364 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



sand often found under those small, gravelly hillocks, when they 

 have been removed to fill with their material some lower spot, 

 or in making enbankments. The same facility of growing is 

 noticeable in the old cart-paths and in grassy pastures, where 

 the sod has been abraded and the soil laid bare. The process of 

 vegetation on soft, quaking quicksands is curious in the extreme. 

 In the course of the first year, mosses appear, then, on the next 

 year, the little seedling birches, then a bulrush or two,, by and 

 by some grasses, the moss growing thicker and more abundant, 

 but the young birches outstripping every other form and invad- 

 ing the newly exposed soil like a conquering host. It is 

 evident, from these facts, that what Nature thus easily and 

 readily does, art could imitate, and that unlimited supplies of 

 seedlings could be raised with as little trouble as we employ in 

 sowing carrots on better lands. The white birch, small as it 

 grows, is considered a very valuable fuel for the stove, if cut and 

 suitably seasoned ; and what trifling amount of labor would 

 plant coppices of the tree on every sand pit, gravel bank and 

 other encumbrances of the farm. Several kinds of the oak 

 grow naturally upon gravelly spots ; and this tree is not difficult 

 to transplant, especially if raised from the acorn in the seed bed. 

 When we look at an old oak tree, we compute the long years of 

 its probable growth, but we are not aware how fast it really grows 

 from year to year. 1 know respectable oak trees, of the third 

 and fourth generation, from young seedling plants imported 

 for the pleasure grounds of a gentleman, who lived to see the 

 acorns of their posterity to that descent, actually five generations, 

 from his seedlings imported years before in flower pots, so small 

 were they then ! 



The artificial planting of forest trees is even available on 

 rocky soils, much broken by ledges and by crumbling fragments 

 of stones. Here, one of the very best trees is what is called the 

 Scotch larch, similar to our hackmatack, an account of the suc- 

 cessful planting of which in Scotland, may be found in Emerson's 

 Report, p. 91, which is well worthy of perusal and imitation. I 

 know myself of extensive plantings of it on spots seemingly 

 most unpropitious for any sort of tree. The red cedar too 

 (Junipencs Virginiana) is admirably fitted for such places, and 

 when these trees spring up spontaneously, they should be 

 encouraged by lopping off the lower branches and inducing 



