23 



last spring in Pomfret to reclaim exhausted hillsides. If these 

 experiments in recuperating sterile soils are successful, they 

 may lead to important economic results in addition to the 

 adornment given to fields now barren and unsightly. Grigor 

 says, "ISTo tree is so valuable as the larch in its fertilizing 

 effects arising from the richness of its foliage which it sheds 

 annually. The yearly deposit is very great ; the leaves remain 

 and are consumed on the spot where they drop." Trees also 

 enrich the soil by a curious chemistry which disintegrates even 

 the rocks, and transmutes their particles into forms of life and 

 beauty. The radicles and rootlets, in their under-ground labor- 

 atory, secrete acids which dissolve the very sands and stones. 



In many positions groves are of great service as wind-breaks ; 

 even narrow strips of trees afford a shelter to fruit trees and to 

 various crops, as well as a shield to cattle from piercing winds. 

 Evergreens serve best for screens, as deciduous trees are leaf- 

 less when their shelter is most needed, especially for stock 

 and around farm buildings. The evergreens most suitable 

 for this purpose are the Norway spruce, white pine, Scotch 

 pine, and Austrian pine ; and next to these are the American 

 arbor vitas, hemlock, and spruce. Sheltered orchards are most 

 productive and less likely to lose their fruit prematurely by 

 violent winds, and the farmer with proper wind-screens con- 

 sumes less fuel in his house and less forage in his stables. 



In some portions of Germany the law formerly required 

 every landholder to plant trees along his road frontage. Happy 

 would it be for us if the sovereigns of our soil would each 

 make such a law for himself. Happy, also, if the law of 

 usage, fashion, or interest here, as did the civil law there, 

 required that every young man before he married should 

 plant a wedding tree. In some of our Western States tree- 

 planting by the road-side is encouraged by a bounty from the 

 State treasury, and in the fields by both a bounty and exemp- 

 tion from taxation for a term of years. The law in Minnesota 

 provides that u every person planting, protecting and cultiva- 

 ting forest trees for three years, one-half mile or more along 

 any public highway, shall be entitled to receive for ten years 

 thereafter an annual bounty of two dollars for each half-mile 

 so planted and cultivated, to be paid out of the State treas- 



