SOCIETY OF CENTEAL ILLINOIS. 263 



The merits of the white pine, in a measure, have in the past 

 been overlooked, although it is one of the most common of Ameri- 

 can forest trees. In planting, they can be set one rod or less apart, 

 around and across a new, rich prairie farm — their peculiar habits 

 being to grow upright when standing alone or in rows — each year, 

 with good care, making a growth of from one to two feet, thus mak- 

 ing a tree when fifty years old standing from fifty to one hundred 

 feet high. Its limbs shoot out all around the trunk, from bottom to 

 top, with from four to eight branches, all in one ring, the rings be- 

 ing from one to two feet apart, usually. The lower limbs can gen- 

 erally be braided together, and will grow in this manner, making a 

 permanent fence, as each limb from bottom to top grows in a hori- 

 zontal position. Our opinion now is that a white pine, with good 

 care on our rich, prairie soil, can, in one hundred years, be made to 

 grow from one to two hundred feet high, having a circumference of 

 fifteen or twenty feet and, moreover, each tree making from twelve 

 to fifteen saw-logs, each twelve feet in length. 



The balsam fir tree is very similar in its habits to the white pine, 

 being symmetrical in form and retaining its beautiful green foliage 

 throughout the winter. 



There are a number of American forest trees which we would 

 not recommend for cultivation, if money-making were the object. 

 Among these are: The soft maple, box elder, linden, hackberry, 

 willow, elm, silver-leafed poplar, sycamore, cottonwood, beech and 



Many of the above named varieties are of some use for street, 

 park and shade trees, but have no especial value in a commercial 

 point of view. In forest-tree planting, we should always make the 

 inquiry: Is there any money in the timber after it is grown? 



It was the writer's fortune to be born and raised for the first 

 thirty-five years of his life in one of the dense forests of Central 

 Ohio, and so have had a practical acquaintance with most of the 

 above named varieties of timber, and hence profess to know whereof 

 we speak. It is said that every tree planted is a living monument to 

 the planter. Let us all have some monuments ! 



STHAWBERRY NOTES. 

 BY G. W. m'CLUER, CHAMPAIGISr. 



The following is taken from notes made on strawberries the 

 past season, and is likely to be somewhat fragmentary : 



On the 9th of April, we were burning some weeds along the 

 side of a patch of about two acres of strawberries, and the mulching 

 caught fire, burning over most of the patch. We thought that 

 would be a good time to try the effect of cultivation, so the burned 

 part was plowed with a two-horse corn cultivator, and then harrowed. 



