rPiTDIAJSrA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 549 



used to these woods would tell you that they were oak forests. You will 

 see oak from three to five feet covering from one-tenth to one-third of 

 the land, and there is hardly a marketable stick of timber on that land. 

 It is no wonder some people object. They say, "What do you know about 

 this? Have you tried it in Michigan?" We have to say, "No." 



Mr. Swaim: Will you please tell me how you account for the oak 

 being there? 



Prof. Roth: That is very interesting. The oak has always been 

 there, in the times when the pine forests were there, the oak had no 

 show. The oak, by the way. is the only one of the hard woods that 

 survived to any extent. When tlie loam leaves you all know the basswood 

 leaves you. A few yards away none of these trees will be with you, and 

 you will have only oak. It is something really remarkable. Now, as 

 to being' there. It has always been there, but when the pine was there 

 it had no show. It does not reach any height or size. At this time you 

 might have walked through the woods and after you came out if any 

 man had asked you if theie was any hard wood there you would have 

 told him "No." But the oak has always been there. There are a few 

 scrub maples there, also. The lumbermen and the fires together have 

 cleaned out the pine forests. The only thing they could not kill was 

 the oak, which has a capacity to sprout from the stump and keep itself 

 going from year to year and from generation to generation. 



The oak gi-ows fast. It does not reach any great size. Thirty-five 

 feet is a mere baby alongside the giant we have here, and sometimes 

 they are not more than nine or ten inches in diameter. We used to 

 think of such as of very little value, but let me tell you we have learned 

 to think of timber differently from what we used to. We used to think 

 of nothing less than sixteen inches in pine. I have worked in mills 

 where they have refused to take Norway. Today they are glad to pay 

 from twelve to fifteen dollars for Norway, but they can't get it even at 

 that. We are offered today, on the Forest Reservation, a dollar per 

 thousand for the old, dry, blackened, charred stumps that stand up a 

 monument of former glory. We are offered money— good money— and 

 we have plenty of applicants for each stick of dry, dead cedar, and 

 they will even dig it out of the mud. You will see we have changed 

 from what we used to be. Time has changf^.d us. This is what I was 

 to speak to you about. The first thing to do '^ to protect. This is the 

 most important feature, even in the matter of reforestation. There is 

 hardly any large area up there but what has now, from close examina- 

 tion, the making of at least a woods. It would not make a good forest, 

 but a poor woods. There are at least fifty, two hundred, three hun- 

 dred or four hundred of these oak sprouts coming up, and if they get 

 any protection at all against fire it will not be twenty years when we 



