PLYMOUTH SOCIETY. 121 



With regard to the forest trees of quick growth, and which 

 will flourish in a comparatively barren soil, it is no longer 

 thought, as was formerly the case, a monomaniacal business to 

 sow and protect them. There seems, at present, a good measure 

 of zeal on this subject. Four claims have been entered to the 

 premiums proposed to be paid in 1852, for forest trees more than 

 five years old. The land selected by the applicants generally 

 is such as yields no profit at present ; grain has been sown on it 

 till it refuses to grow ; the several lots are in good condition to 

 seed with pine and birch. If the applicants do their work 

 faithfully, it is presmned they will succeed in obtaining premi- 

 ums, and, what is far better, will permanently enhance the value 

 of their farms. The sowing of forest trees should not be con- 

 fined to competitors for premiums ; it should form a part of the 

 autumnal business of all farmers who possess fields that have 

 been exhausted Avith grain crops, and the number of these 

 farmers in this county is great. We earnestly invite them to 

 abandon endeavors to raise grain and grass Avhere little or 

 nothing more than the value of the seed applied can be obtained. 

 Convert the fields into forests ; beautiful ones can be formed 

 within fifteen years. The time has passed for any just dread 

 of too extensive a wilderness here. Our shops of arts, our do- 

 mestic fires and numerous steam-engines will require sufficient 

 annual openings to prevent the generation of miasmata, or the 

 formation of secure coverts for dangerous reptiles and beasts of 

 prey. The aspects in the county will not only be improved, but 

 greatly beautified, when our plains shall be covered with wood 

 and timber, and our valleys loaded with grass and grain. 



We think there must be something like a philosophical system 

 of interspersing woods and cultivated fields, or the variableness 

 of this climate will often disappoint the hopes of the husband- 

 man. It is highly proper that this work should commence, and 

 have rapid progress, in this early settled county, where so much 

 of the territory has been laid bare of forest, and, from proximity 

 to the sea, it is exposed to the full influence of every change in 

 wind and weather. We are confident that a judicious bordering 

 of our cultivated fields generally with trees, would render the 

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