ILLINOIS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 297 



This ratio of consumption will in a (ew years, very materially in- 

 crease the value of timbered land. Then again, the immense beds of 

 coal that underlie our soil, that are now furnishing hundreds of millions 

 of tons of fuel annually, may in time be exhausted ; then the wealth of 

 the country will suffer immensely, unless this or succeeding generations 

 shall have grown vast forests to supply the demand. It is a curious 

 fact that with the exception of the white pine, the lumber of trees is 

 trougher and better when cultivated than of natural growth. 



■ But the earnest incjuiry of the farmer is, " Will it pay in dollars and 

 cents to plant groves of timber." 



Consider some facts. One tree was cut, about seven miles north- 

 west of this city (Galesburg, Illinois), the body of which sold for meat 

 blocks for thirty-eight dollars, the remainder of the tree was cut into 

 posts and fuel, and sold for forty-eight dollars, the whole tree bringing 

 eighty-six dollars. Now suppose that tree to be one hundred years old, 

 and that three hundred trees grew upon an acre (in heavy forests many 

 more grow upon an acre), and that each tree would bring forty 

 dollars, the acre of timber would be worth twelve thousand dollars, or 

 a hundred and twenty dollars per acre per annum. In the raising of 

 grain, farmers rarely realize more than twenty or twenty-five dollars per 

 acre. Considered for a less number of years, the annual ])rofit would 

 not be so great, yet much more than could be realized from any other 

 single product, as the following item will show. 



Messrs. Henry & Wm. Sisson, living three miles north of this City, 

 Galesburg, 111., planted two acres to Black Walnuts ten years ago this 

 last Fall. Most of them came up the next spring. They cropped the 

 ground for three years to corn, raising nearly as good crops as if the 

 trees had not occupied the ground. For seven years it has furnished 

 as valuable pasture as any other two acres of their pasture lands. 



Now they have a compact grove, the trees ranging from twenty to 

 thirty feet high, and of strong, stocky growth from the ground up. 

 The proprietors of this farm told me more than two years ago that 

 five hundred dollars would not tempt them to have that grove removed. 

 This estimate of the value of the timber is two hundred and fifty dol- 

 lars per acre, while the market value of the land in that vicinity is not 

 more than sixty-five dollars per acre; and give an annual value of 

 wood-growth of thirty dollars per acre, and twenty dollars per acre for 

 crops and pasture since the ground was planted, making a total annual 

 value of fifty dollars per acre. 



Now who will ask, "Will it pay.'" Here are the figures, and any 

 farmer can do as well with ten or even twenty acres in the next ten 

 years; and the ratio of value will be greater per annum the longer the 

 grove is allowed to grow, even if it is a hundred years. 



The following are some of the varieties of deciduous trees most 

 easily trans])lanted, European and American Larch, Silver Maple, Box 

 Elder, Sugar Maple, and Silver-leaved Poplar, Mountain Ash, and Red 

 Butt (or Judas tree.) For lawns, white and Burr Oak are desirable but 



