26 REPORT ON FOREST TREES. 



pressed, because we are hardly willing to have so selfish a hindrance 

 appear in all its strength, and it is this. We are told, that it is a 

 species of improvement from which we ourselves cannot hope to 

 reap the benefit, since our lives are too short to witness the maturity 

 of trees of our own planting. This is a weak and selfish objection, 

 at the best, and it is false, too, in its premises. The fi^rst Duke, 

 John of Athol, for example, saw a British frigate built entirely of 

 Larch of his own planting. It will be seen, moreover, if we will exam- 

 ine a little into the subject, that the benefits commence at once in 

 the increased value given to the land planted. In another point of 

 view, as a provision for our children, how important planting be- 

 comes. There is no surer way of making a provision for one's chil- 

 dren, than by planting timber trees. The advantage of restoring 

 portions of our worn out-lands to wood, are also most important to 

 New England welfare. We are every year developing more highly 

 the mechanical arts, and in their progress, wood, in various forms 

 and for numerous purposes, is required. Our lands have been al- 

 ready stripped of the most valuable kinds, for these purposes, and 

 no measures are being taken for a new supply. They have been 

 pastured upon and exposed to our cold and piercing winds, until, in 

 many cases, the power of vegetation is nearly lost. Now, who can 

 not foresee a prospect for an increased demand and value for every 

 species of wood that grows ? Do we not perceive this enhancement 

 from year to year ? 



We come now to such data as we have been able to obtain from 

 practical persons, as to the profit and loss of planting; and we shall 

 commence with those furnished by the English and Scotch planters, 

 who have made planting the business of a life-time, in a country 

 where planting forest trees has been practised for centuries. And 

 first, we shall extract from the Transactions of the Highland Soci- 

 ety, a slight notice of the Larch, a tree which has been found to 

 agree singularly well with our bleakest and most hungry soils. 



*'Larch will supply ship-timber at a great height above the region 

 of the oak ; and while a 74 gun-ship will require the oak timber of 

 75 acres, it will not require more than ten acres of larch ; the trees 

 in both cases being sixty-eight years old. The larch, instead of in- 

 juring the pasture under it, impi^ves it. The late Duke of Athol, 

 planted in the last year of his Hfe, 6500 acres of mountain ground 

 solely with larch, which in the course of 72 years from the time of 



