ARTIFICIAL PLANTING OF TREES. 363 



need not allow further increase of so dire an evil. To say 

 nothing of the probability of growing the white birch (^Betufa 

 popiilifolia) upon it, tlie pitch pines (Pinvs rig-ida') and white 

 pines (P. sirobus') and even the red pines, (P. resinosa^ 

 sometimes called the Norway pine, can be most readily planted 

 and raised. I have seen such fields, in part, redeemed by this 

 process ; and a very few years were found to be sufficient to 

 clothe with perennial greenery, these waste and sterile sand 

 drifts. All sorts of evergreen trees and shrubs should be taken 

 up for transplanting after they have begun to grow, and the new 

 growth should be three or four inches long. With pine trees, 

 this occurs about the middle of June. I am familiar with an 

 instance in which Dearly an hundred pitch pines and a few white 

 pines were planted out by a few hours labor, and wdiicli all grew 

 with remarkable celerity and vigor. By and by, the loose sand be- 

 came bound together by their roots, and its surface so deeply car- 

 peted by its dry and persistent needle-shaped leaves, as to stop any 

 further drifting or changes. The pitch pine has been successfully 

 planted out at Nantucket, where the bleakest winds render 

 almost every tree-growth a difficult matter : and if these experi- 

 ments were instituted by some public measures, it would not be 

 long before that island would be clothed again with a thick 

 forest growth, such as were roamed in by its Indian tribes before 

 the white man came and stripped its leafy honors. I was once 

 shown a single red pine tree, which stood on the edge of an old 

 rye field, from which, in about forty years a respectable forest 

 of its progeny had sprung up around it, and rewarded the 

 careless spirit of letting it alone in its work, by its industrious 

 yearly increase. 



The white birch has been incidentally mentioned among the 

 kinds of trees well fitted for a poor soil. According to my 

 observation, it seems best adapted to the second division, viz. : 

 to gravel and gravelly ridges. This tree is, usually, near the 

 sea-coast, of a small size, but still it is of economical value. 

 It grows very fast. A friend, who has much of it upon portions 

 of his farm, assures me that he considers it as one of his best 

 crops. He cuts, for market, the young stems down to the roots, 

 as often as they are of sufficient size for hoops of nail, casks. I 

 have repeatedly noticed that white birches spring up very thick 

 and readily from seeds self-sown by the winds, upon the quick- 



