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TREES FROM SEED. 



To obtain trees from the seed of nearly all forest trees, the nearer we can 

 follow the treatment that nature gives the better. Therefore, soon after the 

 seeds have dropped, put them in rows or broadcast on fine soil, rake in slightly, 

 and litter over all with leaves, or old straw or the like, quite lightly; if too 

 much, take most of it off early in spring. The second year set the seedlings 

 in rows, three to five inches apart in row, and cultivate two years, then plant 

 out for permanent growth. — H. Ives, in N. Y. Tribune. 



LAW CONCERNING HIGHWAY TREES. 



At the recent session of the Pennsylvania legislature a law was passed to 

 encourage tree-planting along highways. Elms are to be not less than seventy 

 feet apart ; other forest trees not less than fifty feet, and locust trees thirty 

 feet apart. The owner of property on which such trees are planted has his 

 road tax reduced at the rate of $1 for each four trees so planted. The trees 

 must be living one year after planting, and be well protected from animals. 

 Injury to such trees is punishable by fine. — Practical Farmer. 



HAS THE TIME COME TO PLANT TIMBER ? 



Yes ! verily, my friends it is indeed time that we were thoroughly aroused to 

 the importance of this matter of the conservation of our forests. We should 

 plant shade trees and groves, shelter belts and woods ; yes, and where suitable 

 conditions exist, we should also plant extensive forests for the sake of their 

 future prospective, but certain benefit to ourselves, and to those who are to 

 come after us. Why will we not learn from the experience of past ages, which 

 is everywhere expressed so plainly in the history of nations, and impressed so 

 manifestly in the desert scars of the earth? Let us take warning betimes and 

 begin now, and at once undertake the preservation of our forests. 



Forests are the conservators of moisture, sources of the streams. "The tree- 

 is father to the rain," was a favorite saying of Mahomet. Then again we must 

 remember that time is needed for the production of a tree. The botanists call 

 them perennial plants, because they continue their existence through the years. 

 Vegetables of this class do not build up their massy structures, composed of con- 

 centric layers of solid fiber-cells, with the rapidity of the fungi, some of which 

 will evolve millions of their cells in a few hours, visibly enlarging while we- 

 behold. Nor can the trees be compared in their periods of growth, and the 

 quickness of their cash returns, with the familiar tillage crops of the agriculturist. 

 The weeks and months needed for the production and perfecting of garden and 

 farm crops are represented by the decades and centuries of years required for 

 clothing the denuded surface with forest growths of mature and useful size. 

 It is, therefore, high time to begin the work. Be not discouraged however, 

 trees grow fast enough. One of the classic writers of the age, who fully appre- 

 ciated trees, put his own sentiments into the mouth of one of his rustic charac- 

 ters when he wrote: " Be aye sticking in a tree, Jock; it will be growing the 

 whiles ye are sleeping." 



Those of us who are now past middle life, no doubt many of you now 



