188 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



brooks and rivers. It is, in other words, well watered ; and what is 

 of the greatest importance, a very large proportion of the farms 

 might be irrigated by the small streams of the hill-sides, although 

 as yet no attention has been given to this very feasible and efficient 

 method of increasing the productiveness of the soil. The small 

 quantity of lime which these streams frequently contain, would be 

 a useful acquisition to the vegetation of the region. 



Forest trees and wild plants. 



The whole range which we have under consideration, forms bul 

 one botanical region. There are, it is true, plants of the mountain 

 and plants of the valley, yet the mountains nowhere become strictly 

 alpine. The greatest change appears upon Graylock, the highest 

 point in this region, where the forest trees become dwarfish, but by 

 no means excessively so. 



The number of species of wild plants growing in this region will ui 

 not differ materially from 1500, exclusive of the Cryptogamiaj iji 

 There are upwards of seventy species of forest trees, includingj ^ 

 however, a few of the dwarfish or shrubby willows. Of the ordei jk 

 Coniferae, we find the Pinus strobus, white pine ; P. rigida, pitcb f 

 pine ; P. canadensis, hemlock ; P. balsamea, fir ; P. alba, singled is 

 spruce ; P. nigra, black spruce ; P. fraseri, Eraser's pine, on ijif 

 Saddle mountain or Graylock ; P. pendula, hackmatack ; and P iei 

 resinosa, yellow pine : the two junipers, also, grow upon the dry hill^ ie | 

 sides. Of the Amentaceae, there are four native poplars ; six bircheSI me 

 comprising the white birch of the mountains, the yellow and thi m 

 black birch of the ordinary hill-sides and forests, and the glandulos^ m 

 a shrub of the swamps ; the chestnut, whose station is upon tlM m 

 moderately high ridges ; the beech of the plains and hills ; thi ki 

 buttonwood on the banks of streams ; and eight or ten species o; ^ 

 oak : black, white, red, chestnut, shrub, quercitron and post oaksi \\ 

 We have also two elms (the american and the slippery), and five] ii([ 

 maples : the elms occupy the low lands ; two of the maples occupjl nei] 

 the plains and lower hills, and the mountain and striped maples aM| i, 

 found upon the mountain sides. 



In this region we find about eighty grasses belonging to the 

 order Gramineae, or true grasses ; and over one hundred of thf 

 order Cyperaceae, or cypress-like grasses, being the coarse grasses 

 of the swamps. 



J!I! 



