284 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



3'ears. Some of those trees were three feet in diameter. 

 Above the fire line, Ave saw trees, at 11,000 feet elevation, 

 sixty feet tall. Some of these trees were limbed to the 

 very ground, and evidently stood alone for generations, for 

 they had a very wide spread of the lower branches, now 

 dead ; but as other trees gre^v up about them, the tops shot 

 up as high as the more slender trees all about. Where the 

 ground had been burned over, there really was no soil left. 

 The fire had burned up all the moss and leaves, and what 

 seemed to be the soil that the tree grew in was literally 

 all rocks ; there was not a shovelful of earth left after the 

 fire. Each time the soil is burned away, the fire pulverizes 

 the rocks more or less, the rains and winds carry it away ; 

 and yet, in spite of all that, evergreen trees from seed were 

 there and of all sizes, six inches to ten feet high, and in 

 time will attain some dimensions, if fire is kept out. On 

 lower ground, you find where some of those finer particles 

 of rock have collected, and there the trees will grow with 

 much vigor. 



Rabbits and deer gnaw the trees, and do great damage to 

 the forest growth. They eat otf the new growth of many 

 deciduous trees, and keep them small and stunted. I do 

 not know that any estimate has been made of the amount of 

 injury done by" animals. But fire is the worst enemy of 

 forests. The most of the Rocky Mountain forests are 

 quite inaccessible for commercial purposes, but serve well to 

 show the disastrous effects of fire. 



The white pine, as has been said here, is, without any 

 doubt, the most valuable tree we have in Massachusetts. It 

 is easily grown from the seed, and easily transplanted. I 

 had, some years ago, two thousand transplanted, from five 

 to eight inches high. I ordered a ball of earth, two to three 

 inches square, taken up with each one. They came out of 

 pasture land which was rather moist, but not wet, and free 

 from rocks. Out of those two thousand trees, I don't think 

 I lost one hundred in transplanting. If they had been 

 pulled up with no earth adhering, not many could have been 

 saved. 



Question. At what time of the year were they moved ? 



Mr. Manning. It w^as in May. This last winter, about 



