52 HAND-BOOK OF TREE-PLANTING. 



cattle and his crops. He needs wood for fuel 

 and for fences as soon as may be. Nature points 

 him to the cottonwood and the willow, not 

 far away, with their rapid growth, and with 

 these his immediate and most pressing wants 

 are met. And while these are his dependence 

 for present effect, there are other trees in great 

 numbers offering themselves to his use as he 

 looks for more distant, and, in a sense, more 

 valuable results. 



Our country is wonderfully rich in its va- 

 rieties of trees, and there are valuable ones 

 adapted to every portion of it. At our Cen- 

 tennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, more than 

 four hundred native species were shown. Prof. 

 Brewer estimates that we have as many as 

 eight hundred species of woody plants indige- 

 nous to the United States. Two hundred and 

 fifty of these, and which grow to the height 

 of thirty feet, are abundant somewhere in our 

 country. We have a hundred and fifty species 

 of trees of larger size, of which fifty are of 

 the coniferous class. Twenty species grow to a 

 height of more than one hundred feet. Twelve 

 species attain a height of two hundred feet. Five 



