214 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



So when the farmer begins to cut in his woodlot he needs 

 to remember that a small sapling which has grown from seed 

 and is well located with respect to an opening is valuable out 

 of all proportion to its size. And he wants to remember also 

 that it is highly wasteful to cut a tree, even when it has reached 

 a fairly good size, if it is still growing vigorously, unless, of 

 course, it is a tree which is not wanted. A 12-inch tree puts 

 on twice as much wood to each foot of trunk in growing an- 

 other inch as does a 6-inch tree. To cut a tree which is six or 

 eight inches in diameter is like drawing your money from the 

 savings bank just before interest day. You lose the benefit of 

 the earning power that the tree has been gathering. 



There is such a thing, however, as having too many trees, 

 though as a rule the danger is that your land will be under- 

 stocked rather than overstocked. That chestnut tree to which 

 I referred a moment ago, which was thirty-four years old before 

 it really began to grow, should have made, I suppose, a tree from 

 which three ties could have been cut in something like that age. 

 A white oak will require from forty to fifty years, I believe, 

 in this region, under favorable conditions, to make a three-tie 

 tree. I do not wish to go into this too far, because it is a 

 matter for your State forester to inform you on rather than for 

 me to discuss, but I presume that the fact of the greater rapid- 

 ity of gro\\i:h of the chestnut will make that generally the best 

 tree to grow for tie purposes in this State. That is the sort 

 of thing that the farmer must ask himself, or must ask the for- 

 ester. He must inform himself as to what tree is going to be 

 the most profitable in the long run, and also what the require- 

 ments of the diflferent kinds of trees are. One tree will grow 

 in a situation where another will not. It is necessary to know 

 about each kind, and how to give it the conditions which will 

 make it grow the best. The farmer must study his forest. 



Now I have said something about what the forester calls 

 thinnings, and what he calls improvement cuttings. The pur- 

 pose of thinnings is to improve the growth of trees already on 

 the ground, and thinnings are, therefore, naturally made in 

 rather young timber, and yield only small stuff. Improvement 

 cuttings, on the other hand, aim primarily at making place for 

 new growth by the removal of trees which are overmature, 

 crooked, broken-topped, or otherwise defective, or which are of 

 the less desirable kinds. The man who wants to increase the 



