118 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



thousand trees of not less than three years old, all seedlings, 

 and in a most thrifty state — and all growing spontaneously on 

 what was, twelve years ago, chiefly an oak forest. The pine, I 

 believe, never starts from the roots of an old tree, but are in all 

 cases seedlings. 



The oak seedling is of slow growth ; but still they are con- 

 stantly renewing from the acorn, in woods of thin growth, and 

 around the margin of oak forests — the leaves affording them a 

 sufTicient covering, and the surrounding trees a sufhcient shelter 

 from the driving winds and snow ; but the most thrifty growth 

 of oak, maple and birch, are from the roots of previous trees, 

 cut down before the life of both root and branches is exhausted 

 by age. Crops of wood are now raised with as much regularity 

 and certainty as crops of hay or grain, and are profitably taken 

 off every twenty to thirty years. On thirteen acres of cut off land, 

 which I purchased in 1851, at nine dollars an acre, there is now 

 a crop of wood, pi-incipally oak, averaging fifteen feet in height, 

 mostly sprung from the roots of the previous growth, and 

 growing with great rapidity, from their large and abundant 

 roots ; while in almost every vacancy the seedling pines, before 

 named, are shooting up their spires, and dispute with the oak 

 for the final possession of the soil. 



The white birch and the white maple push out numerous 

 sprouts from almost every tree which is cut down, and spread 

 spontaneously as seedlings, on the road-sides and on the margin 

 of forests. A large hill in full view of my house, which was 

 clear pasture land twenty-five or thirty years ago, is now an 

 unbroken forest. 



It belonged to the late Rev. Gardner B. Perry, who, with a 

 view to improving his pasture, caused furrows eight or ten feet 

 apart to be ploughed round the hill, keeping as near horizontal 

 as possible, with the triple purpose of retaining the rain, plough- 

 ing up some of the moss, and manuring the intermediate space 

 by the washing down of some of the soil ploughed up. The 

 plan seemed well adapted to improve a smooth hill-side pasture, 

 which it probably would have done, but that a copse of birches, 

 forty rods off, furnished seed, and the winds did the sowing ; 

 and now we see a full grown and heavy crop of birch trees. 

 Another neighbor's intervening lot remained unploughed, and 

 is now smooth pasture-land. 



