WOODLANDS. 297 



ceived. They then allow the forest to resume its original 

 claims, which it is not slow to do, from the abundance oi 

 seeds and roots in the grouud. But unless the crop be 

 valuable, the utility of this practice is doubtful ; as by the 

 destruction of all the young stuff which may be left, there is 

 a certain delay of some years in the after growth of the 

 wood ; and the gradual decay of the old trunks and brush, 

 may minister fully as much to its growth as the ash which 

 their combustion leaves ; and the fertility of the soil is di- 

 minished just in proportion to the amount of vegetable mat- 

 ter abstracted by the grain crops which may have been taken 

 off. 



The proper time for cutting over the wood must depend 

 on its character, the soil, and the uses to which it is to be 

 applied. For saw-logs or frame-timber, it should have a 

 thrifty growth of 40 or 50 years ; but in the mean time, 

 much scattering fuel may be taken from it, and occasionally 

 such mature timber trees as can be removed without injury 

 to the remainder. For fuel alone, a much earlier cutting has 

 been found most profitable. The Salisbury Iron Company 

 has several thousand acres of land, which have been reserved 

 exclusively for supplying their own charcoal. The intelli- 

 gent manager informed me, that from an experience of sixty 

 years, they had ascertained the most profitable period for cut- 

 ting, was once in about sixteen years, when everything was 

 removed of a proper size, and the wood was left entirely to 

 itself for renewed growth. It has been found that this 

 yielded a full equivalent to an annual interest on $16 to $20 

 an acre, which for a rough and rather indifferent soil, remote 

 from a wood or timber market, will pay fully as much as the 

 nett profits on cultivated land in the same neighborhood. 



The wood should be kept entirely free from sheep and 

 cattle, when young, as they feed upon the fresh shoots with 

 nearly the same avidity as they do upon grass or clover ; 

 and when it is desirable to thicken the standing trees by an 

 additional growth, cattle should be kept from the range till 

 such time as the new sprouts or seedlings may have attained 

 a height beyond their reach. When it is necessary to bring 

 into woodland such fields as have not forest roots or seeds 

 already deposited in a condition for germination, the fields 

 should be sown or planted with all the different nuts or seeds 

 adapted to the soil, and which it is advantageous to culti- 

 vate. 



Transplanting trees for a forest in this country, cannot at 

 13* 



