THE ARTIFICIAL FOREST. 
307 
Another advantage of the artificially regulated forest is, 
that it admits of such grading of the ground as to favor the 
retention or discharge of water at will, while the facilities it 
affords for selecting and duly proportioning, as well as prop¬ 
erly spacing, the trees which compose it, are too obvious to 
require to he more than hinted at. In conducting these opera¬ 
tions, we must have a diligent eye to the requirements of 
nature, and must remember that a wood is not an arbitrary 
assemblage of trees to be selected and disposed according to 
the caprice of its owner. “ A forest,” says Clave, “ is not, as 
is often supposed, a simple collection of trees succeeding each 
other in long perspective, without bond of union, and capable 
of isolation from each other; it is, on the contrary, a whole, 
the different parts of which are interdependent upon each 
other, and it constitutes, so to speak, a true individuality. 
Every forest has a special character, determined by the form 
of the surface it grows upon, the kinds of trees that compose * 
it, and the manner in which they are grouped.” * 
raent—twice as great as trees of the same species grown in the woods; and 
the American locust, Eobinia pseudacacia , the wood of which is of ex¬ 
treme toughness and durability, is, of all trees indigenous to Northeastern 
America, by far the most rapid in growth. 
As an illustration of the mutual interdependence of the mechanic arts, 
I may mention that in Italy, where stone, brick, and plaster are almost the 
only materials used in architecture, and where the “ hollow ware ” kitchen 
implements are of copper or of clay, the ordinary tools for working wood 
are of a very inferior description, and the locust timber is found too hard 
for their temper. Southey informs us, in “ Espriella’s Letters,” that when a 
email quantity of mahogany was brought to England, early in the last 
century, the cabinetmakers were unable to use it, from the defective tem¬ 
per of their tools, until the demand for furniture from the new wood com¬ 
pelled them to improve the quality of their implements. In America, the 
cheapness of wood long made it the preferable material for almost all pur¬ 
poses to which it could by any possibility be applied. I he mechanical 
cutlery and artisans’ tools of the United States are of admirable temper, 
finish, and convenience, and no wood is too hard, or otherwise too refrac¬ 
tory, to be wrought with great facility, both by hand tools and by the 
multitude of ingenious machines which the Americans have invented for 
this purpose. 
* fitudes Forestieres , p. 7. 
