XXVIill INTRODUCTION. 
and take up the subject where others have laid it down, 
showing how to cultivate and grow forest-trees as fruit- 
trees are now grown. 
I soon found the task I had set myself was a most 
difficult one, for there were no forest-tree nurserymen, 
and no one willing to become such. They only laughed 
at the idea of planting oaks, elms, pines, and such “ wild 
trees” as they called them. When the facts were sought 
to be laid before the people they too laughed at me, and 
the newspapers called me an alarmist, and scoffed at the 
idea of our forests giving out, or new ones being planted. 
I was recommended to sow the Alleghany Mountains 
with clover-seed, and plant the fence corners with sassa- 
fras for old women’s tea. My articles were denounced 
as the impracticable vaporings of a madman, and I was 
even refused a hearing by such respectable journalists as 
J.W. Forney and Morton McMichael. . A few thinking 
men, however, saw in the subject more than was indi- 
cated on the surface, and they slowly came to the sup- 
port of our projects. One of the earliest to take up his 
pen and help was the late William Cullen Bryant, the 
greatest of our American poets. Then came his amiable 
and able nephew, Charles Bryant, with his excellent book 
on “ Forest Trees,” and Browne, with his elaborate work 
on “Trees of America.’ George Pinney of Wisconsin fol- 
lowed, establishing his “Tree Grower,” and later, James 
T. Allen wrote and published his pamphlet on “ Forest 
Growing in Nebraska,” and then came J. F. Tallant of 
Iowa, George W. Minor of Illinois, Herman Trott of Min- 
nesota, R. 8. Ellicott of Missouri, Daniel Milliken of Ohio, 
Honorable Calvin Chambers of Maine, J. Sterling Mor- 
ton of Nebraska, and others. This able corps of writers 
and workers soon silenced the scoffers at American for- 
