V 



The Sassafras. 



I remember seeing one, in New Jersey, with not less, I am 

 sure, tlian five hundred wagon loads of the exhausted bark 

 lying in the neighbourhood of the building. Our Custom- 

 tariff shows that we import a great deal ; and, if it can be 

 produced here, out of our own land, no political economist 

 that ever crossed the Tweed shall make me believe that it 

 would not be better for us to do this, than to send English 

 manufactures, paid for in great part out of the poor-rates, 

 to be exchanged for this article in America. 



495. After all, however, with me the great recommen- 

 dation is, the singular beauty of the tree. It sometimes, in 

 good land, attains the height of forty or fifty feet, but it 

 does not grow veiy fast after the first six or seven years 5 

 and, therefore, as timber, it is excelled by so many other 

 trees, and, as underwood, it being good for nothing, the 

 Sassafras cannot be spoken of as a tenant of woods or 

 coppices, but, for hedge rows, it would be excellent. It is 

 hardy in the extreme ; it will thrive on the most arid soil. 

 It is seen in company with that hardiest of trees, the Red 

 Cedar ; it sends out suckers like an Elder. When once 

 there is a stem of it in a hedge row, you are sure to have 

 it there in abundance, until you clearly grub up the 

 whole row. 



496. Then, as to the beauty of the tree, I scarcely know 

 one that surpasses it. The leaf is, in substance, that of the 

 Common Laurel ; but, in colour, more bright and pleasing 

 to the eye ; and, as to the shape of the leaf, the leaves 

 have various shapes upon the same tree ; some oblong, 

 others much broader than long, and having one, two, three, 

 or four deep openings in their sides, full half as deep as the 

 openings between the fingers of a man's hand. The tree 



