FORESTRY AND ARBORICULTURE IN MASSACHUSETTS. 65 



Mr. Harrison replied that through the country people do not 

 think it important to keep cattle out of their woodlands. In 

 New Hampshire they are turned out early and eat off the young 

 sprouts. In the spring cattle are greedy for something green. 

 In a small tract of woodland the trampling of cattle will destroy 

 trees, though he could not say why. Many people do keep stock 

 out of woodland, but in New York and other States people have 

 woods pastures. 



William D. Philbrick said that in this neighborhood we have 

 pastures and forests separate. After twenty-five years or more 

 the trees are generally cut off clean, excepting such ones as it is 

 thought best to reserve for seed. 



Mr. Harrison said that sometimes it is best to cut off clean, and 

 sometimes it may be best to cut trees as they individually come to 

 maturity. Sometimes the new growth will start with greater 

 vigor if the trees are cut off before arriving at full maturity. 



William C. Strong asked if it would not be better to plant 

 seedlings rather than to reh* on sprouts to renew the forest? 



Mr. Harrison replied that Nature's way is likely to be the best, 

 but there are alwaj-s some seedlings among sprouts. He did not 

 see how it would be profitable to destroy a promising crop of 

 sprouts, but a poor tree should be taken out as soon as its worth- 

 lessness is seen. 



Leverett M. Chase asked whether, when one species of wood is 

 •cut off, a different one does not usually follow? Nature seems to 

 have planted the seed. 



O. B. Hadwen said that when oaks are cut off they are followed 

 by softer wood, and pine is followed by oak, walnut, and other 

 deciduous trees. The ground in pine forests offers the best 

 opportunity for squirrels to plant acorns and walnuts and affords 

 shelter to maple seeds. 



There is now more forest land in Massachusetts than there was 

 fifty years ago, notwithstanding the famous prediction put forth 

 when the Boston and Worcester Railroad was in course of con- 

 struction, to this effect: "In less than ten years after that 

 railroad is completed there will not be a stick of wood left along 

 the whole line ; it will all have been used by the locomotive 

 -engines." A great deal of land has been brought under the 

 plough that never should have been tilled. Steep rocks and 

 inaccessible lands were intended by Nature for forest, and in 

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