PLANTING AND GEOWING TREES. 61 



rule ; but I do not happen to recollect any. Ever- 

 greens do not sprout ; and I think these should be 

 cut in Winter at all events, not in Spring, when full 

 of sap and thus prone to rapid decay. 



XI. Your plantation will furnish pleasant and pro- 

 fitable employment at almost any season. I doubt 

 that any one in this country has ever yet bestowed so 

 much labor and care on a young forest as it will 

 amply reward. Sow your seeds thickly; begin to 

 thin the young trees when they are a foot high, and 

 to trim them so soon as they are three feet, and you 

 may have thousands thriving on a fertile acre, and 

 pushing their growth upward with a rapidity and to 

 an altitude outrunning all preconception. 



XII. Springs and streams will soon appear where 

 none have appeared and endured for generations, 

 when we shall have reclothed the nakedness of the 

 Plains with adequate forests. Rains will become mod- 

 erately frequent where they are now rare, and con- 

 fined to the season when they are of least use to the 

 husbandman. 



I may have more to say of trees by-and-by, but 

 rest here for the present. The importance of the 

 topic can hardly be overrated. 



