94 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
preparations of fencing, clearing (where that was necessary), 
making roads, and procuring plants from different nurserymen, 
occupied the time till October, 1825, when the planting com- 
menced, and was carried on in such good earnest, that the whole 
was finished by December, 1826.” 
“The planting of this forest appears to have terminated the 
labors of the duke in planting.” He and his predecessors had 
planted more than fourteen millions of larch plants, occupying 
over ten thousand English acres. It has been estimated, that 
the whole forest on mountain ground, planted entirely with 
larch, about six thousand five hundred Scotch acres, wil, in 
seventy-two years from the time of planting, be a forest of tim- 
ber fit for building the largest ships. Before being cut down 
for this purpose, it will have been thinned to about four hundred 
trees to an acre. Supposing each tree to yield fifty cubic feet 
of timber, its value, at a shilling a foot, (one-half the present 
value), will give £1000 an acre, or m all, a sum of £6,500,000 
sterling. Besides this, there will have been the value of the 
thinnings, and the increased value of the whole ground for 
pasturage. 
This effect upon the land in improving it for pasturage is 
very important. If the larch trees are planted close, they will 
choke the bushes and natural grasses. This may be effected 
in ten or fifteen years. After this, gradual thinnings may be 
accompanied by the introduction of all the most valuable cul- 
tivated grasses, which, under the cover of the larches, will 
flourish ‘‘ with the foliage possessing a softness and luxuriance 
not posessed in other situations.” 
There are large surfaces, particularly in Essex and Bristol 
counties, of bleak, rocky, barren hills, or wet plains, not so 
exposed as that spoken of above, but almost equally useless, 
which might doubtless be redeemed by a similar process. We 
have now to send to the southern states and to New York and 
Maine, for a great portion of our ship-timber. Of this the live 
oak and white oak alone are superior to larch, and for many 
purposes they are only equal to it. In seventy years, the ship- 
yards on Mystic River and on Buzzard’s Bay, might be sup- 
plied with timber from the neighboring shores, if the land suit- 
