THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, October 20, 185/. 
rather than a dollar shall he spent to widen the road at that 
point. Here, again, unfortunately, a new street must he 
laid out in a straight line to satisfy the precise genius of 
modern engineering; and the great tree that stops the way 
must disappear, root and branch, rather than a hair’s breadth 
he changed in the beautiful lithograph of attractive house-lots. 
The first care of a lucky broker, who has bought at a bargain 
some fine old estate, is to thin out and trim the trees and 
shrubbery on the model of his own ledger, saving only the 
specimens which he can coax into regular rows, or inspect 
with half-shut eye. We know more than one instance where 
a quarrel between neighbours has led to the destruction ot 
noble trees, simply because one thought that he might annoy 
the other by depriving him of his shade ; and there are not 
a few occasions to admire that thrift which cuts down, an 
orchard because birds get all the cherries, or boys and Irish¬ 
men steal all the apples. 
Provocation of this sort, which constantly vexes one in a 
large country town, suggests the question, "whether he who 
removes a public ornament and good, even from his own 
land, is not as much a subject for the law as he who creates 
a public nuisance. The destruction of half a dozen fine shade 
trees may be as great an injury to a neighbourhood as the 
erection of an oil boiler or a fish-house. Yet the one has an 
impunity not allowed to the other. Many statutes are passed 
with much less moral justification than a statute to prevent 
the arbitrary cutting down of valuable trees. When estates 
are sold there ought to be in the deeds a restraining clause 
—an entail for the trees which border the road, if not for 
those which surround the house. The tastes of the city ex¬ 
change ought not to have unchecked license in the groves of 
the suburbs. At any rate, a legislative “ resolution ” on this 
subject would be quite as timely and sensible as most of the 
resolutions which are passed by legislative bodies. 
Sentiment of Tree Planting. —Any father will recognise 
it as a beautiful and easy way of commemorating the birth of 
children in his household. The members of a college class, 
revisiting the place of their early instruction, will see in the tree 
which they left there on their parting day a permanent memo¬ 
rial of their former union. Travel strengthens the force of 
this reason. When we discover how wide, and high, and 
sacred are the memories which are kept on earth by means 
of these signs; when we have visited the churchyard at 
Stoke, with its “ rugged Yew trees,” where Gray lies buried, 
or the “ Burnham Beeches,” where he used to ramble ; when 
we have looked upon the Oak at Pensliurst which marks the 
birth-time of Philip Sidney, or that huge tree at Grafton, 
i where, nearly four centuries ago, Edward Plantagenet first 
! met the Lady Elizabeth Woodville; when we have rested 
i under “ Milton’s Mulberry ” in Christ Church Garden, and 
j remembered Warton under the “ Avon Willows;” when we 
i have walked in that square of the silent Certosa where the 
spray of the fountain still moistens the great Cypress which 
Michael Angelo planted, or have lingered by that blasted 
trunk beneath whose shelter, when its boughs were green, 
poor Tasso was wont to look down over the Eternal City, 
and to dream and sigh his life away; when we have found 
everywhere the most famous sites and events in the history 
ot war, and genius, and religion, from the massacre at 
Clisson to the victory at Marathon—from the spot in Cam¬ 
bridge where Washington met the American army, to the 
spot in Bristol where Augustine held conference with the 
English bishops ; or that most ancient place of meeting on 
the plains of Mamre which holds the tradition of Abraham 
and the angels—scenes of faith, and valour, and romance, 
fixed and perpetuated by these lords of the forest—we come 
to understand better this sentimental reason, which some 
esteem so lightly. 
This sort of association, indeed, cannot generally be 
planned and provided for. The best associations come by 
chance, and no man can say, when he plants a tree, that it 
is destined hereafter to be joined in memory.with any great 
thing. Yet many a man, in his old age, feels a deeper attach¬ 
ment to the home where he has always dwelt, because it is 
overhung by the boughs of the tree which,' as a sapling, he 
put there in his boyhood. The house has gone to decay, it 
may be, and he must build a better; but the trees make the 
place so dear that lie cannot let it pass from his possession, 
and his children will keep it because their father’s trees are 
there. 
Profit in Trees. —Except in the rich gardens close 
around cities there is no land so profitable, no land which 
pays so good an interest on its cost, as woodland. In 
some parts of Massachusetts a man who owns a hundred 
acres of pasture is little better than a bankrupt, while 
he Avho OAvns a hundred acres of forest is independently 
rich. The first must pay taxes on what does not pay for its 
culture, Avliile the second can cut off enough to meet the an- 
nual interest, yet have more at the end than at the beginning. 
We once heard an eccentric genius maintain that his wood- 
land, about fifty acres in all, though he had bought it, and 
paid for it a good round sum some thirty years before, had 
in reality never cost him a cent; “ for I have cut off wood 
enough to pay not only the original outlay, but to meet all 
the worth of the money at compound interest, and to cover 
all charges ; and now 1 have more avooc! than I found there 
at the beginning.” It was a rational logic enough. 
We are confident that, at the present prices of timber and 
fuel, the profits of Avoodland to our New England farmers 
are at least three times as great as the profits of the land 
Avhicli they cultivate with so much labour. The experiment 
of planting Locusts on Long Island has proved that lands 
before considered valueless may become the most precious 
■ possession of their OAvners. Thousands of acres iioav lying 
Avaste might, with a very small outlay, be made to yield very 
great returns. The length of time that must pass before 
:he profit of these artificial forests can be tested undoubtedly 
deters many from planting them. Very few men like to 
make an investment of Avhich the returns begin to come only 
after twenty or thirty years; but every man knows that 
Avhatever raises the value of his land is as sure profit as that 
which actually puts cash into his pocket. There seems to 
be less promise in an acre of young Locusts than in an acre 
of thriving Turnips; but in twenty years the value of all 
the annual Turnips will not begin to reach the value of the 
trees. The longer the planter is willing to wait, the greater 
Avill be his ratio of gain. The early age at which trees are 
felled imecludes a fair test of the superior profit of this kind 
of (planting over corn planting. Patience is a cardinal 
virtue when we are dealing with forests. 
There should be on every farm of reasonable size an 
annual planting, as Avell as an annual cutting of trees. We 
shall not undertake to say what kinds of Avood will yield the 
speediest and the largest profit, whether the Oak, the Pine, 
the Cedar, or the Locust. Any of these will richly repay the 
labour and the cost required for their growing. According 
to the quality of the soil will be the fitness of the tree. The 
profit of tree planting, however, cannot be measured by 
direct pecuniary returns. It affects economy in many ways, 
aside from the mere growth of the Avood. The WHIoav, lor 
instance, a tree of comparatively little commercial value, 
is of inestimable worth in preserving the land along the 
banks of streams from the encroachment of the current. 
EeAV persons Avho have not Avatclied the changes of the banks 
at the bends of rivers can have an idea of the damage which 
is done yearly to our land from this single cause. The land¬ 
slides which seem so curious along the Nile, at Manfaloot and 
Osioot, may be observed, on a smaller scale, on the Con¬ 
necticut and the Charles. A double i’oay of Osiers is almost 
a sure imotection against this damage. Colonel Colt has 
planted, it is said, no less than fourteen acres of these trees 
along the banks of the Connecticut, and has proved himself, 
in that labour, a benefactor alike to the farmers and the 
basket-makers. The Willow in such a situation has a rapid 
growth, and in a few years a tame and dull stream may be 
made romantic by the shade Avhicli these hedges throw. We 
know of one river, at least, in New England Avhich flows 
through a fiat and uninteresting country, yet preserves the 
fame of beauty, mainly from the foliage along its margin. 
Most of our annual crops impoverish the soil. After tAvo 
or three years of harvest the grain-field must be left fallow 
for a season, or be turned to other uses. But trees con¬ 
stantly improve the soil, giving to it more than they draw 
from it; and they improve not only the soil on which 
they stand, but the soil all around them. We need not 
insist upon the annual deposit of decaying leaves or broken 
boughs, Avhich rot upon the ground, and so infuse into it 
the elements of neAV life, but may rather dAvell upon one 
or two of the incidental results Avhich are less considered— 
l the connection of trees Avith the proper distribution of snow, 
