and found thousands of acres in Plymouth and Barnstable counties once sandy plains-covered with fine forests. The common pitch pine has there been most generally used for the reclamation of sand barrens. Recently the Scotch pine has been widely planted. The seeds were sometimes sowed broadcast, and sometimes dropped in furrows. The cost was trifling, and the profit has been satisfactory.

Hummel attributes the desolation of the Karst, the high plateau lying north of Trieste-until recently one of the most parched and barren districts in Europe-to the felling of its woods, centuries ago, to build the navies of Venice. The Austrian government is now making energetic, and thus far successful efforts for the reclamation of this desolate waste, having planted over half a million of young trees, and sown great quantities of seed. In the vicinity of Antwerp less than fifty years ago was a vast desolate plain. Looking to-day in the same direction from the spire of the cathedral, one can see nothing but a forest, whose limits seem lost in the horizon. Forest plantations have transformed those barren lands into fertile fields. French writers point with pride to an experiment begun eighty years ago on the very crest of a peninsula in Dauphiny, where stands a long stretch of fine forest, and where it had been confidently affirmed trees could not be made to grow.

On the Adriatic, Baltic, Mediterranean, Biscayan, and other coasts, the disastrous encroachments of the sea have been checked by forest plantations. Extensive plains, once barren sands south of Berlin, about Odessa and north of the Black Sea and vast steppes in Russia, are now well wooded. R. Douglass & Sons of Waukegan, Illinois, who have been the pioneers in promoting economic tree planting in the West, began four years ago the experiment of reclaiming barren sand ridges near the shore of Lake Michigan, trying pitch pine, white pine, Austrian pine, and Scotch pine. Here, as on Cape Cod, the Scotch pine proved the best for reclaiming sandy barrens. With these facts from abroad and at home it cannot be denied that even the poorest soils in Connecticut may be reclaimed. The Pinus maritima, which proved best

for the sandy soils in France, is not adapted to the climate of New England. It has been amply tried, and though growing rapidly for a season or two, is likely to winter-kill. But our native pitch pine, and still better the Scotch pine, are specially adapted to sandy barrens.

Daniel Webster planted many pines at Marshfield, and induced farmers in Plymouth and Barnstable counties to try the same experiment. This has been done very extensively by Mr. J. S. Fay, in Falmouth, near Wood's Hole. In visiting Falmouth I was happily impressed with the beauty and remarkable growth of his tree plantations. There, is a tract of over one hundred and twenty-five acres now densely covered with fine trees. When purchased by him, Mr. Fay says, "It was a barren waste, the soil dry and worn out. On a hundred acres there was not a tree of any kind, unless an oak sprang out from the huckleberry bushes here and there, but hardly lifting its head above them. Indeed, when I bought my place in 1853, except a few stunted cedars on Parker's Point and in the swamps, there was not an evergreen tree within three miles of my house, and hardly any tree of any kind in sight of it. It was maintained that trees could not be made to grow there. The seeds sown were of the native pitch pine with some white pine, the Austrian, Scotch, and Corsican pine, the Norway spruce, and the European larch-in all about thirty-five thousand imported plants, and many thousand native pines. As to the kinds which have done the best, the Scotch pine from the seed, including prompt germination, has proved the best grower, and very hardy. The Norway spruce and English oak have done well. The larch did not start well from the seed, but from the nursery or as imported it has grown remarkably. The hardy Scotch pine does finely either from the seed or the nursery. All these imported trees have done better than the native pitch pine. The larches are about forty feet high, and fourteen inches in diameter one foot from the ground. pines from seed sown in 1861, well situated and in good soil, are thirty feet high, and ten inches through, a foot from the ground. As to profits, one thing is sure. The land, originally

Some Scotch

poor, has been enriched by the deposit of thousands of loads of leaves upon it, and by the shade afforded, while the soil has been lightened and lifted by the permeation of the roots of the trees; and though no present profit has been yet realized, (which already might have been by sales of the wood,) it should be considered as an investment for future results. Considering the position of my place, on a coast exposed to violent sea winds permeated with salt spray, the vigorous growth and promising appearance of my forest plantations are very encouraging to those more favorably placed. Not only may the destruction of our forests be partially remedied at a cheap cost, but the waste and sterility of our land by long cultivating be replaced with fertility by the simple process of nature."

The Scotch fir or pine, which Mr. Fay so highly commends, is a native of the Highlands, a hardy tree, and the most rapid grower of all the evergreens suited to our climate-the European larch, a still more rapid grower, being deciduous. It will thrive in the most dissimilar soils and on poorest sands where most other evergreens will not flourish, and makes an excellent wind-break. Its timber is not duly appreciated in this country. In England it is as highly prized as the best Baltic pine, and regarded as superior to our white pine for general purposes. While skeptical on this point, we must at least admit that it is harder, more durable, and more resinous than the white pine. It is light, stiff, and strong, freer from knots than any other fir, easily worked, and well adapted to all kinds of house carpentry. It is extensively used for masts and in naval architecture. In England it yields large quantities of tar, turpentine, and resin. Next to the larch it is the tree most commonly planted in Great Britain. It should be extensively used in Connecticut in reclaiming lands too poor for the larch. It proved a great success in the sandy wastes of Kincorth and Culbin in Scotland, which are now thriving forests.

Among the foresters of largest experience in Europe, I found the planting out system growing in favor, in place of sowing the seed, whether in furrows or broadcast in the fields where

the trees are to remain. If sowing is adopted, the land, except on sand barrens, must be well prepared. The general practice abroad is to sow the seed in beds, as beet or onion beds. are prepared with us. The Germans speak of the seedlings while in the nursery beds as "in the school," and this phrase happily suggests how they should be treated. The aim is here. to start, harden, and root the young plants in a small area where they can be sheltered with brush or otherwise from the scorching sun, and watered if need be in case of drought.

If the seedlings are to be put out close by the garden, they may be planted direct from the mother bed at the end of one or two years. But when they are to be removed to any distance or planted as forests, they should be transplanted at the end of the first or second year and planted for forests one year later. The larch and Scotch pine are usually planted permanently, two years from sowing in beds and one year from the planting, that is three years from the seed. The direction is constantly repeated to let the trees grow up very thickly for a few years, as they will at first thin themselves on the theory of the survival of the fittest, and after the fifth year the value of the poles will pay for the further thinning required. When planted, the rows should not be more than three feet apart, and the plants stand two feet apart in the rows, giving some seven thousand to the acre, varying with the kind of trees. At the outset the trees are planted more thickly in Europe than in America.

Will it pay the average farmer of Connecticut to plant trees? Certainly not if early profit is essential. The answer depends on various circumstances, such as the size of one's farm, its soil and situation. But in an ordinary Connecticut farm of from sixty to one hundred acres and upwards, I answer yes. If you are looking ahead and seeking an investment for future profit, "trees will make dollars, for they will grow in waste places where nothing else can be profitably cultivated. A soil too thin and rough for cereals may be favorable for trees. Hillsides and plains exhausted and worn out by the plow have often been reclaimed by planting forests. Ravines too steep for cultivation are the favorite seats of timber, and

wherever a crevice is found in a rocky ledge, the root of a tree will burrow and spread, taking a hold so firm as to defy the storm, and acting mechanically to disintegrate the rock and change its constituent elements into useful products. By the road-side, the river-bank, along the Frook, and on the overhanging cliff, a tree may be always earning wealth for its owners, both in our densest settlements and in the waste places of our most valuable lands." In no way can we ultimately enrich Connecticut more than by planting the choicest trees on our exhausted and unproductive lands. In such situations forests will yield a large percentage of profit. This is a duty we owe to ourselves and to our children.

In many positions forests are of great service as wind-breaks; even narrow strips of trees afford a needful shelter to fruit trees and to various crops, as well as a shield to cattle from piercing winds. Evergreens serve best for screens, as deciduous trees are leafless when their shelter is most needed, especially for stock and around farm buildings. The evergreens most suitable for this purpose are the Norway spruce, white pine, Scotch pine, and Austrian pine; and next to these are the American arbor vitæ, hemlock, and spruce. Sheltered orchards are most productive and less likely to lose their fruit prematurely by violent winds, and the farmer with proper wind-screens consumes less fuel in his house and less forage in his stables. Stated in the order of their obvious advantage to individual farmers, the benefits of tree-planting would be, first, direct profit in timber and fuel; second, the reclamation of waste land; third, shelter; fourth, climatic gain and hygienic influence; and fifth, ornamentation.

The climatic influence of forests has been of late the subject of extensive investigation in Europe, and much evidence gathered showing that forest denudation may result in detriment to the health and welfare of a community. The influence of forests on rainfall, climate, and water supply, has been freely discussed in the schools of forestry and in scientific circles. It is not proved that extensive denudation will cause a marked decrease in the total rainfall of any large country. While this is still an unsettled question, recent observations in France,