80 ON FOREST TREES. 



to foster and stimulate a taste for cultivation. Many persons would 

 be glad to attempt cultivation if they could afford the expense ; and 

 the prospect of gaining the premium, will be sufficient to induce 

 them to make the attempt. He has also, I think wisely, proposed 

 the premiums in terms so general as to leave the shaping the particu- 

 lar conditions to practical agriculturists. 



I am sorry that my want of experience in agriculture will prevent 

 me from giving any suggestions of practical value. 



There are two distinct objects to be regarded in the cultivation of 

 forest trees, their pecuniary value as fuel and timber, and their use 

 as ornaments, screens and shades. The cultivation in the two cases 

 must be quite different. Yet I suppose the first steps must in all 

 cases be the same. In our hard and barren soil, the land on which 

 the seed was sown, or the young trees planted, must, for many years, 

 be cultivated, while the plants are growing, in order that they may 

 make any show at all even in twenty years. They will doubtless grow 

 without cultivation, but very slowly. If an open pasture or newly 

 cleared land should be taken, the process must be very different in 

 the two cases. In an old, open, uncultivated pasture, the soil and 

 subsoil are usually very hard, presenting great obstacles to the pene- 

 tration of the roots. In this case, the ground must be ploughed and 

 subsoil ploughed, that it may be opened and loosened, to the depth of 

 two feet. After the acorns are sown, or the trees planted the plough 

 can go only between the rows leaving the subsoil beneath the rows 

 unmoved. This shows the necessity of getting the ground in proper 

 condition before the operation of sowing or planting begins. 



The best kinds of oak are those of the white oak group ; viz : the 

 common white oak, the swamp white oak, both of them common in 

 Essex county, the over-cup oak and the mossy-cup, the latter to be 

 found in Berkshire ; the stem-fruited, and the vessile-fruited which 

 grow readily in our climate, and the chesnut oak, found north and 

 south of us, and the Rocky Mountain oak, found in rocky hills, in 

 several parts of the state. The wood of all these eight is of great 

 value, as fuel and for timber uses. The next group is the red oak 

 group, containing the black or yellow-barked oak, the scarlet oak, 

 the pin oak, and the two varieties of the red, called the red and the 

 grey. The black and the scarlet are common in Essex county, and 

 are valuable and very beautiful. The pin oak is found farther south, 

 but would I think, grow readily here. The red oak is a rapid grow- 



