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tigiate oak, the curved apex of some weeping and curious kind 

 of tree, blending in harmony, is extremely pleasing. 



Thfe |:jlanting of shade trees for the comfort and use of cattle, 

 if not an entire novelty, is yet a combination of good taste and 

 humanity. Some such a plan as begun by Dr. K., could be 

 usefully pursued on any farm, and on some where the appear- 

 ance and effect would be a secondary consideration. To con- 

 vert rough and scorched pastures into sweet and attractive 

 spots for man and beast, by grouping a few well and carefully 

 planted shade trees, such as the broad limbed willows, or a fine 

 thrifty elm, or the several maples at every one's command, 

 would be worth the time that is sometimes spent very unprofi- 

 tably at the grocery or some village resort. Then there are 

 other rapid growing trees, which will thrive where grass will 

 not even grow ; and the beneficial effects on thin, poor soils, of 

 planting the yellow locust, were years ago noticed and com- 

 mented on by an honored member of your Society, whose name 

 is yet repeated with affection in many a farm-house of Essex 

 County. A noble tree of the canoe or paper birch, brought 

 from New Hampshire, stands in the pasture ground of one of 

 the oldest farms in Danvers — a specimen worth any one's 

 while to visit. 



I trust, if by the generosity of the Society, such efforts as 

 Dr. K.'s should meet with favor, and the expression of the 

 sense of their value be made by award of its first premium, 

 that repeated invitations to visit other plantations of a similar 

 or even more limited kind, would occur. 



The value of the timber trees, whether of foreign or of na- 

 tive species, in a social and commercial point of view, should 

 prompt the farmers of Essex county to experiment on these 

 sorts of crops. The sturdy and weather beaten stumps and 

 fragments of oaks yet to be seen on the rough jDastures between 

 Rowley and Newburyport, attest to the early character of that 

 region for timber. In other sections of the State, I have met 

 with similar ruins of beech woods, which seem to invite labor 

 to reclothe the land with such vegetation. The Scotch larch^ 



