168 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[November, 



common education. Wlien we, in the exer- 

 cise of freedom, clioose, subscribe for, and 

 read such newspapers and periodicals as will 

 bring the daily, weekly or monthly new.s, and 

 other reading matter, right to our doors — to 

 our firesides — we are employing powerful aux- 

 iliaries to the progress of the mind. The far- 

 mer can read and acquire a knowledge of 

 things yjertaining to his own occupation ; the 

 mechanic to his, and the merchant to his, with- 

 out traveling througli all kinds of wind and 

 weather to meet it, for it comes to his home, 

 and greets him at his fireside. He not only 

 obtains a knowledge of what is transpiring in 

 his own country, around liis own home, but 

 also what is going on in other countries, thou- 

 sands of miles away. We can now sit down 

 and read in our daily papers — which are now 

 to us what the telegraph is to the merchant — 

 what is taking place in our own coimtry and 

 throughout the whole eiyilived world in a few 

 hours or days after it has happened, and \\iiy 

 not every person take the advantage of such 

 facilities in common with the other people of 

 the world ? Think of the patient and perse- 

 vering brain-work, the innumerable pens, and 

 the incalculalile number of tj^ies that are re- 

 quired to compose, to write, and to set up and 

 print this vast amount of matter, and send it 

 abroad throughout the world, as well as tlie 

 ingenuity and the skill that are called forth in 

 doing it. 



But admitting the benefits and the utilities 

 of the newspapers and the magazines as the 

 mediums through which knowledge is dissemi- 

 nated, look at the perversions and abuses which 

 characterize so many of tlieni. Of such I 

 would say, discard them altogether, and sub- 

 scribe only for such as elevate the moral and 

 intellectual taste of society, and in which you 

 can repose the utmost confidence. Some 

 newspaiier and periodical publishers are en- 

 tirely mistaking their calling, like that ultra 

 class of foreigners who, when they come to 

 this country, suppose that liberty means 

 license — that here in a land of freedom they 

 can slander, purloin and abuse with impunity, 

 which every intelligent citizen knows is not 

 the case. All such newspapers as meddle in 

 private ai¥airs, in libeling and abusing pri- 

 vate individuals, should be discarded, and 

 their conductors should be expelled from the 

 fraternity of newspaper publishers. 



In conclusion, I would respectfully and 

 earnestly say to my friends, subscribe for, con- 

 tribute to and patronize our own home papers 

 first ; and in which we find the news both 

 from home and abroad. And in this connec- 

 tion I would add a sjiecial word in behalf of 

 The Lancaster Farmer, which is prin- 

 cipally made up of interesting and reliable 

 matter, emanating from our own immediate 

 friends and neighbors. Our home agricultural 

 .iournal is edited and published by men of ac- 

 knowledged ability, and whose moral integrity 

 has never been questioned. It is one of the 

 cheapest journals in the Union, and has a 

 higher reputation abroad than it seems to 

 have at home, which is a reflection upon us, 

 not upon it. — P. S. B., Oregon, Oct., 1876. 



FORESTRY. 



This subject is likely to assume more import- 

 ance before the return of another "centen- 

 nial," than it does at the present time ; but 

 even now it is justly receiving the attention 

 of the larger, broader, and more liberal minds 

 of American agriculturists: and, therefore, 

 we make room for the following address de- 

 livered before the Amermm Association of For- 

 estry, by Mr. Burnet Landreth, on the Centen- 

 nial grounds, in September last: 

 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the American 



Forestry Association : 



The modern and doubtless correct idea of 

 the road to perfection is by division and sub- 

 division of labor, study and investigation; 

 hence we see lawyers devoting their profes- 

 sional attention to jurisprudence as applied to 

 bommeree, others to land titles, even to crimi- 

 nal practice, as it is called, in which latter it 

 is sometimes difficult to determine which is 

 the greater crimmal, the culprit at the bar 



or the professional who defends him. In med- 

 icine, some apply themselves to surgery ; with 

 others, all their powers of investigation are 

 directed to the eye, or ear, or cUnics ; and we 

 naturally call to our aid, when necessity re- 

 quires, those who have achieved reputation in 

 the special department which suits our case. 

 In agriculture the reverse seems to be the pop- 

 ular rule; and mixed rather than specific farm- 

 ing is generally advocated — probably the pre- 

 sumption is that, whilst preparatory study and 

 practice are requisite to form an accomplished 

 member of a " liberal " profession, men are 

 farmers intuitively, and knowledge, whether 

 of the soil with its chemical constituents, of 

 cereals, of cattle, sheep or swine, may be suffi- 

 ciently understood without study or previous 

 acquaintance. Never was a greater mistake; 

 and the farmer who should iniinstructcd step 

 behind the counter of a Stewart and direct the 

 movements, would soon find his error, just as 

 so many citizens have in the reverse case tested 

 to their cost that there is no royal road to tech- 

 nical knowledge. It is not my purpose, how- 

 ever, to dwell on this phase of rural life — there 

 is not one whom I address who does not real- 

 ize the necessity of training, preparatory to 

 successful husbandry. 



What I desire now in an esi)ecial manner to 

 direct attention to is a branch of agriculture 

 which until recently has been almost entirely 

 overlooked by us. I of course refer to Forestry. 

 Heretofore the way to get rid of timber at the 

 least outlay of labor possible, seems in many 

 cases to have been the object aimed at; and 

 we have gone on in that insane effort until 

 flow, whilst we are still in our infancy as a na- 

 tion, our country is made naked, and the 

 sources of supply of valuable timber, either 

 for shipbuilding, the mechanic arts or fencing, 

 are so remote that had it not been for prema- 

 ture extension of railroads penetrating the in- 

 most recesses of the forests, prices would have 

 advanced beyond any reasonable measure of 

 values, and have seriously impeded the con- 

 structive arts. 



If we turn our eyes northward, from whence 

 the valuable white pine lumber is exclusively 

 obtained, we find that many thousands of 

 acres which only a few years ago, ccimparative- 

 I3', were covered with dense growth of this in- 

 valuable timber have been cut off; and they 

 who cater for the timber market have receded 

 almost out of sight, ere they could find further 

 supplies. Maine, once by way of distinction 

 termed the White Pine State, is now denuded; 

 and mills erected for manufacturing pine lum- 

 ber are content to saw spruce logs less than a 

 foot in diameter; and to-day, were it not for 

 the paralysis which has seized on industry, the 

 price of white pine would be at least several 

 times greater than ever within the memory of 

 those whom I now address. 



The same condition of affairs applies to 

 hemlock, one of our valuable American trees, 

 which, like the buffalo, is recklessly slaugh- 

 tered for its hide, until shortly it must cease 

 to exist upon our continent, unless the prac- 

 tice of this generation be radically changed. 

 How sad to know that the noble hemlock is 

 thus ruthlessly cut down for tlie simple bark 

 which encases it — itself, many times left to lie 

 and rot, a monument, perishable fortunatcl}-, 

 of the profligacy of man, who, to supply a 

 present want, recklessly destroys that which 

 should be the invaluable heritage of his chil- 

 dren. 



Now, where is all this to stop ? Legislation 

 cannot be invoked to correct the evil. A man 

 has a right to do in these particulars as his 

 ideas of private interest prompts ; and unless 

 by moral suasion, and the argument be suc- 

 cessfully enforced, that he is killing his own 

 goose which is laying golden eggs, the error 

 will doubtless go on to the bitter end ; until 

 every primitive tree within reach of market 

 has been laid low, disregarding the fact that 

 the annual increase in cubic contents and the 

 certainty of enhanced prices present the best 

 investment the present money values could be 

 placed in. Fortunately, those of us who re- 

 side upon the seaboard have a resource not 

 likely to fail ; and the more especially not 



likely, in view of the large areas of once tilled 

 land now being re-clothed Ijy forests. I refer 

 to the Southern Fine, of which there are sev- ' 

 eral si>ecies, each of value in the departments | 

 of the coarser arts. 



Those who, less than a quarter of a century 

 ago, traversed our sealioard, beginning at 

 Portsmouth, Virginia, and extended their i 

 route through the Carolinas, Georgia, and on- • 

 ward, could not fail, it is said, to be forcibly 

 imiiressed by the apparently interminable 

 forests of this valuable timlier — stately trees 

 in absolutely countless numbers — each repre- 

 senting a value which to a northern eve could 

 be as surely estimated as the sheep ontbe hill- 

 side, or the cattle on the broad prairies. Alas ! 

 in most cases the denizens of these road-side 

 forests have disai)]ieared ; and he who now 

 makes the journey to whicli I have referred 

 will find on tens of thousands of broad acres 

 only the blackened and charred stum|)s of 

 those once stately trees— the needs of the 

 pa.ssing hour having compelled their improvi- 

 dent owners to convert them into ready 

 money. AVe have only, however, to advance 

 inward, westward of the coast line a few 

 miles, to find ample store of similar timber, 

 which lateral railroads are piercing ; paving 

 the way, as it were, towards the marts of the 

 great cities. Happily, to restore the exhaus- 

 tion of yearly demands, acres upon acres of 

 corn and cotton fields, worn out by reckless 

 tillage, and abandoned by the plough, are be- 

 ing reclotlied by nature, to be sources of sup- 

 ply of yellow pine timber of immediately suc- 

 ceeding and future generations. For this spe- 

 cial variety nature is thus makivg ample jjrovis- 

 ion. So readily does it, the yellow puie, make 

 itself at home in light or sandy soil, that within 

 the memory of man the lower county of Dela- 

 ware, and the peninsula bounded by the Ches- 

 apeake and Delaware Bays has been made the 

 favorite locality of the common yellow pine, 

 which has attained sufficient dimensions with- 

 in the period referred to, to be cut for saw- 

 logs — and this in a district of country where 

 previously pine was absolutely unknown; the 

 forests being exclusively of hard wooded trees. 

 But we need other than yellow pine lumber; 

 good as it is, it does not supply every want, 

 and unless the science and practice of forestry 

 be taught, those wants are destined to go un- 

 supplied. It is to this special point I desire to 

 invite attention, and in connection with it, 

 and the subject of white pine in its northern 

 habitat, I will here relate a fact which may, I 

 feel confident is, destined to exert an import- 

 ant influence on the future sources of supply; 

 indeed I do not hesitate to predict may prove 

 the starting point to interests of fabulous ex- 

 tent, in the light of which cotton itself as a 

 product exclusive to the South, may lose some- 

 what of its lu.stre. A gentleman of Virginia, 

 a friend of mine lartrely interested in lands, a 

 shipper of timber from the sea-board, there- 

 fore not inexperienced, discovered in his forest 

 explorations what, for want of a better term, 

 I shall call a ivhiiepine settlement, in the dense 

 yellow pine forests of the northern neck of his 

 State, in the midst of a group of white i)ines, 

 extending over an area of five or six acres, 

 stood a gigantic individual tree ninety-six feet 

 high, eight feet four inches in circumference, 

 three feet from the ground. There it stood 

 and stands to-day, surrounded by seedlings 

 from forty feet high down to seedlings of a 

 year old, as the boundaries of the settlement 

 are reached, ninnbering i)i the whole three to 

 foin- thousand. 



Here is a fiict which cannot be questioned. 

 It is like the testimony of the rocks. A bird 

 of i)assage had evidently dropped a solitary 

 seed at some period long preceding, which 

 springing up had estalilished itself in its new 

 home, far distant from the region where nature 

 had placed its ancestors. The mere fact itself 

 of a white pine having fixed its abode and 

 prospered in ;i remote localif^ is but a trifle — 

 a circumstance of but little practical signifi- 

 cance ; but taken in connection with inferences 

 not to be ignored, its value can hardly be 

 over-estimated. The proof is made patent 

 that, this tree of northern habit thrives equally 



