WHERE TO PLANT. 29 



pressing upon that State and upon some of the 

 neighboring States, in view of their future 

 needs, in view of their future safety one may 

 say, it is to take the speediest and the most 

 effective measures to preserve what forests 

 they have from destruction, and to encourage 

 the planting of trees on the denuded hills and 

 in the lower plains wherever they can be made 

 to grow. Sheep are not comparable to the 

 forests in value. If those Pacific States lose 

 their forests, they will no longer be desirable, 

 hardly possible, habitations for men; and how 

 much better is a man than a sheep ! 



But, besides the hill-sides and mountain- 

 slopes, which are the proper homes of the trees, 

 and where the forests, if allowed to grow, are 

 sources of manifold blessings to the country, 

 protectors of its health and its most precious in- 

 dustries, there are other places which invite the 

 tree-planter's attention. On the lowlands there 

 are many stony, sour, sandy, or otherwise ster- 

 ile tracts, of more or less extent, which are 

 properly called waste-land. They are of little 

 value in an agricultural point of view, but, if 

 covered with trees, would not only have an ap- 



