506 



have three pines; the white pine, the pitch pine and the red pine. The 

 Enghsh have a pine, vv'hich they call the Scotch fir, which resembles 

 our pitch pine. We have two spruce trees, one hemlock, one larch, 

 one fir, two cedars, and the arbor vita;. We have not the yew tree, 

 but in its place a low plant called the ground pine, growing abundantly 

 in Berkshire county. It is not like the juniper, but resembles the yew 

 tree. We have the tulip tree ; but there is nothing of this kind grow- 

 ing in England. We have one cherry tree of timber size. 



We have thus fifty-six timber trees, while the English have but 

 twenty-seven. Our fathers in England have set us an example in the 

 preservation of their forests, and the introduction and cultivation of for- 

 eign trees, which demands our imitation. 



We have also many smaller trees, as, for example, the holly tree, 

 which is an evei-green, but not of the pine family. We have one na- 

 tive mulberry — two alders, and at least four thorn trees. There are 

 more than 720,000 acres in Massachusetts, occupied as woodland. 

 Then there are 950,000 acres, which are unimproved, and 360,000 

 acres which are considered unimprovable. Mr Emerson questions the 

 propriety of saying that any land is unimprovable. There are instan- 

 ces of the most hopeless sandy wastes being converted into forests. 

 France has set us an example in this particular, worthy of all praise. 

 In the southwest of France there was an extensive desert. It was a 

 soil of loose sand, and began to excite considerable alarm because its 

 ravages were continually extending themselves, and the blowing sand 

 threatened to lay waste a large territory. They have in France a Board 

 having charge of the forests. Under their direction, an engineer by 

 the name of Bremontier, undertook, in 1780, the improvement of this 

 waste territory. He began by making a fence with hurdles and 

 branches of trees to windward, along the sea-coast. He then sowed 

 upon the sand the seeds of broom, mixed with those of the maritime 

 pine. There was danger of this sand being blown away ; he therefore 

 covered the whole with brush and branches of trees. The seeds of the 

 broom and pines came up. The pines, when young, are an exceeding- 

 ly delicate plant, and it is almost impossible to make them grow. The 

 broom formed a protection for them, under which for seven or eight 

 years the pines continued to grow — afterwards the pines became large 

 enough to protect each other, and the broom died, having fertilized the 

 ground with their leaves. The pine will grow upon barren sand, 

 wherever the rain and the snow fall. No land is too barren for it. 



