3. CENTRE TOWNSHIP. F 2 . 175 



plow. Here cultivation usually ceases, the soil being too 

 thin to repay the labor. 



Continual plowing of the hillsides for many years has also 

 been attended by its usual consequence. The soil has been 

 thrown down-hill one furrow's breadth every time, and the 

 higher part gradually bared to the rock. The soft soil ex- 

 posed on a steep slope has been washed by the rain to 

 lower ground, so that many hill-fields formerly cultivated 

 have been abandoned, and are now going back to forest and 

 becoming covered with a new growth of scrub pine (P. in- 

 ops.) This is the best use to make of such land. The 

 ridges and hills of Perry county if carefully managed by 

 men skilled in woodcraft would yield a better harvest with 

 less labor than can ever be obtained from them by the use 

 of the plow. The present plan of cutting them over occa- 

 sionally — clearing them and coaling the wood — is not the 

 most profitable method of turning forest land to account. 

 While it is not probable that the most valuable kinds of 

 timber, such as black walnut, will ever be grown, except in 

 some lowlands in the county, yet the hills would yield un- 

 der good management perennial crops of white oak, maple, 

 and chestnut, becoming every year of greater value in con- 

 sequence of the growing scarcity of wood. Many of them 

 might also be planted with the white pine and locust, and 

 would yield a speedier return. 



It might be quite worth the cost and labor of the experi- 

 ment to attempt the introduction of the European larch, 

 (P. larix.) a tree which grows rapidly on dry hillsides 

 and yields a timber of great value. Many thousand acres 

 of waste mountain land in Scotland have been thus con- 

 verted from desolate, almost worthless property, into green 

 and wood-clad slopes and craigs, yielding their planters 

 (the Dukes of Athol) a revenue that could have been ob- 

 tained from them in no other way. The disease now pre- 

 vailing among the larch plantations of Scotland may also 

 contribute to render its growth of greater importance in 

 America. Care should however be taken to avoid importing 

 the parasite, lest as has happened in several similar cases 

 the mischief should exceed the gain. 



