CULTURE OF TREES. 117 



wood, as has been supposed, I should think the experiment 

 might encourage the planting of the locust. The quantity and* 

 value of wood for fuel would probably have been larger had 

 nothing been done. And if the acre so well stocked with locust 

 is the acre which had been previously " ploughed, and planted 

 with potatoes," it gives a valuable insight into the best mode of 

 preparing the ground and planting. The white birch has now 

 re-assumed its native rights over a large part of the ground, 

 and the white oak and maple are, in a few instances, resuming 

 their places. 



I am not aware that any premium has been claimed or paid 

 for the raising of forest trees since the one alluded to ; and 

 were it not that the law of the State requires the offering of 

 them, I should suggest the discontinuance of the offer, as without 

 eflfect, and, so far as fuel is concerned, quite unnecessary. 



I am not aware that a single acre of open field, or pasture- 

 land, has been changed from being an open field or pasture, in 

 this county, within the period of my remembrance, which now 

 extends to sixty years, by any deliberate design, planting or 

 cultivation ; and I am hardly aware that an acre has been cut 

 down, cleared, and made a cultivated field or pasture, within 

 that time. But within the last forty years, hundreds of acres 

 have been overrun by the spontaneous growth of forest trees ! 



In the town of Groveland, it is easy now to show large tracts, 

 over which men now living have held the plough, and swung 

 the scythe and sickle, from which may now be cut from thirty 

 to forty cords of wood to the acre ; and by this growth, and the 

 multiplication of fruit and ornamental trees, our landscape 

 now presents a much more wooded prospect than it did forty 

 years ago. 



One cause of this great change is the neglect of agriculture, 

 and confining it to fewer acres, since the prevalence of manufac- 

 tures ; another is, the now almost universal use of mineral 

 coal. Most of this increase is the various species of pine. 



White pine is a tree of very rapid growth ; and I can now 

 cut a frame for a good-sized house, from land from which the 

 previous owner cut nearly all the wood which he considered 

 worth cutting in 1838. What were then small trees, of a few 

 feet in height, are now timber. The pine is a very sure and 

 thrifty seedling, and I might now claim your premium for a 



