AMERICAN FOREST PLANTATIONS. 377 



Fortunately for the immense economical and sanitary interests 

 involved in this branch of rural and industrial husbandry, j^ubHc 

 opinion in many pai'ts of the United States is thoroughly roused 

 to the importance of the subject. In the Eastern States, planta- 

 tions of a certain extent have been made, and a wiser system is 

 pursued in the treatment of the remaining native woods.* Im- 

 portant ex]3eriments have been tried in Massachusetts on the 

 propagation of forest-trees on seashore bluffs exposed to strong 

 winds. This had been generally supposed to be unpossible, 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," observes 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 requii'e is, at first, some interrup- 

 tion to break the current of the wind, such as fences, houses, or 

 other trees." f 



Young trees protected against the wind by a fence will some- 

 what overtop their shelter, and every tree will serve as a screen 

 to a taUer 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 can not 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 improvement. 

 California has appointed a State Forester with a Hberal 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 



* When the census of 1860 was taken, the States of Maine and New York 

 produced and exported lumber in abundance. Neither of them now haa 

 timber enough for domestic use, and they are both compelled to draw much 

 of their supply from Canada and the West. 



■I- Trees of America, p. 10 



