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Francis SJcmner, BrooJcUne, a Trustee of Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agri- 

 culture. I will receiye and transmit orders for any number of trees for plantations in 

 Connecticut to Douglas & Sons, Waukegan, Illinois. By arrangement with them, 

 such orders transmitted through you are subject to fifteen per cent, discount from 

 the catalogue prices, and such orders can be transmitted up to April 1st, except 

 for European larch, for which the closing time will be March 1st. "We are filling 

 our Massachusetts orders from Douglas & Sons in preference to importing from 

 England, as they are cheaper when ordered in large quantities, and the chances 

 of their success far greater. American white ash, one or two years old and about 

 one foot high, are from $3 to $5.50 per thousand ; European larch from ^4 to $8 

 per thousand. As this duty is undertaken solely from a desire to facilitate tree- 

 planting, and not for the purpose of any personal gain, I cannot be held respon- 

 sible in any v;ay for the results. 



A. W. HoUey, Salisbury, Conn. — The consumption of wood in this and sur- 

 rounding towns has been very great in supplying charcoal to our numerous iroa 

 works. Some of the mountains have been stripped of their trees three times 

 within the last century. The second growth was rapid. Each subsequent one 

 has been less vigorous and less rapid. Other varieties, aided by artificial means, 

 such as seeding, placing cuttings, or transplanting the young trees, might soon 

 render our mountains valuable again for the production of forests. Our land- 

 owners have not paid sufficient attention to the propagation of trees. The 

 denudation of the mountains in Salisbury have lessened our streams. In the 

 season of rain there is a more rapid rise and a greater flood than formerly when 

 the forests were standing and the foliage and falling limbs lay quietly covering 

 the earth beneath. Many smaller streams which flowed continuously through 

 the entire season forty or fifty years ago, fail altogether in the summer, and the 

 larger ones are proportionately diminished. Your suggestions in regard to fer- 

 tilizing our sandy plains are practical, and should be carried out. 



Experiments are now in progress to fix the dunes or sand 

 hills which threaten the Suez Canal, by planting the maritime 

 pine and other trees. Last summer I visited the celebrated 

 forest of Fontainbleau, in France, which covers an area of 

 sixty-four square miles. The soil of this wide tract is com- 

 posed almost entirely of sand, and apparently as dry as the 

 sand plains of Wallingford. Jules Clare, a student of forest 

 science of world-wide fame, says : " The sand here forms 

 ninety-eight per cent, of the earth, and it is almost without 

 water ; it would be a drifting desert but for the trees growing 

 and artificially propagated upon it." What has been done 

 with signal success at Fontainbleau shows the practicability 

 of reclaiming the worst deserts that can be found in our 

 State. Many other facts might be cited were it necessary, 

 both from home and foreign fields, to prove the feasibility of 

 this plan of reclaiming sterile lands. If one is to be com- 

 mended who makes two blades of grass grow where but one 

 grew before, how much more the farmer who makes forests 

 thrive where nothing now grows. 



