clxx INTRODUCTION. 



protected his fields through a long series of years from insect depredators, much more than compensated 

 for the few corn-hills torn up by the enemy of the grub-worm, nor dissuaded by the representation 

 of its benefits in supplying shade to his cattle. His plea was, that if we had experienced like labor 

 with himself in eradicating the original forest, we would not manifest such fondness for trees. &quot;Were 

 the half of that farm now possessed of so much of its &quot;original forest&quot; as might have been preserved, 

 without any restriction of its uses for necessary purposes, it would be worth double the present value 

 of his entire estate, while we doubt not that the other half would have yielded more income than he 

 has derived from the whole, and have increased in value. No one better understood the importance 

 of belts of timber as protection against the inroads of fever, than the judicious and philosophic Dr. 

 Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, who in 1798 assigns one cause for &quot;the unusually sickly character of 

 Philadelphia after the year 1778&quot; to the &quot;meadows being overflowed to the southward of the city, and 

 the cutting down by the British army of the trees which formerly sheltered the city from the exha 

 lations of the ground.&quot;* 



Dr. Rush refers to the fact of residences in the southern country becoming untenable from like 

 causes the cutting down of groves near dwellings. Through ignorance and want of taste, labor and 

 expense are thus misappropriated, producing injurious consequences, not only to the present but to 

 future generations. Every well-managed farm should support sufficient timber to admit of an abundant 

 present supply for all necessary purposes of fuel, fencing and building, without reducing the quantity 

 necessary for like uses by posterity, and by the exercise of discretion the amount of land appropriated 

 to this end will be found less than is generally supposed, although, judging from the too general practice, 

 it would appear as if we presumed that posterity would have but little use for timber. Apart from the 

 increasing value of timber in every section of our country, our farmers do not seem to comprehend that 

 they arc destroying that which in a little time would prove the most attractive feature of their estates. 

 Groves restrain the sweeping winds in winter from divesting the surface of that soft and protecting 

 covering and important fertilizer, the snow, the gradual melting of which in spring converts the stones 

 into food for plants, while in the summer they supply an invisible but important moisture to the crops, 

 and in the heated day enable them to enjoy the full advantage of the dews of night, and supply agree 

 able places of recreation for developing the intellects and bodies of our children, ever associating with 

 their minds through life, recollections of pleasures the happiest of their existence, which made home a 

 place of joyous contentment. And who that has experienced the pleasure, would exchange it for that 

 derivable from other examples of practical operations, the gratification yielded by mature, beautiful 

 forest trees which he preserved, protected, and pruned when they were but unseemly shrubs, especially 

 when his children and their children derive from them their happiest annual enjoyments I He whose 

 farm is destitute of groves should procure or plant them at once, being encouraged by the fact that 

 from the seed, with good attention, he may have nut-bearing chestnut trees in eight years ; and while 

 your houses and barns are failing, these will be improving. But in addition to the luxury, ornament, 

 and value of groves, wherever they are cherished with proper attention, they confer a dignity upon 

 their possessor and ennoble the pursuit of agriculture. That was a sage injunction of the dying Scotch 

 laird to his son : &quot;Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be 

 growing, Jock, when y re sleeping;&quot; words of wisdom &quot;tauld&quot; him by his father, &quot;sae forty years, 

 sin;&quot; but which he regretfully confessed not to have heeded. 



While treating of this subject we cannot refrain from reference to that bad taste, so frequently 

 exhibited, of introducing exotics for ornament, or to supply shade, to the neglect of the beautiful native 

 forest trees, which are so easy to be obtained by all not that we have any objection to such, under 

 appropriate circumstances, but to adopt them to the exclusion of the more attractive and useful trees 

 with which our forests abound, betrays a want of taste as well as deficiency in judgment. 



* Medical luquiries aud Observations : Philadelphia, 1789, p. 86. 



