6 TREES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
stand. The new settlers are glad to shelter their habitations 
under the lea of the spurs of forest which stretch like promon- 
tories into the prairie lands. A forest near the coast, in any 
part of New England, protects those farther inland from the 
chilling east winds; and, while such winds prevail, a person 
passing towards the sea, experiences a marked change of tem- 
perature, upon crossing the last wood and especially the last 
wood-covered hill. One who would have his house screened 
from the northerly winds, must take care to have behind it a hill 
crowned with trees, or at least to have a wood stretching from 
the northwest to the northeast. A garden surrounded by tall 
trees admits the cultivation, even in our severe climate, of plants 
almost tropical. 
Forests not only protect from winds; they must prevent their 
formation. ‘The air resting over a broken surface cannot be 
rapidly heated to a uniformly high temperature, so as to rise 
upwards in great masses and create a violent wind.* 
4. As adding to the beauty of a country, the forests are of 
the utmost importance. A country destitute of them cannot 
be in the highest degree beautiful. If the green hills of Berk- 
* A writer in the 6th volume of the N. E. Farmer, says, “It is not merely in 
forests, nor as supplying fire wood and timber that trees are valuable. ‘ Consid- 
ered agriculturally,’ says an English writer, ‘the advantages to be derived from 
subdividing extensive tracts of country by plantations are evidently great, whether 
considered m the hght of affording immediate shelter to the lands, or in that of 
improving the local climate.’ The fact that the climate may be thus improved, 
has, in very many instances, been sufficiently established. It is indeed astonish- 
ing how much better cattle thrive in fields even but moderately sheltered, than they 
do in an open, exposed country. In the breeding of cattle, a sheltered farm, or a 
sheltered corner in a farm, is a thing much prized; and in instances where fields 
are taken by the season for the purpose of fattening cattle, those most sheltered 
never fail to bring the highest rents. .. . Dr. Deane has observed, ‘pasture lands 
should be well fenced, in small lots, . . . and these lots should be bordered at 
least, with rows of trees. It is best that trees of some kind or other should be 
growing scattered in every point of a pasture, so that cattle may never have far to 
go, in @ hot hour, to obtain a comfortable shade.” 
‘‘ Small lots, thus sheltered, are not left bare of snow so early in the spring as 
larger ones lying bare; since fences and trees cause more of it to remain on the 
ground. The cold winds m March and April hurt the grass much when the 
ground is bare; and the winds in winter will not suffer snow to lie deep in land 
that is too open to the rake of winds and storms.”—N. FE. F., VI., 350. 
