REPORT OF MR. FRANCIS H. APPLETON.
541
by the aid of a rope attached to each set, and passing over a wheel at the upper end of the tramway. The speed can be regulated by a "brake” at the end of the tramway, and when the weight of the logs cannot be used for power, a steam- engine, stationed at one extremity, can be used to effect the same purpose. It is evident that two tracks must be used, in the first case, one to carry the logs, and the other the empty trucks, and with steam-power this plan would also seem to be more economical.
Much of the wood exhibited was the result of plantations, while much was also from natural forests that had been systematically treated under the superintendence of educated foresters. Nurseries of young trees of different varieties were also exhibited, showing how these were treated from the time of planting the seed until they could be separately set out.
It has been frequently and most truly said, by many writers who have had the welfare of our country at heart, that there is much poor land in Massachusetts that is either in pasturage or under cultivation, which would be much more profitably employed if judiciously planted with forest trees; and this fact has been greatly ignored by farmers, to their own loss.
You may say that the planter of the trees will derive no profit from them, and this may, or may not, be true, according to circumstances. But many, perhaps most, of our farmers would be better off if they would cultivate, at least, half as much land as at present, plant the remainder judiciously with trees, and apply yearly the same amount of manure to one-half the amount of land, thereby doubling the amount applied per acre. In some cases I would advise a still greater increase of the amount of manure, when possible. I believe, by adopting such a system, their increased profits 'would allow them to increase the manure. Trees could also be so planted as to afford protection from winds to cultivated fields, and thus prevent the drying of the soil and injury to crops that exist on bleak and exposed land.
In this way the real value of the farms would be increasing every year from the growth of wood, and higher cultivation of the remainder would increase the yearly profits consider-