VI. The banks of considerable streams, ponds, etc., may often be so planted with trees that these will shade more water than land, to the comfort and satisfaction of the fish, and the protection of those banks from abrasion by floods and rapid currents. Sycamore, Elm, and Willow, do well here; if choice Grape-Vines are set beside and allowed to run over some of them, the effect is good, and the grapes acceptable to man and bird.
VII. Never forget that a good tree grows as thriftily and surely as a poor one. Many a farmer has to-day ten to forty acres of indifferent cord-wood where he might, at a very slight cost, have had instead an equal quantity of choice timber, worth ten times as much. Hickory, Chestnut, and Walnut, while they yield nuts that can be eaten or sold, are worth far more as timber than an equal bulk of Beech, Birch, Hemlock, or Red Oak. Chestnut has more than doubled in value within the last few years, mainly because it has been found excellent for the inside wood-work of dwellings. Locust also seems to be increasing in value. Ten acres of large, thrifty Locust near this City would now buy a pretty good farm; as I presume it would, if located near any of our great cities.
VIII. Where several good varieties of Timber are grown together, some insect or atmospheric trouble may blast one of them, yet leave the residue alive and hearty. And, if all continue thrifty, some may be cut out and sold, leaving others more room to grow and rapidly attain a vigorous maturity.
IX. Wherever timber has become scarce and valuable, a wood-lot should be thinned out, nevermore cleared off, unless it is to be devoted to a different use. It seems to me that destroying a forest because we want timber is like smothering a hive of bees because we want honey.
X. Timber should be cut with intelligent reference to the future. Locust and other valuable trees that it is desirable should throw up shoots from the stump, and rapidly reproduce their kind, should be cut in March or April; while trees that you want to exterminate should be cut in August, so that they may not sprout. There may be exceptions to this rule; but I do not happen to recollect any. Evergreens do not sprout; and I think these should be cut in Winter—at all events, not in Spring, when full of sap and thus prone to rapid decay.
XI. Your plantation will furnish pleasant and profitable employment at almost any season. I doubt that any one in this country has ever yet bestowed so much labor and care on a young forest as it will amply reward. Sow your seeds thickly; begin to thin the young trees when they are a foot high, and to trim them so soon as they are three feet, and you may have thousands thriving on a fertile acre, and pushing their growth upward with a rapidity and to an altitude outrunning all preconception.
XII. Springs and streams will soon appear where none have appeared and endured for generations, when we shall have reclothed the nakedness of the Plains with adequate forests. Rains will become moderately frequent where they are now rare, and confined to the season when they are of least use to the husbandman.
I may have more to say of trees by-and-by, but rest here for the present. The importance of the topic can hardly be overrated.