No. 4.] TBIBER AS A CROP. 37 



A ujo^t remarkable instance is that of a family by the 

 name of Athol, who owned a large tract in Northern Scot- 

 land, ten thousand acres of miserable land, as poor as any- 

 thing in New Hampshire, where the lumber had been cut off. 

 The family was very poor, and it is said that the man com- 

 menced to plant Scotch larches. It is said that he planted a 

 million or more a year, two or three million, perhaps, of 

 trees a year ; at least, he covered some forty or fifty thou- 

 sand acres of laud with the Scotc^h larches, and greatly en- 

 riched that family. They built ships entirely of those 

 larches. 



The larch is one of the finest trees that we can raise in 

 Massachusetts. AVe need not be confined to white pines. 

 My neighbor, Mr. Hadwen, once wanted some pieces of 

 timber in building a barn. Out of a row of trees which 

 screened his land from the main road going into Worcester 

 ^tere twenty Scotch larches, which squared eight inches at 

 the small end and thirty feet long, that he had planted there 

 himself, and that had grown there almost unobserved by him. 

 He did not cut them nor think of them until he had visited 

 every lumber yard in the region to try to get lumber of this 

 size. 



Mr. Pratt. I wish to take a little exception, when he 

 says that men will not plant to enrich themselves. 



Mr. Russell. Your family is the only exception. 



Mr. Lyman. How about the larches you mentioned ? 



Mr. Pratt. I have for several years received my spend- 

 ing money from cutting trees for pine lumber, raised from 

 seed that I planted with my own hand. For the last seven 

 3'ear8 I have been cutting from year to year an acre each 

 year, which will produce from forty to fifty cords of box logs, 

 averaging five and one-half to six dollars a cord, beside pine 

 wood, which does considerable towards paying for the cut- 

 ting. I have to-day a piece containing five acres which I 

 would be pleased to have any gentleman look at, which I 

 have not yet cut, that I had the curiosity to examine last 

 week and measure some of the trees. Of course I picked 

 out good trees, of large size. Some measured six feet and 

 six inches in circumference, others from five and five and a 

 half to six feet. 



