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stick, as they hare no means to get more ; this man wishes wood was plentier. 

 The owner of the half section of prairie, whose house and barn is all un- 

 sheltred, and whose wood lot is two miles away, feels the need of trees 

 nearer home. More than all these, the man of reflection, who from the 

 past reads the future, and sees how the scattering groves are melting away 

 before the axe ; how every seed gathered by the hogs, or the young tree that 

 starts into existence is eaten off by the cows and sheep, and the very roots 

 dug up to convert the place where the small trees grew into a pasture, sees 

 the want of wood that is surely pressing on the people. He sees the famine 

 of wood that is as certain to follow this waste, as is the famine of bread to 

 succeed the failure of grain. All see the necessity, the want, the danger, 

 but know not, or say they know not the remedy ; or they ask, where are the 

 million, of trees to come from to supply this want — to cover the acres required 

 for growing fuel and timber. To produce the timber belts all over the land ? 

 Two words answers the inquiry — " orow them." 



Yes, plant the seeds, and the snows and rains, the sunlight and the dews, 

 will make them germinate, and the genial soil will make them into trees, 

 each " after his kind." Plant the little floating seed, that in June falls like 

 a snow-flake, yet contains the germ of the elm, and in after years, but within 

 the period of a man's existence, its long arms will stretch over an eighth of an 

 acre, and it will give cords of wood. The acorn rescued from the paw of the 

 squirl, the craw of the pigeon, or the jaw of the hog, will, in the same time, 

 become the "giant of the forest," if it be planted in October but one inch 

 under the light soil, and tended for four short seasons. 



" But I can't wait, I want the trees to-day." Who asks you to wait ? Men 

 and trees are things of time ; and time moves in spite of you. Plant the 

 next seed that ripens, and in ten years afterwards, while you are making up 

 your mindj whether you had better wait a few years for them to grow or not, 

 there will be another to-day, and you will have the tree you desired ten years 

 before, without waiting at all. Time has made the germ into a tree — the 

 rows of little seeds into timber-belts. Then, delay no longer. Begin now. 



How often do we meet with men, who with abundance of means will tell 

 us, that they would like above all things to have the trees growing. They 

 care nothing for the expense — nothing for the narrow strip of land on which 

 they are to grow, but they cannot wait so long ! These men have made this 

 same excuse for the last ten, fifteen or twenty years, and still not a tree 

 is planted — still the wmd howls over their fields and buildings bleaker than 

 when they settled on their present farms, because they or their neighbors 

 have cleared away the scattering burr oaks, that gave them some shelter — 

 still they go miles for the fuel they burn. They have from the very first felt 

 the same want of the trees, the belt of timber, the protection, but they have 

 waited and hesitated years enough to have had to-day jnst what they so much 

 clesire. Iiet such wait no longer. Let the seeds be bat planted and while 



