FOR 



FOR 



159 



voured, and those which should be 

 destroyed ; for in his judgment a 

 bad tree ought never to be suffer- 

 ed to grow in a place which might 

 produce a better ; and in no coun- 

 try does he think this choice more 

 important than in America ; for 

 reasons which he does not assign. 

 He says, he should not hesitate to 

 allege that of two collections of 

 forest trees, situated in the same 

 district and of equal extent, the 

 one from which the bad sorts 

 should have been taken away, 

 would, whenever the whole wood 

 should be cut down, be worth fifty 

 per cent more than the other. He 

 must intend to say after a lapse of 

 some years. 



" Monsieur Michaux remarks 

 on the singular confusion which 

 prevails in our country, in the 

 popular or common names of our 

 forest trees." "The same species 

 receives almost always different 

 denominations in differentdistricts ; 

 frequently also, the same name is 

 given to species very distinct, and 

 very often indeed three or four 

 different names are given to the 

 same tree, in the same district." 

 This is a fact well known to every 

 man of any observation, and is of 

 serious inconvenience. It intro- 

 duces a confusion into conversa- 

 tion, and even into contracts, 

 which is very inconvenient. I 

 shall cite one example, out of 

 twenty, which have occurred to 

 myself. A carpenter recommend- 

 ed juniper posts, as the best with 

 which he was acquainted for dura- 

 bility. I at first supposed that he 

 had got the true name of the red 

 cedar, and asked him if he intend- 



ed that tree. ' No ; he meant 

 the juniper, which was obtained 

 in New Hampshire, and came 

 down the Middlesex canal, a close 

 grained, hard and heavy wood.' 

 I presume we should never have 

 understood each other, if he had 

 not recollected, that he had seen 

 it in a new plantation on my es- 

 tate. On carrying me to this tree, 

 I found it to be the larch, which I 

 had known under the popular name 

 of hackmatac. 



The author has added to this 

 article a List of the Forest Trees, 

 described in the work of Monsieur 

 Michaux, which occupies about 

 twenty pages of the Repository, 

 and is too long for insertion in this 

 book. This list contains the bo- 

 tanical and vulgar names of ten 

 kinds of pine ; four of spruce, 

 twenty six of oak, &lc. &c. ; and 

 observes " We have given the a- 

 bove list, because we thought it 

 might be of general use, as the 

 work of M. Michaux is too h'-ge 

 to be within the reach of init li- 

 gent and well educated farrr rs 

 generally, and because we S jow 

 not any catalogue of the lore't 

 trees of the United States, d - 

 tached from large botanical works 

 could be got. It is also very con- 

 venient, as exhibiting the variety 

 of common names applied to our 

 trees in different states." 



The next number of the Mass. 

 Agr. Repository, vol. v. p. 180, 

 contains another valuable paper 

 from the same hand, on " The dif- 

 ferent Uses to which the Woods of 

 the American Forest are applied in 

 the various parts of the United 

 States, 



