56'4 BOAED OF AGKICULTUKE. 



Prof. Roth: If you started with an acre on the upper lands. A 

 German forester of fifty years ago would have planted five thousand 

 trees, but he would not have hoped to keep more than five hundred. 

 So you see there must be considerable waste. It is impossible in any 

 kind of a forest to keep the same number of trees. The idea there 

 is always just this. Keep your land and your light all right. The 

 light is the foremost source of the food of the tree. The tree gets its 

 water, and with it a few mineral salts, but that is all it gets. A tree 

 lives just like we do. They can not eat one-half pound or a pound in 

 solution, but they must have prepared food material and that comes to 

 it from the leaves through the agency of light. If we want to nourish 

 the tree from the ground there must be a deep layer of mulch. The 

 leaves of the tree should form the topmost layer of this, and the or- 

 ganic material will be there. This is the kind of condition the forester 

 wants. It was under these conditions that your forests in Indiana are 

 what they are. It is under these conditions that eveiy tree has thrived, 

 and besides this let me add, that these are the only conditions under 

 which a tree will ever thrive well. You may throw poor farm land 

 Into woods but there will be a A^ery poor crop of timber. If you want 

 a forest that is a forest, and will bo a good forest, you must return 

 to forest conditions, and this is the simple rule. Keep all the frees 

 that the land will stand to utilize the air and soil. Don't let them 

 fight. I must add this, for if you should plant an acre of land with 

 five thousand trees at the end of three or four years at the outside, 

 they will begin to fight. If j-ou should allow them to go for eight or 

 ten years you would tiave a thicket through which a man could hardly 

 labor. You will find these conditions with the good as well as with the 

 poor, for the poor are constantly getting the water and light that the 

 good ones should have and ought to have. Be sure of this. Do not 

 let them fight. 



Frof. Latta: In my mind this is a matter of judgment. 



Mr. Van Deman: I would like to saj' a few words on this subject 

 I am deeply interested in forests but mox*e deeply interested in orchards. 

 The forests conditions of this country, not only in Indiana, but certainly 

 every wlicro, arc in a serious condition. And it is certainly not a day's 

 job lost in taking care of these conditions. It is the very best course that 

 a state can take to endeavor to reforest the areas ot land that are 

 denuded, and to preserve above ail things what we have already. The 

 whole of our industries depend ui»on a certain normal proportion of for- 

 estry area. It is so in all parts of the world and it has been so from lime 

 immemorial. It seems to me that it is the di.sposition of the American 

 people to destroy the last tree that stands before they will begin to 

 plant another. We ought to pi'eserve our woodlots and the State of 

 Indiana ought to take care of them in the most sensible and reason- 



