AMKRICAX FORESTRY 



MAKING A NOBLE GROVE OUT OF THE ERSTWHIEE WOODLOT. 



ic with the practical in running your 

 country place, let us not lose sight of 

 the dollar in our desire for beauty ; 

 and do not for a moment assume that 

 forestry is in any sense a non-paying 

 aesthetic luxury. It is the most prac- 

 tical thing you can do. 



I know of no more pleasurable art 

 than the amelioration of the prosaic 

 farm woodlot. By the judicious use of 

 the axe and the planted tree it can be 

 made a forest of surpassing beauty, an 

 abode for birds and wild things ; a place 

 of vistas, of cool shady ravines where 

 the silvery sheen of balsams and the 

 feathery fronds of hemlocks contrast 

 with the glowing greens of oaks and 

 maples ; of clean open gro\es. where 

 towering shagbarks and tulip trees and 

 sweet gums raise their green canopy 

 far overhead and the forest floor be- 

 neath is cool and sweet and grassy atid 

 there are wood lilies about. 



A touch of the axe here and there, a 

 restoration by replanting of the trees 

 that nature originally grew inprofusion, 

 above all a fine sense of what to take 



and what to leave, a knowledge of 

 where to look for features which may be 

 wrought into points of beauty — these 

 are the brain tools that you must bring 

 to the abandoned woodlot. 



A knowledge of what to leave is your 

 first essential. Here is a pig-nut hick- 

 ory, recognizable by its seven-leaflet 

 leaf and its small thin-shelled, bitter 

 hickory nut. The farmer will tell you 

 that it is worthless and had better be 

 marked for firewood — but not so the 

 forester. In the autumn that tree will 

 be a flaming shaft of pure pale yellow 

 and if it is in a position where it can 

 be featured (and it usually manages to 

 grow in just such a position) you had 

 best save it. Again : we are thinning 

 a clump of maples in order that the 

 dominant ones may become large and 

 fine. Which shall be marked? Look 

 well then to their leaves ; this one's a 

 soft maple, its feathery leaf betrays it; 

 away with it and give the sugar maples 

 a chance ! There is a red maple, identi- 

 fied by its round-based, toothed leaf. 

 Shall we mark it for the axe? Not so 



