FORESTRY AND ARBORICULTURE IN MASSACHUSETTS. 67 



forests is lessening the quantity of water in our streams. There 

 is a brook in Haverhill where he used to catch trout when a boy, 

 but four or five years ago he tried and found the water so low 

 that he could not get any fish. Some of the wandering fishes, 

 like the shad and salmon, want cold water, and this can only be 

 had where streams are shaded by trees. He had seen ice in 

 August under the moss in an Adirondack forest. 



Cattle rarely, if ever, touch evergreen trees, and will not injure 

 large, well-established trees, though they might do injury to 

 young trees. In England cattle and trees thrive together. Seed- 

 lings will spring up six inches apart and should be thinned, and 

 when large enough should have the lower limbs cut off. He 

 hoped the time would soon come when children in schools would 

 universally be educated to see the beauty of trees and to love and 

 revere them and assist in preventing the wanton destruction of 

 trees on which so much depends. Years ago Bryant expressed 

 the sad thoughts of an exiled Indian upon revisiting the home of 

 his childhood : 



"Before these fields were shorn and tilled, 



Full to the brim our rivers flowed ; 

 The melody of waters filled 



The fresh and boundless wood ; 

 And torrents dashed and rivulets played, 

 And fountains spouted in the shade. 



Those grateful sounds are heard no more, 



The springs are silent in the sun ; 

 The rivers by the blackened shore 



With lessening current run ; 

 The realm our tribes are crushed to get, 

 May be a barren desert yet." 



Unless we are wise this prophec}' is certain to come true. 



J. D. W. French said that he is particularly interested in 

 forestry, and had practised arboriculture with such success that 

 he had received a premium from the Massachusetts Society for 

 Promoting Agriculture, for a plantation of larch trees and another 

 for ash trees. Mr. French added that possibl}' it might be wise 

 for the Society to have a standing committee on forestry. He 

 thought the Society should take a decided stand in regard to 

 education and legislation ; the latter not only of the State, but of 

 the nation. We should first consider whether we have too few or 



