BURIED CEDAR IN NEW JERSEY. 459 



once more, and kept so for a generation, our floods would bo leFS injurious, our springs 

 unfailing, and our streams more constant and equable; our blasts would be less bit- 

 ter, and our gales less destructive to fruit ; we should have vastly more birds to delight 

 us with their melody, and aid us in our not very successful war with devouring in- 

 sects; we should grow peaches, cherries, and other delicate fruits, which the violent 

 caprices of our seasons, the remorseless devastations of our visible and insect enemies, 

 have all but annihilated ; and we shall keep more cows and make more milk on two- 

 thirds of the land now devoted to grass than we actually do from the whole of it, 1 

 And what is true of West Chester is measurably true of every rural county in the 

 Union. — ( What I Know of Farming, p. 51.) 



NEW JERSEY. 



An extensive tract in the eastern part of this State has a light, sandy- 

 soil, not adapted to agriculture, but profitable for the growth of timber, 

 if it were not for forest fires. An account of the damages done by these 

 will be found on page 156. This State has long ceased to produce any 

 forest products for the markets of noticeable amount, besides fire-wood 

 and some of the minor products. 



Buried cedar iimher in Southern New Jersey. 



An interesting subject, connecting the most recent of geological 

 events with the living vegetation of the present time, is observed in the 

 swamps of Southern New Jersey, where there are manifest evidences of 

 a gradual subsidence of the country and the slow encroachment of the 

 sea. 



An enormous quantity of white cedar timber {Cupresstis thuyoides) is 

 found buried in the salt marshes, sound and fit for use, and a consider- 

 able business is carried on in mining this timber and splitting it into 

 shingles for market. In some places it is found so near the surface that 

 fragments of the roots and branches are seen projecting above the marsh, 

 while in other cases the whole is covered with smooth meadow sods, and 

 there is no indication of what is beneath till it is sounded by thrusting 

 a rod down into the mud. It is most commonly found on the headwaters 

 of streams. West Creek, East Creek, Dennis Creek, Great Cedar Swamp 

 Creek, and their small branches have cedar swamps through their whole 

 lengths. 



The timber which is buried in the swam^is undergoes scarcely any 

 change, and trees which have been buried hundreds of years are as 

 sound as ever. It would seem that most of the timber which ever grew 

 in these swamps is still preserved in them. Trunks of trees are found 

 buried at all depths, quite down to the gravel, and so thick that in many 

 places a number of trials will have to be made before a sounding-rod 

 can be thrust down without striking against them. Tree after tree, 

 from 200 to 1,000 years old, may be found lying crossed one under the 

 other, some partly decayed, as if they had died and remained standing 

 a long time and then been broken down. Others had been blown down, 

 and some had continued to grow for a long time after falling, as known 

 by the heart being much above the center, and by the wood on the under 

 side being hard and boxy. 



The trees lie in all directions, as if fallen at different times, and their 

 united ages, as shown where trees have grown since others had fallen, 

 amounts to some thousands of years. The process of mining this timber 

 is as follows : With an iron rod the swamp is sounded till it hits what 

 is thought to be a good log. Its length and size is determined by the 

 rod, as near as may be. A hole is dug with a sharp spade down to the 

 log, and a chip obtained, which, by its smelly shows whether it was a 



