112 



patient with every sort of tree -which will please to grow where 

 nothing else could readily be made to thrive. 



A farm that has the misfortune to have fields once cultivated, 

 but afterwards overspread by drifts and heaps of loose sand, need 

 not allow further increase of so dire an evil. To say nothing of the 

 probability of growing the white birch (^Betula popuUfolia) upon 

 it, the pitch pines (^Pinus rigid(i) and white pines (P. strohus) 

 and even the red pines (P. resmosa,^ sometimes called the Nor- 

 way pine, can be most readily planted and raised. I have seen 

 such fields, in part, redeemed by this process ; and a very few 

 years were found to be sufficient to clothe with perennial green- 

 ery, these waste and sterile sand drifts. All sorts of evergreen 

 trees and shrubs should be taken up for transplanting after they 

 have begun to grow, and the new growth should be three or four 

 inches long. With pine trees, this occurs about the middle of 

 June. I am familiar with an instance in which nearly an hun- 

 dred pitch pines and a few white pines were planted out by a few 

 hours' labor, and which all grew with remarkable celerity and 

 vigor. By and by, the loose sand became bound together by 

 their roots, and its surface so deeply carpeted by its dry and per- 

 sistent needle-shaped leaves, as to stop any further drifting or 

 changes. The pitch pine has been successfully planted out at 

 Nantucket, where the bleakest winds render almost every tree- 

 growth a difficult matter ; and if these experiments were instituted 

 by some public measures, it would not be long before that island 

 would be clothed again with a thick forest growth, such as were 

 roamed in by its Indian tribes before the white man came and strip- 

 ped its leafy honors. I was once shown a single red pine tree, which 

 stood on the edge of an old rye field, from which, in about forty 

 years, a respectable forest of its progeny had sprung up around 

 it, and rewarded the careless spirit of letting it alone in its work, 

 by its industrious yearly increase. 



The white birch has been incidentally mentioned among the 

 kinds of trees well fitted for a poor soil. According to my obser- 

 vation, it seems best adapted to the second division, viz. — to 

 gravel and gravelly ridges. This tree is, usually, near the sea 

 coast, of a small size, but still it is of economical value. It grows 

 very fast. A friend, who has much of it upon portions of his 

 farm, assures me that he considers it as one of his best crops. 

 He cuts, for market, the young stems dowa to the roots, as often 

 as they are of sufficient size for hoops of nail casks. I have re- 

 peatedly noticed that white birches spring up very thick and readily 

 from seed self-sown by the Avinds, upon the quicksand often found 

 under those small, gravelly hillocks, when they have been removed 

 to fill with their material some lower spot, or in making embank- 

 ments. The same facility of growing is noticeable in the old cart- 

 paths and in grassy pastures, where the sod has been abraded 



