POKESTTEEES. 73 



REPORT ON FOREST TREES- 



BY iEANDEK WETHEKELL. 



NoTAviTHSTAXDiNG the liberal premium offered from year to year 

 by the Society for the best plantation of forest trees, consisling of 

 white oak, yellow oak, locust, white ash, or white pine, not more than 

 three years old, and of not less than one thousand trees, produced 

 from seed, no competitors have yet appeared to claim it. Now if he 

 is worthy of being called a benefactor, who makes two blades of grass 

 grow where but one grew before, then should he be called a good 

 economist, to say the least, who causes to grow three thousand white 

 pines on a sandy acre, that has not produced a single blade of grass, 

 for a quarter of a century. 



The whole area of the State, is said to contain four million four 

 hundred and ninety-one thousand eight hundred ajid twelve acres ; of 

 this, according to the returns made about ten years since, from which 

 we copy, there were, seven hundred and twenty-nine thousand sevcR 

 hundred and ninety-two acres of woodlands ; besides this there were 

 reported, nine hundred and ninety-five thousand acres of unimproved 

 lands, and three hundred and sixty thousand of unimprovable (?) — in 

 all, two million forty-four thousand seven hundred and ninety- two 

 acres, or nearly one-half of the entire area of the State not under im- 

 provement — a remarkable fact, it would seem, in one of the oldest, and 

 most densely populated States in the Union- 

 It is deemed fair to state, that, a large share of this unimproved 

 and what is denominated unimprovable land, may be rendered pro- 

 ductive by planting suitable seeds of native trees. The number of 

 species of native timber trees in Massachusetts, is greater than that of 

 any kingdom in Europe. Of the oak species, there are nine, of 

 hickories four, birches five, maples three, ashes three, pines three, 

 walnuts two, elms two, spruces two, cedars two, besides the beech, 

 chestnut, hornbeam, lever-wood, tupelo, nettle-tree, tulip, plane, bass, 

 locust, hemlock, fir, hacmatack, cherry, holly, poplars, willows and 

 numerous smaller trees. In addition to these, thei^e arc many of the 

 species of Europe that will grow here, besides others in the Middle 

 and Western States. In view of this great number of timber and 

 wood producing species, nearly every kind of unimproved, including 



10 



