132 Transactions of the 



WINTER PREMIUMS FOR 1870. 



AETIFICIAL FOBEST CULTUBE. 



In the Premium List of the State Agricultural Society for eighteen 

 hundred and seventy one a premium of fifty dollars was offered for the 

 largest quantity of useful forest trees planted during the year. At the 

 meeting of the Board of .Agriculture, held on the 9th inst.. this premium 

 was awarded to James T. Stratton, of Alameda county. There were 

 three applicants for the premium — Mr. Stratton, and E. T. Aiken, and 

 Thomas Edwards, of Sacramento County. The contest was considera- 

 bly spirited, and has excited a good deal of interest. The subject being 

 new in the State, and of so much general importance, we give below the 

 statement of each applicant made in writing to the Board. They will 

 be found to contain many valuable hints in regard to the cultivation of 

 artificial forests. 



Mr. Stratton proved that he had planted during the year, on fifty-three 

 and one half acres of land, in one tract, thirty thousand blue gum trees 

 {eucalyptus globulus) and three thousand red gum trees, and that all were 

 in a healthy, growing condition. The following is 



Mr. Stratton's Statement. 



The seed from which the above trees were grown was gathered in 

 December, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, from trees about seven 

 years old, at my own residence, in Brooklyn, Alameda County, and was 

 sown in a frame under glass, on the fifteenth of April, eighteen hundred and 

 sixty-nine, where the plants remained until they were about three inches 

 high — in the middle of June following — when they were transplanted 

 into boxes three feet square, six inches deep, and one hundred in a box. 

 They were well attended to by a careful gardener until November fol- 

 lowing, when they were carefully cut out, so as to leave attached to 

 each tree a ball of earth three and one half inches square and six inches 

 deep, in which condition they were planted in their permanent location. 



The land on which they were planted included a variety of soil, about 

 one half being nearly level, with a stiff, dark loam of good quality, and 

 the other half a heavy adobe, somewhat saline in places and slightly 

 rolling. The whole had been under continuous cultivation, in cereals, 

 during the past seventeen 3-ears, and had become somewhat impover- 

 ished by continual use. The land was prepared by being plowed in the 

 usual manner, as soon as it had become moistened by the Fall rains, and 

 and the soil was thoroughly pulverized to a depth of fifteen inches, in 

 lines or strips two feet wide and eight feet apart from center to center, 

 in which strips the young trees were planted, in rows eight feet apart 

 each way; the task of planting ending about the first of February, eigh- 

 teen hundred and seventy. 



After they were planted they were well plowed, hoed, and cultivated, 



