104 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



into wood and timber-producing lands — thus enabling the State 

 to produce within its own narrow bounds what is sought abroad 

 at high prices. By introducing this mode of improvement, the 

 lands are made better, and timber will, ere long, be furnished 

 for house-building, ship-building, fence-making, furniture, imple- 

 ments of various kinds, bark for tanning, and fuel for the fire. 

 These may be considered good and substantial reasons for 

 doing what has been done, and may, therefore, be done again, 

 under the direction and influence of knowledge, enterprise, and 

 enlightened public economy. 



The subject is one of such immense magnitude and interest, 

 and the space allowed for this report so limited, that we can 

 present only a very few reasons for engaging in the economical 

 enterprise of forest-planting. There are many who will ob- 

 ject to this on the same ground that others have done to plant- 

 ing fruit trees, to wit : the fear that they shall not live to enjoy 

 the benefits of the improvement thus anticipated. How selfish 

 and narrow minded is such an objection ! Plan as if you were 

 to live always, and live as if you might die on the morrow. 

 Then will you prove yourself a benefactor of mankind, and po 

 terity will rise up and call you blessed. But your objection, 

 giving it all its force, is not well founded; for the first Duke 

 John of Athol, Scotland, saw a British frigate built of larch of 

 his own planting. 



Athol, situated in the north of Scotland, latitude 57° north, 

 contained the estates of the dukes. Duke James planted, be- 

 tween 1740 and 1750, more than twelve hundred larch trees 

 in various situations, for the purpose of trying this species, 

 then new in Scotland. In 1759 he planted seven hundred 

 larches, over a surface of twenty-nine Scotch acres, intermixed 

 with other kinds of forest trees. This plantation was upon a 

 hillside from two hundred to four hundred feet above the sea 

 level. The ground was rocky, and covered witli loose masses 

 of mica slate, the whole ground not worth three pounds ster- 

 ling a year. His successor, John, first conceived the idea of 

 planting the larch, to the exclusion of all other species, upon 

 the hillsides about Dunkcld. Before his death lie planted over 

 four hundred acres on the sterile hillsides of his estate. His 

 son, Duke John, continued his father's plans. His father died 



