1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



59 



For the New England Fanner. 



CULraP.E OF FOEEST TREES. 



Me. Editor : — I was glad to see the remarks 

 of M. on tree culture, and also to find that the wa- 

 ters of Essex are in motion on the subject, for 

 there is certainly no department of rural economy 

 so much neglected as the culture and growth of 

 forest trees, and none more important to the best 

 interests of the Commonwealth. So, then, we say 

 the Essex County Agricultural Society was doing 

 good service to the State by agitating the subject, 

 for good will come of it sometime and in some pla- 

 ces. But, had that association adopted a plan of 

 proceeding in the case, and oifered not only its in- 

 fluence in the cause, but a bounty to those who did 

 the most, it would have given an impulse and set 

 an example for other similar societies which they 

 would not have failed to follow. 



But few of the hundreds of piiles of highways in 

 this Commonwealth are yet occupied by trees 

 whose growth would be a rich percentage on the 

 labor bestowed, and whose shade would yield a rich 

 harvest of comfort to the traveller. If these high- 

 ways were all converted into extended avenues, it 

 would amount to many acres of valuable woodlands, 

 all growing on lands which now yield no pecuniary 

 benefit. 



Then look at our old, exhausted lands, our 

 fields too rocky to admit of cultivation, and our side 

 hill pastures, where the rains are too apt to remove 

 the soil after the plow has loosened it. How much 

 more valuable these would be if the forest was wa- 

 ving its foliage over them ? And how easily they 

 might be brought into the forest state ? One light 

 plowing, and the seeds of the maple, the birch, the 

 ash or the elm sown over them ; a few locusts set 

 here and there to throw up their prolific suckers, 

 and exclude cattle and sheep, and in a short time a 

 thick and luxuriant growth of young trees would 

 cover these deformities, that man in his greediness 

 of gain, rather than by successful enterprise, has cre- 

 ated. 



It is the work of the landholder, we admit, to car- 

 ry out these improvements. Many of these will 

 raise the objection that they don't know how to give 

 up the use of the field and incur the expense of 

 fencing it to secure the object. There certainly 

 would be a slight sacrifice of lands that produce 

 but little now, to obtain a more abundant harvest 

 ere long. The expense of excluding cattle would in 

 most portions of the State be great ; varying with 

 the price of labor and cost of fencing material. 



So, then, the farmer who engages in this matter 

 of public as well as private enterprise should be a 

 subject of public bounty. At least our Agricultural 

 societies should offer a bounty to those who plant 

 trees by the way-side, or cover lands otherwise 

 nearly worthless with forest growth. 



If the State lent its more direct aid and released 

 all lands successfully sown or planted to forest trees, 

 from taxation for a series of years, it would remove 

 one obstacle, though it may seem a slight one, and 

 at the same time do herself a service that future 

 generations would not fail to ajipreciate. This en- 

 couragement would wrong no one, and would proba- 

 bly result in effect quite as beneficial to the public 

 at iarge as any act of beneficence they are in the 

 habit of bestowing. Yours truly, w. B. 



Dec, 1856. 



CHINESE SUGAR CAHE. 



It affords us pleasure to find so early, a manual 

 upon the history, cultivation and manufacture of su- 

 gar from the plant recently introduced among us 

 as the Chinese sugar cane. We have already 

 spoken of its culture and growth, and of the syrup 

 obtained, from it, and have ventured the opinion 

 that, eventually, it is to become a plant of prime 

 importance in our commercial as well as domestic 

 interests. This manual confirms those opinions. 

 The work has been prepared by James F. C. Hydk, 

 Esq., a well known writer in our columns. Mr. 

 Hyde is a nurseryman, at Walnut Grove, Newton 

 Centre, Mass., and a gentleman deeply interested 

 in whatever relates to the interest of the farmer. 

 He has brought together a mass of information 

 which will unble the cultivator of the cane to go 

 on unnerstandingly in the work. 



The book is printed in Jewett & Co.'s neat and 

 attractive style, in large type and on good paper 

 Price only 25 cents. 



North- Western America. — Attention has been 

 recently called by various parties to the tracts of 

 land in the North-Western portions of this coun- 

 try. It seems that there are lying about the sources 

 of the Missouri river, and extending northeast of 

 the Rocky Mountains, to the sources of the Atha- 

 basca river, (54 deg. north latitude,) extensive and 

 valuable tracts of land susceptible of a high state of 

 cultivation, and with a climate mild and salubrious. 

 The climate is stated to be singularly mild, accord- 

 ing to the estimate we generally make as to what 

 is due such latitudes, from experience in the East- 

 ern States and Canada. Something may be judged 

 of the difference in climate and cultivable capacity 

 between that belt and the Hudson's Bay region, 

 from the fact that wheat may be grown on Mac- 

 kenzie's River nearly to the 65th parallel. The mean 

 winter tem])erature at Fort Benton on the IMissou- 

 ri, in longitude llOi deg. west, and latitude 47i 

 deg. north, is 25 degrees, being warmer than that 

 of INIinnesota, and the same as that of Chicago, To- 

 ronto, Albany, and Portland, Me. 



The business capacities of these regions are im- 

 mense, and it is only necessary for a few vigorous 

 colonists from Canada or New York to make an ex- 

 cursion into them, and to develop their natural re- 

 sources, to render that country one of the most de- 

 sirable localities to be found in the far west. Situa- 

 ted in the vicinity of the Oregon and Missouri riv- 

 ers, and the chain of the Great Lakes which consti- 

 tute the central line of the hal)itable continent, 

 proper activity and enterprise could not fail to open 

 extensive tracts to occupation and commerce in 

 that quarter, — Traveller. 



^F" The Salem Observer says that Mr. Peabody 

 has, within a few days, made another munificent 

 donation for the benefit of his former fellow-citizens 

 in Danvers, namely : — Tor the maintenance of the 

 Library of the institute. $1200 a year during the 

 remainder of his life. For the establishment of a 

 Branch Library in Danvers, (^formerly North Dan- 

 vers,) the sum of 010,000. 



