158 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



green, living boughs — the life and soul of tlie tree — thus bar- 

 barously thinking to improve upon nature. The result is a 

 disfigured plantation. Most of the trees are stunted and 

 diseased, and many dead, while the entire lot is put back at 

 least five years. The committee not only withhold a premium, 

 but censure, in the highest terms, the practice of trimming and 

 cutting off any of the living growth of evergreens. 



It is to be regretted that attempts have not been made to 

 grow the oak, locust and other trees suitable for ship-timber. It 

 is now the universal practice in England, where much atten- 

 tion is paid to the production of timber, to plant land in pines 

 and acorns together. The advantage in so doing is, that the 

 pines distroy the coarse grass and brambles, which frequently 

 choke and injure oaks, and the young trees being shaded and 

 •sheltered, scarely one so planted fails. It is necessary from 

 time to time to give air and light to the oaks by thinning, &c., 

 as occasion may require. When acorns are planted, it should 

 be immediately after they have dropped from the tree, and the 

 depth of planting not more than half an inch. No mode of 

 depositing acorns in the soil can be worse than that of dropping 

 them into holes and burying them several inches deep. Few 

 trees promise better as a cultivated forest tree, than the locust. 

 Its extremely rapid growth, its well known properties as timber, 

 and its use to the farmer for its indestructible property, com- 

 mend it very strongly. 



In large plantations of the locust, it has been discovered that 

 the worms, which generally injure this tree so much, cease their 

 ravages and only those trees which form the outskirts, exposed 

 to the air and sun, suffer from them. The conclusion is, that 

 the parent of the worm avoids the shade of the woods and leaves 

 the interior of the plantation free from its attacks. 



AVe have a vast deal of waste land, throughout the county, 

 which is too rough for the plough, too sterile for grazing, but is 

 just suitable to the growth of timber. The cultivation of forest 

 trees reipiires as much skill and knowledge as that of fruit trees. 

 In the first place we should know how and when to save and 

 when to sow the seed of our forest trees, and should understand 

 what trees are best adapted to our soil. Ornamental trees often 

 fail from a want of knowledge of this latter point. Generally, if 

 a man fancies a particular kind of tree, he transplants it to his 



