170 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ceed to fight for the ground that they 

 originally owned in entirety, and they 

 push their young ones out on all sides. 

 Young white pines seem to thrive under 

 any quantity of shade (I have one that 

 has reached its thirty-fifth year growing 

 within two feet of a huge chestnut oak 

 which never gives it a scrap of sun- 

 light) , so that once a ravine full of them 

 gets a foothold this forest is bound to 

 spread and grow. Here is a good place 

 to plan to fill up gaps with what is 

 known as underplanting. Do not do 

 this at regular spacings and intervals 

 but select, rather, favorable locations 

 where the young trees get good soil and 

 lots of sunlight, without any unneces- 

 sarily expensive work with the axe in 

 clearing away overhead thickets. The 

 best tree for underplanting is the state 

 or forestry company's nursery four-year 

 transplant, and it is best planted on 

 the mound system, i.e., with a shallow 

 hole in the soil, the roots spread in a 

 little cone of rich top-soil and finally 

 the basic mineral soil and forest leaves 

 banked around the tree covering the 

 root collet. The root soil should be 

 firmly packed with the feet and the 

 mound soil tamped with the back of 

 the spade. With the help of some 

 underplanting and judicious assistance 

 to every young specimen of natural 

 white pine found on the area you will 

 soon have in process of formation a 

 natural white pine section which will 

 vie with your planted sections out in 

 the brambly pasture. 



I have always a penchant for the 

 nut-bearing forest trees with which 

 nature has so generously endowed us. 

 Not all nor by any means the most 

 valuable products of a forest are its 

 lumber tallies. Maple sugar, hickory 

 nuts, seeds and acorns at the prevailing 

 market prices for seeds for nursery use, 

 and tanning bark all pay well, much 

 better per acre of ground than lumber, 

 and none of them should be neglected 

 on the small forest of the country estate. 

 Where you will find one shagbark hick- 

 ory there will be several of them, as 

 they are prone to form groves. If there 

 is such a grove on your land, or even 

 the nucleus of one, by all means en- 

 courage it, both by planting nursery 



saplings, costing about 75 cents for 

 young two-inch trees, and by trans- 

 plants from your own little forest nurs- 

 ery, which matter will be gone into 

 later. I do not believe that any satis- 

 factory resiilts will be got from seeds 



ore: dc Bcli#nie (cuno'^itesJ 



I 



A Specimen Oak. 



THE LAST OK THE OLD STAND. 52 FEET TO THE KOKK. 



120 FEET HIGH. 21 FEET IN CIRCUMFERENCE 



.\T BASE. THE NEW FOREST OF SAPLINGS 



H.\S .\LRE.\DY REACHED 30 FEET IN 



HEIGHT. FOREST OF BELLEME, 



FRANCE. 



planted at random in the forest, for 

 the chances of success are so slim that 

 nature herself has to use a whole treeful 

 of seeds or nuts every few years in order 

 to get one new tree to maturity. But 

 when properly grown in your own nurs- 



