Changes of Timber and Plants, ^c. 305 



or later, a plentiful crop of a lofty gramineous plant, call- 

 ed in the common language of that country, broom grass. 

 Nor was it necessary that this plant should be previously 

 growing in the neighbourhood. It appeared to be the 

 native growth, of an exhausted and an exposed soil : 

 and from such a soil it seemed to spring without the 

 intervention of specific parentage. 



To the truth of the foregoing facts, I can testify in 

 person. They have been familiarly known to me from 

 my early yeai's. Of many other similar facts I have 

 received such well authenticated accounts, that I can- 

 not for a moment doubt of their truth. The following 

 one I believe, to be well known to many of the most 

 respectable inhabitants of New Jersey. 



Certain tracts of that state are covered entirely with 

 forests of pine. If these be cut down, and the land not 

 put immediately under cultivation, they are succeeded 

 in a few years by a plentiful growth of young oaks. — 

 I am told that in some parts of New Jersey, nurseries 

 of young oaks produced in this way are to be found in 

 the centre of extensive forests of pine. I will not vouch 

 for the truth of this fact. All I can say respecting it 

 is, that I received it from a veiy respectable source, 

 and that it perfectly comports in principle with what I 

 have myself seen. 



In the course of the last century, the white pine sprang 

 up spontaneously in a place called Duxborough, in the 

 state of Massachusetts, without having been previously 

 a native of the neighbourhood. Between twenty and 

 thirty years ago, there was a man still living who had a 

 perfect recollection of the first pine that ever made its 

 appearance in the township ; whereas, at present, that 



