of Horticulture in Ind'tana. 85 



as a preparation for breakfast, in felling one of the largest 

 trees. It was too far cut to be saved. And so good an 

 example could not be lost upon others. One by one, these 

 magnificent trees disappeared. Now, we have a huge 

 yellow brick building in the centre of this circle ; about a 

 dozen locusts, with stems half as large as one's wrist, have 

 for the three last years been struggling for life, until they 

 seem weary and faint, — and so stand still. 



The Court-House square, something larger than the for- 

 mer piece of ground, was covered with a noble growth of 

 stately trees, and it was determined to save them. A man 

 was set, however, to thin out the plat, and being left to his 

 own discretion, he felled all the younger trees, and left the 

 very old and tall ones standing. As might have been ex- 

 pected, the first wind, finding an easy passage through, 

 uprooted a multitude of trees ; and the citizens, to save the 

 rest from a like fate, chopped them down instantly, and 

 happily relieved this square too, from unpleasant shade. 

 All is not yet told. At a later day, a number of gentlemen 

 procured an order (if I mistake not), from the county com- 

 missioners, to plant out the ground with shade trees ; and 

 a large number of the locust were set. However, that 

 nothing might break in upon the practice of the county, 

 the jailer's cow was permitted to pasture upon the plat, and 

 in the sight of the citizens, she proceeded patiently to bark 

 the trees, or break them down, until not a single one was 

 left. A gentleman not without a taste for horticulture, 

 from day to day, saw, from his ofiice door, this destruction, 

 as he informed me with great naivete, as though it were a 

 sin to interfere and save the trees. Thus, in all our towns, 

 comes first, extermination ; then come scorching summer 

 suns ; and too late, the wish that the trees had been spar- 

 ed; and at last, planting begins; — and we who live amid 

 the immense forests of a new country — on whose town 

 plat, not fifteen years ago, grew immense oaks, maples, 

 sycamores, beeches, tulip trees and elms, — are planting the 

 short-lived locust {Robinia jiseiido-acacia), to obtain a 

 speedy shade ! I can think of but three forest trees now 

 standing in this town within a space of one mile square — 

 two elms and one buckeye. The same scenes are enacting 

 in every town which springs up at the West. We are 

 gaining meadows, and corn bottoms, and green hill sides, 

 and town plats, by an utter extermination of the forest. 



