I venture to suggest that he who has a ragged, stony hill or other lot which he wishes to surrender to forest should plow it, if it can be plowed, next September or October; if too rocky to be even imperfectly plowed, dig up the earth with pick and spade, and sow it thickly with hickory nuts, walnuts, chestnuts, locust and other tree-seeds, expecting that some will be dug up and carried off by squirrels, etc., and that others will fail to germinate. Go over it with hoes the ensuing June or July, killing all weeds and other infestations; and, nearly a year later, repeat the operation, taking up young trees from your garden or nursery, and filling them in wherever there is room. Plant thickly in order to force an upward rather than a scraggy growth; and so that you may begin to cut out the superfluous saplings for bean-poles, hoop-poles, etc., three or four years thereafter. Cut late in Winter or early in Spring, so that the stumps will each throw up two or more shoots or sprouts, which usually grow much faster than the original tree did. And the process of thinning may thus be continued indefinitely, while the choicer trees are allowed to attain their stateliest proportions. And thus a rocky, sterile hill-side or knoll may be made to yield a crop annually after the first two or three years from planting, while growing trees of decided value. I judge that almost any land within fifty miles of a great city and not more than two miles from a railroad depot or from navigable water may thus be made to earn a good interest on $100 per acre, after meeting all the cost of breaking up and planting. I confidently assert that many thousands of sterile, rocky acres, which now yield less than $5 per acre annually in pasturage, would net at least double that sum to the owner if wisely devoted to forest-trees. * * * * * I have a hearty love of forests. They proffer gentle companionship to the thoughtful and rest to the overworked, fevered brain. Our streams will be fuller and less capricious, our gales less destructive, our climate more equable, when we shall have reclothed our rugged slopes and rocky crests with trees. Timber grows yearly scarcer and dearer, when it ought to be becoming more plentiful and accessible, and _would_ be if we devoted to trees all the land which we cultivate at a loss or fail to cultivate at all. Let our boys be incited to gather seeds and plant nurseries; let young trees be bought by the thousand where they now are by the dozen, and let us all cooperate in covering our unsightly rocks and making glad our waste places by a superabundance of choice, thrifty, healthy trees.