i64 BEACH GRASS 



The first spring I transplanted pitch pines and 

 shad bushes, red cedars and gray birches by canoe, 

 or laboriously in bags on my back from the sand 

 dunes and the surrounding pastures and planted 

 them at random in the grass. It was a hot and 

 dry summer and nearly all of these died. 

 Nothing daunted I devised the following winter 

 a more active campaign, read all I could find on 

 the forestation of waste lands, obtained cata- 

 logues of tree nurseries, drew elaborate plans for 

 planting, with irregular openings and vistas 

 among the trees, which in my mind's eye I could 

 see spreading out over my head. My forest oc- 

 cupied much of my thoughts. 



By intensive work on occasional week-ends and 

 holidays that spring I managed to plant 1400 

 spindling trees, not over one or two feet high, in 

 the forest, and about a thousand similar trees in 

 rows by an old hawthorn hedge. The latter con- 

 stituted my nursery from which I was to draw 

 later. Nearly all the work I did myself, but I 

 had a little help at times from an ancient gar- 

 dener from the village, whose knowledge in these 

 matters and flow of words was limitless. With 



