x PREFACE. 
Reed, W. Raymond Lee, of Boston, and A. E. Swasey, of 
Taunton, I received facilities in ascertaining the quantity of 
wood consumed on rail-roads; and from my friends, TT. B. 
Curtis, of Boston, and H. Kingsbury, of Kennebunk, Me., let- 
ters containing valuable information in regard to the kinds and 
quantities of wood employed in ship-building. 
To my friends, Dr. O. W. Holmes, whose poetical eye is also 
an eye for trees, and J. J. Dixwell, who knows how to represent 
them, I am indebted for numerous measurements of trees; and 
to my learned friend Dr. A. A. Gould, who, to his other attain- 
ments in natural science, unites a familiar knowledge of botany, 
{ am particularly indebted for most important advice and assist- 
ance in very many instances. 
In the ship-yards in Boston, New Bedford and other towns 
in the State, and the numerous saw-mills, machine-shops, and 
manufactories of furniture, of agricultural implements, and of all 
other articles of wood, and on the farms and wood-lots in all 
parts of the Commonwealth, whither I went, in almost all in- 
stances, a stranger, to make inquiries,—every where, with one 
solitary exception, 1 was very civilly received, and had my ques- 
tions answered with the greatest kindness and intelligence; and 
every where I found a readiness to furnish me, or let me furnish 
myself, with specimens of the flowers, leaves, fruit and wood of 
the trees I was examining. ‘To all persons from whom I have 
received these acts of kindness, I would here make my cordial 
acknowledgments. I shall always esteem it one of the best fruits 
of my labors in this Survey, that they have brought me better 
acquainted than I otherwise could have been, with the intelli- 
gence, hospitality, and good and kind manners of the com- 
mon people in every part of the State. If there are better 
manners and a higher intelligence among the people in other 
countries, I should like to travel amongst them; but I very 
much doubt whether, in any country on which the sun shines, 
there are, amongst the people in common life, more of those qual- 
ities which are always pleasant to meet with, delightful to re- 
member, and most honorable to our common humanity to record, 
than are found among the independent mechanics and yeomanry 
of Massachusetts. 
