26 HAND-BOOK OF TREE-PLANTING. 



of our country which has been regarded as a 

 hopelessly barren waste. 



There is no need of urging the necessity 

 of tree-planting in all that region. Every set- 

 tler there, every traveler even who passes over 

 it, must feel the desirableness of establishing a 

 tree-growth there as soon as possible. 



But while the need of planting trees seems 

 most urgent on the naked and exposed plains 

 of the West, the need in other places is un- 

 questionable. On most of the hill-sides and 

 mountain-slopes of the North and East or of 

 the Pacific States from which the original for- 

 est-growth has been removed, an effort should 

 be made to restore it. There are found the 

 sources of the streams, important to us on so 

 many accounts, and the lessened flow of which 

 has been deplored, while hitherto we have 

 not known how the evil might be remedied. 

 The higher and steeper hill-sides are of little 

 value for agricultural purposes because they 

 are so difficult of access. Often they are so 

 rocky that they are intractable, while the soil 

 is so thin and so liable to be washed away 

 by the rains, that they offer little promise of 



