PLYMOUTH SOCIETY. 93 



raised on the most sterile soil. And how many thousand acres 

 of sandy plains and barren hills are there in the county, that, 

 for a series of years, have made the poor owners, who have 

 attempted to cultivate them, "poorer still"? The rapid de- 

 struction of our forests by the " woodman's axe," caused by the 

 increasing demand for fuel and lumber, as the country increases 

 in population, in steamboats and rail-roads, must make it obvi- 

 ous to every reflecting mind, that it is high time and of the 

 utmost importance, to propagate, preserve, and protect our for- 

 ests; that there is no investment so safe, and no reward so sure. 

 For, whilst in many parts of the country, within the last half 

 century, cultivated lands have decreased in value at least one 

 third, yet, during the same period, our wood lands have steadily 

 advanced, and now command more than twice as much. 



Although the committee believe they cannot too strenuously 

 urge the planting of forest trees on exhausted and barren fields, 

 yet they cannot but deprecate the mistaken policy that has ren- 

 dered so many of those fields sterile. A key to the grand secret 

 why they are so, we think may be found in the remarks of one 

 of the competitors for these premiums. In describing his lots, 

 which are nearly two miles from the homestead, he says : — 



"This lot was first ploughed about fifty years ago, when it 

 was thought best to subdue all wood lots capable of cultivation, 

 whether near or more remote from the owner's building" fyc. 

 "Lot No. 3, is a hard, husky, stony soil, first ploughed about 

 fifty years ago, has been exhausted by continual mowing and til- 

 lage, with little manure, it being far from the owner's barnP 



"Our fathers did so before us," but their drafts were drawn 

 on a virgin soil, rich in the accumulated vegetable and alluvial 

 deposits of ages. For a time those drafts were honored with 

 bounteous harvests, but the miserly cultivator failing to cancel 

 the debt, with manure or its equivalent, his drafts have at 

 length been protested. Mother earth cannot be cheated with 

 impunity, and no one should attempt it, unless he can subscribe 

 to the doctrine of the poet : 



" And sure the pleasure is as great 

 In being cheated as to cheat." 



