1855. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



195 



mated that there are fifteen hundred acres cov- 

 ered with a growth of these trees. In Plymouth 

 county, also, considerable attention has been be- 

 stowed upon growing treesj and forests of oak and 

 locust have been successfully planted. If the ex- 

 periment has proved successful in the sandy soils 

 of these counties, there can be no question that 

 trees might be cultivated elsewhere with profit, 

 and to the great benefit of the community. The 

 seed of the pines is easily obtained. The burrs 

 are gathered in the fall and dried, either gradu- 

 ally or by heating them, and the seed rattles out. 

 It sells in Barnstable for $1,00 per quart, and a 

 quart is sulficient for one acre. When our fore- 

 fathers landed at Provincetown, on Cape Cod, 

 which is now but a barren sand heap, the prom- 

 ontory was covered with a dense forest and the 

 soil was a spade deep ; but on cutting off the 

 trees the winds had a clean sweep, and blew the 

 sands completely over the whole surface, thus 

 converting it into a barren waste. In some parts 

 of the Cape cedars have been tried to some ex- 

 tent, and they are now multiplying rapidly. 

 Mr. Flint read an interesting letter from J. W. 

 Pkoctor, Esq., of Dan vers, in relation to the 

 cultivation of trees, in which the remark was 

 made that there could be obtained from an acre 

 of rock maple trees as much value in sugar, and 

 that without injuring the trees, as could be ob- 

 tained from an acre of corn, while the wood of 

 the trees would increase the profits. 



Mr. Fay, of Lynn, was the next speaker. He 

 said his experience in cultivating forest trees only 

 covered a {wriod of ten years, yet he had tried 

 almost all sorts of trees, and had in particular 

 sxperimcnted Avith oaks, of which he now has 

 sixteen or seventeen varieties on his place at 

 Lynn. We have a vast deal of waste land, Avhich 

 is too rough for the plow, and too rocky and ster- 

 ile for grazing, which is capable of producing 

 ill kinds of indigenous oaks, and the only ques- 

 tion is, how to get this land back to forest again. 

 Nine years ago he planted with acorns a good 

 piece of land, once covered with oaks ; they came 

 up, and the first year grew seven or eight inches,and 

 that is their height now. It seems as if they were 

 waiting for some course of nature with the soil, 

 to get an impulse to grow. At the same time 

 these were planted, he sowed some in a seed bed, 

 lovering them a couple of inches, took them up 

 the next spring and cut off the tap-root, and then 

 planted them in rows a foot apart, there being 

 six inches of space between the plants, and after 

 letting them grow for a year or two, until they 

 were two or three feet high, he transplanted some 

 3f them to the same piece of land where the oth- 

 ers were planted, and they are now ten feet in 

 height. Care should be taken to keep cattle from 

 the plants. In planting acorns, about three thou- 



sand to the acre are wanted, and after they come 

 up they should be thinned out. If a plant fails, 

 or is of poor growth, by cutting down to the sur- 

 face of the earth, new shoots will spring up 

 thriftily, and in this way just such a tree as is 

 desired may be obtained. As to the varieties of 

 oak, of course white oak is the best, although it 

 is slow of growth . Yet there are other kinds almost 

 as good, particularly chestnut oak, which is 

 beautiful in foliage and form, perfectly hardy, 

 and will grow on soil where the white oak cannot 

 flourish. Another excellent variety is the pin 

 oak, which is a rapid grower. The English oak, 

 also, grows faster than ours, and will adapt itself 

 to almost any kind of soil. English oaks im- 

 ported by the speaker eight years ago, now pro- 

 duce a bushel of acorns, and are four feet in cir- 

 cumference. Thgy grow as rapidly as the wil- 

 low. Another valuable species is the ash, which 

 will grow as well as the oak. The Scotch larch, 

 too, is a superior tree, particularly for posts. 

 They can be imported a foot-and-a-half high 

 for $7 or $8 per thousand. They will grow upon 

 any barren soil, and the wood is almost indestruc- 

 tible — far better than cedar. Some set out eight 

 years ago are now thirty feet high. If it is pro- 

 posed to grow oaks, take land which is of no val- 

 ue for any other purpose, planting 3000 to the 

 acre, as many will not come up, and thin out so 

 as to leave only four or five hundred trees — and 

 at the end of forty years ten acres treated in this 

 way would yield a sura which would hardly be 

 credited — they would be worth all the rest of the 

 farm. 



Lieut. Gov. Brown said he had had no practi- 

 cal experience in regard to the cultivation of for- 

 est trees, but he had noticed throughout New Eng- 

 land a prevailing desire to cut down and extermi- 

 nate forest trees. People enter a jiiece of land and 

 make a clearing, cutting down all the beautiful 

 maples, oaks, &c. , and burning them, and then the 

 very next thing go and plant trees for ornamental 

 purposes ! Their passion to destroy does not 

 stop till they find perfect desolation all around 

 them, and then they go to the swamps and pick 

 out a few poor varieties for shade trees. If we 

 go on as we have done here in Massachusetts, ex- 

 terminating our forests, before many years there 

 will be a great scarcity of indigenous trees, and 

 the capabilities of the soil will quite likely be 

 very seriously affected. It is doubtful, if the 

 trees were all cut off, whether wo could raise a 

 crop of corn. Trees are great condensers of mois- 

 ture, absorb much nutriment from the air, and 

 drop their leaves ; and in other ways tend to ben- 

 efit the soil. A greater crop of grass can be got 

 from a field where there are ten or twenty apple 

 trees to the acre, and one or two hundred 

 bushels of apples will be obtained beside. Mr. 



