&l)c JTarmcr'0 ittcmtljhj iHsitor. 



25 



est planting. Tliey w ill germinate, undoubted- 

 ly, but tliey will remain of no value alter tbey 

 have come up for many years, unless something 

 more is Hone. It would lie as unwise to plant a 

 field of acorns, without preparing that field, as 

 to sow corn or potatoes without ploughing, ma- 

 nuring and after-cultivating the ground. We 

 shall, ill another place, speak more particularly 

 of this ; we speak of it now, lest our estimates 

 should appear high. So in calculating the value 

 of the product, we assume a rapid production, 

 such as care und cultivation alone will give, and 

 not such as springs up from unassisted nature. 

 We will now suppose that a farmer has a ten 

 acre lot upon his farm, which has run to waste, 

 or for which he has no profitable use. We offer 

 to his consideration, as the most productive em- 

 ployment of this lot, its conversion to a wood 

 lot; and as an inducement for him to attempt it 

 we state to him the cost of an oak plantation, 

 and its profit and loss for forty years, as follows: 

 Cost of planting, including ploughing, 

 harrowing, manuring and keeping 

 fence or wall in order, at $25 pet- 

 acre $250 00 



Thinning, pruning and weeding, for 10 



years, at $3 per acre annually 300 00 



Interest for ten years, assuming the 



land to lie worth §15 per acre 270 00 



Whole cost at the end of ten years 820 00 



For the next ten years, the thinnings 

 will fully pay for the cutting and 

 other slight attention. We will 

 therefore add to the above, at the 

 end of the 2d ten years, interest 

 upon interest, &c. &c 492 00 



$1312 00 



At the end of 20 years, if the labor 

 which has been charged for, has 

 been faithfully performed, there 

 will remain, say 1000 trees to an 

 acre, of the average height of 30 

 feet, worth at lecsl 30 cents each, 

 or $300 per acre $3000 00 



Deduct the cost up to the expiration of 



this period 1312 00 



And there remains a profit, after 



paying interest and expense, of §1088 00 



For the next twenty years, the cost of 

 thinning, which is the only i x- 

 pense, will be more than balanced 

 by the increase in value of the 

 wood cut, at 30 cents per tree, over 

 that valuation. During that time, 

 the trees will have been thinned to 

 about 400 trees per acre, which is 

 about the number of timber trees 

 that can be grown to full si7.». 

 These trees would be worth for 

 fuel merely, as they stand, at least 

 $5 per tree, any where ill Essex 

 county, or $2000 per acre. The 

 account then would stand, at the 

 end of forty years, thus: 



Profit at the end of twenty years 



400 trees per acre, at the end of forty 

 years, at $5 per tree 



1088 00 

 .20,000 00 



$2,688 CO 

 Less previous value given the same, at 



30 cents per tree, remaining 1200 00 



$20,488 00 



"Which sum, large as it may appear, shows 



the smallest profit to be anticipated from an oak 



plantation of ten acres, upon suituble land, of u 



medium quality, at the expiration of forty years 

 from the lime of planting." 



It will he seen that Mr. Fay calculates the 

 value of four hundred full grown trees in Essex 

 "for fuel merely," ut five dollars per tree, or two 

 thousand dollars per acre ! 



The denuding of the forest trees in the lower 

 counties of New Hampshire, admonishes us of 

 the necessity of sparing the growth that is 

 springing up on hundreds and thousands of 

 acres of land that has been deemed of little or 

 no value for cultivation. The growth on much 

 of the lands cleared off' within the last ten years 

 — the natural growth springing up without plant- 

 ing, would in twenty years probably increase 

 the value to from fifty to a hundred dollars the 

 acre. 



A gentleman in Norfolk county, Massachusetts, 

 who lives ten miles out of Deillnim and twenty 

 miles from Boston, lately informed us that he 

 has attached to a small farm about one hundred 

 and twenty acres of the impracticable laud, fit 

 only for the growth of wood; and that he makes 

 a very profitable business in the employment of 

 cutting and carting or sledding wood from his 

 premises during the winter season. His wood is 

 of the hard kind of oak or maple. The most 

 profitable mode of taking off" this wood is to 

 clear the land entirely as often as once in twenty 

 years: the young sprouts, without the delay of a 

 single year, commence at once to supply the 

 growth just taken away. Jn this way, a forest of 

 one hundred and fifty acres may be made to sup- 

 ply say from one to two hundred cords of wood 

 annually with an improved growth left on the 

 whole at the end of twenty years. This wood, 

 in all the easterly sections of Massachusetts, is 

 now worth about four dollars the cord standing. 

 In the town of Worcester, at the heart of the 

 commonwealth, we were surprised to find such 

 hard-wood selling the present winter at seven 

 dollars the cord. What it would have been with 

 the present business of that new and nourishing 

 city, if railroads and cheapened transportation 

 had not lessened the price of anthracite and 

 bituminous coal one-half, we will leave the pub- 

 lic to conjecture. There .are wood lots in the 

 county of Rockingham, where the wood has to 

 he carted from six to ten miles to market — wood 

 lots suffered to grow up as a new growth, be- 

 cause the land was unproductive for any valua- 

 ble purpose — the growth on which in the space 

 of thirty years has raised them to the value of 

 ■eighty and a hundred dollars the acre. 



The calculation that four hundred full grown 

 trees in any purl of Essex county will make an 

 acre of them 'Tor fuel only," worth two thousand 

 dollars, is by no means extravagant. These full 

 grown trees, however, might be expected to 

 have attained at least a growth of fifty yetus. 

 What better application of labor and capital to 

 increase the value of farms could be applied in 

 that county than a cultivation of forest trees on 

 one half of a sterile pasture, with the effort of 

 DO very considerable expenditure to make the 

 other half produce twice as much of pasturage 

 or other vegetable productions that the whole 

 now yields. 



Of that extensive part of New Hampshire 

 north of Wimiipissiogee lake, including the 

 counties of Carroll, Grafton and Coos, personal 

 cibservation satisfies us that one half, at least, is 

 covered with forest trees, all of which may be 

 made valuable for some purpose — for timber, fur 

 fuel, or at least for coal. Within ten years from 



this time, if the progress of manufacturing and 

 commercial towns below towards the seaboard 

 continues, may we expect that easy railroad 

 transportation will reach every section of this 

 New Hampshire forest growth not lo exceed the 

 distance of rarely over fifteen miles for wagon 

 transportation in any location. 



In the town of Carroll, Cues county — formerly 

 that impracticable town of " Bretton-woods," 

 thai when we first visited this While Mountain 

 region about the year 1822, contained, according 

 to the estimation of the second Rosbrook, who 

 was born and bred there, scarcely a hundred 

 acres tit for cultivation — in a corner of this town 

 a sale has lately been made of one pine timber 

 lot of a few hundred acres at the price of some 

 forty thousand dollars, to a company of persons 

 in Manchester, by a gentleman in the State of 

 Maine. There is no mistake as to the number 

 anil value of the beautiful tall pines in that town- 

 ship of Carroll and its vicinity. 



Of the vast timber forests in what has long 

 been treated as the impracticable mountain re- 

 gion of New Hampshire, there is hardly begun 

 to be an estimate placed upon their value. The 

 Manchester purchasers have ascertained the 

 value of wood and limber hinds by their visible 

 scarcity in their own neighborhood. They have 

 done well to look beyond the ridge that divides 

 the waters of the Merrimack and the Connecti- 

 cut livers in anticipation of the railway trans- 

 portation that at no very distant period is to di- 

 vert the splendid forest pines that abound in the 

 upper region of the Connecticut river valley to a 

 more profitable and ready market than the long 

 way by expensive cartage down stream. When 

 it is considered that for the building purposes of 

 Lawrence, Lowell, Manchester and other manu- 

 facturing towns, materials from the State of 

 Maine are called for at Boston and other seaport 

 towns, to be carried at an additional expense in- 

 to the interior, well may we learn to put an esti- 

 mate upon the increased value of the timber 

 lards northerly of these towns in New Hamp- 

 shire, to be appreciated as soon as the railroads 

 already begun shall he completed to their termi- 

 nation. In the revenues of the railroads even 

 before they are completed, it is remarkable that 

 the manufacturing towns on the way contribute 

 more than even Boston itself. Lowell furnishes 

 more passengers and business for the railroads 

 passing to and from it, than all the business of 

 Boston for the same roads; and if we cannot 

 say as much for Manchester and Lawrence now, 

 the time is not distant when such will ho the 

 case. 



If the owners of lands and others interested 

 in the mountain forests of New Hampshire as 

 vet give them not their due credit for the value 

 of their wood and timber, so neither do they he- 

 gin to appreciate the value of the soil for agri- 

 cultural purposes w hen these mountain lands 

 shall he cleared. This country is not like the 

 great open prairies of the West, where scarcely 

 a tree is seen for miles: it is generally covered 

 Willi close timber trees. To extended forests 

 of close timber trues where there is no means of 

 ready access, the idea has generally been to look 

 upon good and poor land as alike impracticable. 

 Several miles removed from roads, the clearing 

 of the best lauds for cultivation costs mure than 

 the land is worth after il shall he cleared. 



We consider it fortunate for New Hampshire 

 that she has many thousand acres of forf st lands 

 not yet touched by the axe. At this late day we 

 would not advise the sudden culling off" and 



