trunks of their pre- 

 decessors. Those of us who have traversed our distant 

 forests, especially beyond the mountains, where the tim- 

 ber is truly gigantic, must have noticed this striking 

 circumstance. The variegated verdure of these im- 

 mense recumbent trunks, numerous and extensive, af- 

 fords to the traveller, a curious, pleasing, picturesque, 

 and stupendous contrast, with the dusky glooms of the 

 shades surrounding him. 



In my memory, on a smaller scale, a total change of 

 timber has occurred, in a tract of mine, containing 

 about 800 acres in Northampton county. Previously 

 to our revolution, perhaps 35 years ago, I knew it to be 

 covered with pitch pine. It was called the pine tract. 

 This first growth of timber having been blown down 

 by a tornado, was consumed by fires of the woods, a 

 practice mischievously common in that quarter. It is 

 now entirely reclothed with oaA-, hickory^ and other va- 

 luable well grown and thriving timber ; and scarcely a 

 pine tree is to be seen. I can give (within my own know- 

 ledge) several instances similar, but of less extent. 

 One, of a fme grove of white pine^ thrown up spontane- 

 ously, on old fields, v. here no timber of that species had 



teen to twenty five years. Our forest timber is produced 

 spontaneously, as we all know. No pains are taken to plant, 

 protect, lop or prune it, as is the custom in Europe. We 

 take the opposite course : we not only neglect, but assist dis- 

 solution in its natural march, by wanton waste. Posterity 

 will look back, with keen regret and reproach, when they fed 

 the effects of our careless indifference, and culpable inatten- 

 tion, to their interests tod necessities. 



