100 Apparent Spontaneity of White Birch. 



ness a large portion of the primitive soil. When it is consid- 

 ered of the greatest importance to clear away the forest 

 groAvth, an indiscriminate destruction might be anticipated. 

 Pasturage was once deemed more valuable than Avoodland, 

 and in proportion as the pasturage grew less favorable, the 

 area would be enlarged. The thin soil, which had accumu- 

 lated on the surface through the action of centuries, would 

 retain its place for a few years only, to be washed away by 

 the rain or dissipated by the elements. If cropped by such 

 grains as it might bear on a few succeeding years, it would 

 still sooner become exhausted ; and employed for grass cul- 

 ture, the produce would be scanty, especially under the former 

 usage of extensive cultivation, and the non-employment of 

 stimulating and refreshing manures. Once devoted to pas- 

 turage, every year would increase the deterioration, while 

 every effort for a succession of trees on the part of nature, 

 would be less likely to prosper, from the liability such young 

 trees would be subjected to be browsed upon and destroyed, 

 and the introduction of lichenose vegetation. 



It is with a feeling of regret that I have often witnessed 

 the entire sweeping away of natural copses and narrow wood 

 lots from ridges of land, whose produce in any other sort of 

 growth would be scarcely worth mentioning. I can remem- 

 ber several instances where such a demolition of trees has left 

 traces of an agricultural zeal, whose merits could only consist 

 in the misapplied industry that was requisite. Nature is the 

 great teacher, and there is no department of human labor in 

 which we can do scarcely more than imitate her, would we 

 become successful. Strictly speaking, then, in reference to 

 nature, there is no soil that is barren, no land that is sterile. 

 To mark the diversified kinds of forest growth over such 

 tracts of narrow ridges and gravelly hills, would be sufficient 

 to show the hidden mineral resources, which reside in these 

 lands. Every kind of earth seems to have its appropriate 

 species of plant, and, with the accuracy of an almost certainty, 

 we can calculate, from an inspection of the mineral constitu- 

 ents, what kind of vegetation to expect to find upon it. No 

 doubt, the range of forest growth depends upon latitude ; yet 



