1847.] Forest Trees of Massachusetts. 213 



" The injuries which a forest sustains from a variety of causes, 

 they are enumerated as follows; browsing, pruning, a thin soil, 

 exposure to sea breezes, high winds and frosts. 



"The first of these, iscompletely within the control of the forester, 

 is the browsing of cattle. This is highly injurious to a forest in 

 every state. It is destructive to the young trees, to the lower 

 branches of taller trees, and to the undergrowth, which in an old 

 forest, is the hope of the future. Sheep and horses are no less in- 

 jurious than cattle. All should be entirely excluded from wood- 

 lands intended to be valuable as such and to renew themselves.* 



" I have already spoken of pruning. Where the object is wood, 

 it may be doubted whether any pruning is advisable, except in the 

 case that a branch of one tree materially interferes with the growth 

 of another. Plants receive food by their roots, and digest and con- 

 vert it to their various products, by and in their leaves. Both 

 roots and leaves should therefore be left to extend and expand 

 themselvs as freely as possible; the one to occupy all the space 

 just below the surface of the ground, the other to gain all the air 

 and light within their reach above. . Whatever checks this free 

 expansion, has a tendency to lessen the product of wood. 



" On thin soil the roots cannot penetrate far, and a tree, sur- 

 rounded by others, will soon exhaust the proper nutriment within 

 its circle, and must then begin to fail. As soon as this happens, 

 it must be removed and trees of other families must be sown or 

 planted in its stead. The proper treatment for thin soils, is there- 

 tore, a rapid alteration of crops. 



" Most forest trees are injuriously affected by the sea-breeze, and 

 we generally find them stunted and dwarfed by its influence. 



"The remedy is to plant numerously the hardiest trees along the 

 seaward border. Those that most successfully resist the sea-breeze, 

 are the sycamore or plane tree, the linden, the poplars, par- 

 ticularly the balm of Gilead, and many of the pines. Almost all 

 trees may do it when growing in large masses. The effect will 

 then be less and less, — rapidly diminishing as you recede from the 

 sea. On the capes and headlands projecting into the Atlantic, 

 along the coast of Massachusetts and Maine, and exposed to the 

 terrible northeast winds, the undisturbed original forests, when 

 half a mile wide, have in the middle as large trees as are due to 

 their depth of soil. 



" It is often difficult to make trees begin to grow near the sea; 



* Where a forest is to be renewd artificially, nnd where the trees are out 

 of the reach of cattle, there is no objection to their grazing amon? Ihera. One 

 considerable recommendation of the Duke of Athol's mode of redeeming lands 

 by planting larchs. is. that the groud is improved for pasturage by the growth 

 of grass under the shade of the trees. 



