108 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the north crescent always overlapping 

 the one on the south side. This makes a 

 firm cone of plant food surroiinding the 

 tree roots, one that will not wash away 

 by weathering. The Baron used it even 

 on good dry soils, and claimed that, 

 though more expensive than ordinary 

 hole planting, it paid because of the 

 quicker and stiirdier growth of the 

 trees — and his extensive forests at 

 Colditz in Saxony (just above Meissen) 

 go far to prove it. 



Once having made yoiir plantation 

 you will not see anything very im- 

 pressive at first. Little rows of dark 

 green tufts that look as if they would 

 never amount to anything. Along 

 about the third year you will suddenly 

 awake to the fact that you have here a 

 potential forest for the trees are above 

 your waist line. By the sixth year the 

 leader shoots are taller than your head 

 and by the twelfth year they will be 

 thirteen feet high with trunks three 

 inches in diameter and crowns of nine 

 feet spread. In the twentieth year they 

 will be six inches in diameter and twenty 

 five feet high and you must then thin 



out and sell at least half of them. The 

 rest will reach 8 inches in their thirtieth 

 year and require another thinning; ten 

 inches in the fortieth year and twelve in 

 the fiftieth, with about two hundred 

 trees to the acre. Such a tree will be 

 about 60 feet high with a 24 ft. crown 

 and they will stand on about 18 ft. 

 centers. You can either cut them all 

 and replant or thin still further, going 

 up to 16. 18 and 24 inch diameter. It 

 is good forestry to do this, for remember 

 that each year the tree adds a quarter 

 inch of wood all around the trunk and 

 it means a lot of added volume per year 

 in these larger diameters. In fact yoiir 

 total yield will double during the 

 following twenty years. 



In giving this brief sketch of the life 

 of a planted forest, the reader will 

 gather that it is not well to plant the 

 entire forest at once. Far better is it 

 to plant a few acres each year, making 

 successive sections of even-aged stands. 

 Your forest will then become an in- 

 tegral part of the estate and have its 

 niche in the yearly claendar of farm 

 operations. Each year there will be 



Plantation of White Pine Eighteen Years Old. 



