PLANT MORE TREES. HORSE DISTEMPER. 



121 



ehould have lifted so heavy a weight. But 

 his uncctsiness was much increased, and even 

 his alarm excited, when, about a month after 

 the injury had been repaired, the adjoining 

 stone was lifted in a similar manner, and two 

 mushrooms, not quite so large, were found 

 beneath it ; for it seemed doubtful whether 

 the whole town of Basingstoke might not 

 want repaying during the tenn of his contract. 

 The stones were nearly of the same size ; 

 each being twent}^-two inches by twenty- 

 one ; the last stone raised in this manner was 

 ■weighed, and its weight proved to be eighty- 

 three pounds." The hardest of such fungi 

 are, in the growing state, so soft as to yield 



! to the pressure of the finger, and so brittle as 

 j to be shivered to atoms by the slightest 

 I blow ; yet the organic force with which their 

 j tender tissue is developed is capal)le, acting 

 I in millions of points, in the growth and dis- 

 1 tension of their individually invisible cells, 

 I of elevatuig an inert mass of stone vv-hich the 

 I strength of an ordinary man would with diffi- 

 I culty raise from its plaster bed. 



Such are some of the facts connected with 

 I the minute auatomy of plants, the farther ex- 

 amination of wliich, and of the laws of their 

 I growth, will furnish the subject of a succeed- 

 I iu£? lecture. 



PLANT MORE TREES. 



U.s'DER the above head the Farmer's 

 Monthly Visitor has a capital article, from 

 ■which we learn several interesting facts. 

 Gov. Hill, the Editor, says that " Valuable 

 pine timber lots are now grown, whose ori- 

 gin was in the seed less than fifty years ago." 

 The opinion lias pretty generally prevailed 

 that pines grown by mtificial culture are 

 nearly worthless for timber. We see no rea- 

 son why tliis should be so, any more than 

 oak, chestnut, or ash. IMr. H. remarks that 

 " Nature does everything to make up for 

 man's neglect in the planting and growth of 

 trees ; nor is she slow in her operations. She 

 has made eveiy acre of waste land in New- 

 Hampshire valuable. The beautifid chestnut 

 timber so much used in the New-England 

 railroads gi-ows spontaneously in all our poor- 

 est rocky lands wliich have been considered 

 too hard for cultivation ; the railway chestnut 

 cross-timbers are worth, standing, on the 

 average, si.x.teen cents apiece — trees of the 

 suitable size making sometimes three and four 

 cuttings. It is said these chestnut trees will 

 grow to the suitable size of posts in the years 

 that these posts rot in the ground. A re- 

 markable feature in the chestnut is that where 

 a main tree is cut, sprouts the same year 

 shoot forth from the roots, growing up a clump 

 of trees, some three to six of which soon grow 

 into sizes to be used for timber." 



We have had some little experience in at- 

 tempting to raise a small forest of chestnut 

 timber from the seed, but with poor success?. 

 We have been told that the seeds should 

 never get dry after they ripen in the fall, be- 

 fore they are planted, either in pots or a 

 nursery. Such is the demand for fence posts 

 and railroad tics that the culture of chestnut 

 timber, we are confident, Cim be made prof- 

 itable. Every farmer has a wood lot, and as 



he thins it out, or cuts it off, he should set the- 

 ground full of small chestnuts. Under favora- 

 ble circumstances they grow rapidly. 



It is safe to calculate on the gi-owlh of a 

 cord of wood on an acre per annum in ^Vest- 

 em New- York. This, at $-2, is much better 

 than no income — while the annual burden of 

 leaves that fall to the earth enrich the land. 



Shade trees are equally an ornament and 

 luxury during the intense heat of our summer 

 months. Speaking of these the Visitor says : 

 " We boast in the southerly part of the Con- 

 cord Main-street as beautiful elms as can be 

 shown in any part of the world. There are 

 many charming villas in the country range 

 about Boston ; but we must say of these that 

 their cleaned path avenues shaded and cov- 

 ered over by trees high before reaching the 

 limb, or surroimded by the shnibbery which 

 entirely shuts out access of foot or of eye, do 

 not compare with the unadorned beauty of 

 the row of elms opposite on the street to the 

 place of our writing. There is a remarkable 

 similarity in the spread of the isolated elm, 

 which is a native of our intervale and stands 

 either on that or the first upland of the river 

 bank. The men who set out our stately elms 

 seventy-five and a hundred years ago, Hal!, 

 Sliute and others, have passed away : at this 

 season, when hundreds of birds come there 

 and build their nests, the elegant gold-robin, 

 the gay bluebird, the chattering wren, and 

 even the shy crow, blackbirjl. the snarling 

 cat and scolding thrush both sing so beauti- 

 fully and so alike when undisturbed as to be 

 mistaken each for the other — there is a charm 

 in these venerable trees which bids us re- 

 member those who planted them there, and 

 to present them as proof that planting trees is 

 one of those " good deeds " of men which 

 " live after them." 



To Core the Distemper in Horses. — Give a teaspoonfiill, three times a day, of finely 

 powdered gum myrrh, (mixed with the food or otherwise,) and a speedy cure, it is said, will 

 hi all cases be effected. 

 (205) 



