108 Changes of Timber and Plants^ ^c. 



Dear Sir, 



In compliance with your request I will now state a 

 fact, the occurrence of which I thought had been of such 

 notoriety that no one could possibly dispute it, until 

 you mentioned to me a few days ago, that some gen- 

 tlemen had thought you even chimerical in supporting 

 it. For some years past I have been in the habit of 

 visiting some estates which belong to our family, in the 

 county of Cape May, New Jersey, and have remarked 

 myself, and heard it as a common fact, that wherever 

 the pine timber is cut off, oaks invariably and hickories 

 very frequently will spring up, and this is also the case 

 where the timber has been taken off by fire ; the hunt- 

 ing grounds, which lay in the upper part of Cape May 

 and lower part of Cumberland counties, are set on fire 

 very frequently, in the spring, to burn the under brush, 

 to facilitate hunting in the autumn ; and although the 

 timber is altogether pine, yet no pine springs up after 

 the burning; while oaks and hickories invariably do. 

 On the Penn tract, lying a few miles below Bridgetoxvji 

 in Cumberland county, there have been for several years 

 straggling settlers, who have taken possession, and 

 cleared some parts they have tilled; and other parts 

 have suffered to grow up. Nearly the whole of this 

 tract was pine timber-, and wherever it has been cut, 

 oaks and hickories have groAvn up ; and for several miles 

 along the post road which runs through it, I have seen 

 black oaks stripped of the bark (for the purpose of tan- 

 ning &:c.) where I have been credibly informed there 

 was nothing but pine timber a few years since. If my 

 statement of tliis well kno^^^l fact will be of any service 



