STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 51 



making us fear for the future. What we want is facts — truthful represent- 

 ations — presenting both sides of the tjuestion. 



C. W. Greene — I think the professor is decidedly wrong when he 

 speaks of the supply of timber holding out for any length of time, and I 

 speak of it now in the Southern States. I have had some experience in 

 gathering timber through a portion of that country, from Columbus, Ken- 

 tucky, to Mobile, Alabama, 470 miles, through a country which a few 

 years ago was entirely covered with timber, and you cannot find on that 

 line of road to-day but very few places where there is a tree left suitable 

 for mill purposes. Immediately after the war I had occasion to re-build 

 155 miles of that road, a road which had not been operated through the 

 war, and going through the most magnificent timber country I ever saw; 

 and yet, though the road has only been built eight years, and for four 

 and a half years during the war had been lying idle, we had to haul all 

 our tie timber from half a mile to a mile — as far as it was profitable to 

 haul it. 



The Mississippi Central road, the whole length of it, is almost de- 

 nuded of timber for useful purposes. 



They are now talking of laying narrow gauge tracks to reach the 

 timber, which is on the rivers. All the oak timber, within several miles 

 of the Tennessee river, has been cut for the manufacture of stave timber, 

 and all that I know of this country is that the timber is being rapidly used 

 for manufacturing purposes. The manufacturers of Illinois to-day — the 

 Moline Plow Company and others — are drawing their supplies of oak 

 timber from western Kentucky and western Tennessee, because their 

 supply nearer home is exhausted. These are facts that I know of my own 

 knowledge. 



There is probably no crop to which our attention can be more profit- 

 ably devoted than to forest timber, as a crop, and simply as a crop. 



Now as to the effects of forests on the soil : If Professor Riley will 

 ride over any of the Southern States and notice the condition of the 

 land where the timber is taken away, he will see it entirely exhausted, 

 and the result is that the farmers are turning out their old lands, and 

 clearing new lands to use in the same way. Then, again, these old fields 

 are washing into gullies, and getting into such a condition that it will be 

 impossible to restore them. It is the case in Virginia, Alabama, and 

 Tennessee, and all the States where I have been. 



Now take the Southern Yellow Pine region : We know that it is 

 being exhausted very rapidly — tliat mills have been torn down and 



