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Germany, and all classes there appreciate their value and the 

 need of protecting them. Browsing and pasturage in certain 

 limits are prohibited, and yet the forests are not fenced. Simple 

 marks designate where cattle may pasture and where they 

 may not, and an intelligent public sentiment is a better 

 guardian of the national or communal forests than of&cial 

 watchers or national police. 



In some portions of Germany the law formerly required 

 every landholder to plant trees along his road frontage. 

 Happy would it be for us if the sovereigns of our soil would 

 make each such a law for himself. Happy, also, if the law 

 of usage, fashion, or interest here, as did the civil law there, 

 required that every young man before he married should 

 plant a tree. In some of our Western States tree-planting 

 by the road-side is encouraged by a bounty from the State 

 treasury, and in the fields by both a bounty and exemption 

 from taxation for a term of years. The law in Minnesota 

 provides that " every person planting, protecting and cultiva- 

 ting forest trees for three years, one-half mile or more along 

 any public highway, shall be entitled to receive for ten years 

 thereafter an annual bounty of two dollars for each half-mile 

 so planted and cultivated, to be paid out of the State treasury ; 

 but such bounty shall not be paid any longer than such line 

 of trees is maintained." If I may be pardoned for repeating 

 a personal allusion, the maples which I planted, when a mere 

 boy, before the old homestead in Litchfield county, are now 

 beautiful and stately trees. As I have often said, they have paid 

 me a thousand-fold for the work they cost, and added new 

 charms to that beautiful spot, to which I count it a privilege 

 to make an annual visit. Among the memories of my boy- 

 hood, no day has recurred with such frequency and satisfaction 

 as that then devoted to tree-planting. My interest in the 

 subject is due to this incident (or perhaps accident) of my 

 boyhood. I should be thankful if I could help put a similar 

 incident, and an equally grateful experience, into the child- 

 hood of our boys of to-day. In this good work may I earn- 

 estly bespeak the cooperation of the farmers of Connecticut. 



In tree-planting, the economic and ornamental touch at so 



