162 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Our best timber also is becoming more and more costly, and 

 our civil and naval architects are constantly driven to the em- 

 ployment of that of inferior quality. The live oak of the 

 Southern States is already procured for our navy yards with 

 great difficulty, and in fifty years will probably disappear from 

 our soil ; and our own white oak, as well as our other most 

 valuable timber trees, must follow at no very distant period. 

 It is in the power of every one who possesses a few acres of 

 land to do much to arrest this mighty evil ; and what might not 

 be anticipated from a simultaneous effort on the part of culti- 

 vators in our Commonwealth, or even in a single county ! and 

 all this at the expense, on the part of each individual, of a few 

 shillings of money and a few hours of interesting labor. If 

 we owe any thing to posterity, in what way could we confer on 

 them so great a benefit at so cheap a rate ? 



It is not, however, strictly true, or rather it is not the whole 

 truth, to say, with Virgil, that he who plants benefits his remote 

 posterity. A friend of mine once observed that those who set 

 out forest trees reminded him of the student, who, on hearing 

 that a crow would live for a century, bought a young one for 

 the sake of watching the experiment. As a stroke of humor, 

 this remark is privileged from criticism ; but as a statement 

 of fact, it must be received with much qualification. It 

 is no uncommon circumstance to find oaks of twenty years' 

 growth of more than a foot in diameter and of forty or fifty 

 feet in height; and I have seen an English willow of only 

 double that age, measuring, at several feet from the ground, 

 more than seven yards in circumference. 



Were planting commenced at the time when our young men 

 usually enter on their professions or their business, how many 

 might live to enjoy the shade of majestic groves of their own 

 raising ! 



These remarks may derive some additional interest from tho 

 fact that a taste for rural occupations is rapidly springing up 

 and extending itself in our large cities, and that objects of 

 this description arc gradually absorbing more and more of the 

 capital as well as the intelligence of that portion of our com- 

 munity. Where, indeed, could they find a source of entertain- 



