41 



bought for tree planting at twenty-five cents per acre ; now 

 the same kind of barren land sells for $2 per acre for tree- 

 planting. I find the expense of planting the pines to be $2.25 

 per acre." 



S. P. Phinney, of Barnstable, said : " Large tracts of worn- 

 out lands in this country, that were worth comparatively 

 nothing, have been planted from the seed of the pitch pine. 

 These experiments have proved successful. I know of no way 

 in which the light sandy lands in this section can be made so 

 valuable as by planting the pitch pine. Our experience proves 

 that the cultivation of forest trees is feasible and profitable in 

 New England seaport towns. In 1845 I planted in this town 

 a ten acre lot with pitch pine seed, much as corn is planted, 

 dropping three seeds in a hill and covering them with half an 

 inch of soil. To-day many of these trees will gird more than 

 a man's body. Hundreds of acres in this section are being 

 planted annually." 



We have a great Sahara in Connecticut less than ten miles 

 from New Haven, produced by improvidence and neglect. 

 The local traditions tell us that the sand-blow covering so 

 large an area in the towns of North Haven and Wallingford 

 was once finely wooded. Here and there clumps of low pines 

 and birches, the lone relics of a former growth, still resist the 

 drifting sands. So general is the conviction, that this sand- 

 blow is utterly irreclaimable, that it has long since been aban- 

 doned to hopeless sterility. I shall be happily disappointed 

 if my plan for utilizing it is not regarded by many farmers as 

 visionary and impracticable. But the feasibility of reclaiming 

 such wastes is proved by many facts. The cost of reclaiming 

 the sand barrens on Cape Cod has been small from three to 

 five dollars per acre, but the profit has been satisfactory to the 

 planters. The best time for planting the pine seeds is as early 

 in the spring as the frost permits. The work is done by hand 

 or by a seed-planter, and in rows about as thick as corn is 

 ordinarily planted. On the Cape Cod barrens there was no 

 vegetation, except a little moss, low poverty grass, so-called, 

 and in some cases light beach grass. 



Experiments are now in progress to fix the dunes or sand 

 hills which threaten the Suez Canal by planting the maritime 



