32 HAND-BOOK OF TREE-PLANTING. 



supply of this valuable wood, and with that dis- 

 covery its market price has greatly increased, 

 and will inevitably increase yet more. The man 

 who has a growing forest of white pine has a 

 mine of wealth surer than the ores of the West- 

 ern mountains, and the man who now plants this 

 tree on his useless fields of sand or on some 

 rocky hill-side, called perhaps a pasture, but 

 where the stones will hardly allow the cattle to 

 get their teeth to the grass, if he does not live 

 to reap the sure harvest, will leave to his heirs 

 a legacy as valuable as stocks or bonds. 



It would seem that this needs no arguing. 

 But, to show that practical experience bears 

 out all that we have said, we will adduce 

 some testimony from actual tree-planters. Tree- 

 planting in masses, designed to produce forests, 

 has hardly been undertaken in our country 

 until quite recently. Among the earliest to 

 engage in this work were the Messrs. Fay, in 

 Essex and Barnstable Counties, Massachusetts. 

 They have been followed by several persons 

 on Cape Cod. Mr. R. S. Fay began a planta- 

 tion on his estate, near Lynn, in 1846. In that 

 and the two following years he planted two 



