SOME IDEAS IN TREE PLANTING 



621 



large, as the equivalent of an expenditure of $2.12, which 

 IS the ratio of expense to income at present. The nation 

 is, therefore, expending six times as much for the benefit 

 of the states on account of these forests as it receives 

 in net revenue from its own resources within the forests. 



This course is justified by the honest intention of the 

 government to hold out every possible incentive for local 

 development, and by the enormous benefit both to these 

 localities and to the nation at large from the perpetuation 

 of the forest as a productive use for waste lands. The 

 revenue, under national control, will be maintained per- 

 petually and should continually increase. By contrast, we 

 would have, under private exploitation, a period of excess 

 during which states would endeavor to squeeze the largest 

 possible amount of tax revenue from this timber, and 

 the owners would use every effort to destroy it as quickly 

 as possible by logging, to escape the burden, leaving a 

 barren waste from which no further revenue could ever 

 be extracted and which would revert to the state for 

 unpaid taxes. The next step would be an attempt to 

 secure the purchase of those ruined lands by the Na- 

 tional Government for forest reserves. 



The American Forestry Association is pledged to vig- 

 orously oppose all efforts to inaugurate such a cycle of 

 ruin and folly and to continue to champion the principle 

 that our remaining national timberlands shall be treated 

 rationally as a productive business, managed by the nation 

 for the benefit of the localities in which they lie and for 

 the people as a whole. 



FAMOUS FOREST BURNED 



SCOTCH FORESTRY PROBLEMS 



A DEPUTATION from the Royal Scottish Arboricul- 

 tural Society has waited on the Scottish members 

 of the British House of Commons to urge the crea- 

 tion of a separate department of forestry in connection 

 with the Board of Agriculture for Scotland. Its members 

 admitted that the great value of forestry had only been 

 recognized during recent years, and they argued that 

 now was the time to make it a national responsibility, 

 especially in view of the impending necessity of buying 

 huge quantities of lumber to take the place of that de- 

 stroyed during the war. 



The argument was put forward that the great question 

 of securing employment for the multitude of discharged 

 soldiers which will fill the labor market at the end of the 

 war is being very generally discussed ; the value of such 

 schemes makes a practical and immediate appeal to many. 

 Afforestation is, in fact, as Lord Lovat, one of the spokes- 

 men of the deputation, maintained, one of the cheapest 

 ways of settling people on the land, at any rate in the 

 Highlands. It would be possible to put one man on the 

 land for every 100 acres planted, and later one man to 

 every 25 or 50 acres. He thought, moreover, there were 

 certainly not less than 2,000,000 acres, in the High- 

 lands alone, suitable for forestry. Every man settled in 

 these Highland glens in connection with afforestation 

 would be a definite addition to the population and would 

 displace no one. 



THE wonderful forest of Tatoi, the pride of the late 

 King George of Greece, was destroyed when fire 

 reduced to ashes the summer residence of his son. 

 King Constantine. The tens of thousands of dollars spent 

 in cultivating a flourishing pine wood, as an example of 

 what might be done with forestry in barren Attica, have 

 been burned up as completely as if the banknotes them- 

 selves had been thrown in the fire. Tatoi played a large part 

 in the history of Greece. Here the Spartans established 

 themselves in 413 B. C. to cut off the supply of grain and 

 foodstuffs bound into Athens from Eubea, with the pur- 

 pose of starving out the Athenian population. And in 

 404 B. C., while Lysander blockaded Athens and the Pi- 

 raeus by sea, the Spartans descended from the vicinity 

 of Tatoi, attacked and forced the capitulation of Athens, 

 ending the Peloponnesian war. The burnt forest, labori- 

 ously planted and protected, was considered to be a me- 

 morial to the past greatness of Greece. 



SOME IDEAS IN TREE PLANTING 



By Sterling Rouse 



ONE of my neighbors, Charles Moore, had thirty- 

 ' three peach and apple trees to plant last spring. 

 Part of the orchard site was in stubble and part in 

 blue grass sod. 



I decided to try a method new to this section on the 

 sod land. With a spade I first cut the sod in a four-foot 

 circle and turned it back out of the way. I then put 

 down a bore-hole about thirty inches deep and loaded each 

 hole with a half stick of low-grade dynamite to loosen up 

 the subsoil. After filling the cavity at the bottom with 

 subsoil and manure, the trees were set and rich top soil 

 used to fill in around the roots. The sod was then laid 

 on top of all around the tree, grass-side down. This proved 

 fine for holding moisture in the ground and delayed the 

 growth of weeds. 



Another idea new to this region was employed in his 

 old orchard. He had some apple trees that had never 

 borne fruit. I used a stick and a half of dynamite to blast 

 out each tree and then set the young trees in the holes 

 made by the blasts, thus killing two birds with one stone 

 as it were. The trees were planted in the same way as 

 the ones put in the sod land. They are all doing finely. 

 The cost of setting the trees was 10^ cents per hole. 



Mr. Moore also had some black stumps he had been 

 working around for ten years ; he had tried burning them, 

 but as the roots were near the surface, they interfered 

 with his plow and harrow. These stumps ranged from 

 sixteen inches to three feet in diameter. In two hours, 

 I had them out, at an average cost of thirty-three cents 

 per stump. He said he wouldn't work around them again 

 for twice the cost of getting rid of them ; that he never 

 realized how little it would cost to dispose of them. 



