190 MASSACHUSETTS AGEICULTUKE. 



being purchased at a cost of about ten dollars. They were 

 taken up with a sod about one foot square, or the width of a 

 shovel-plate on each side. When set, a line about ten rods 

 in length was stretched, having white strings tied ten feet 

 apart. A sod was then taken out luider each string, and a 

 sod with a tree attached placed in. the hole and pressed lightly 

 with the foot. The trees were set in 1856. During the next 

 two years I paid forty dollars to have the trees that died 

 replaced, so that there should be no vacancies. The trees are 

 now from fifteen to twenty-five feet high, and from six to 

 fourteen inches in diameter. 



As will be seen by these statements, Mr. Pratt has a much 

 larger area in transplanted trees than the Messrs. Ames, and 

 his trees, although not as old nor as tall as theirs, are more 

 stocky and quite as likely, in the end, to make valuable tim- 

 ber. But he fails to meet that condition of the olfer which 

 requires five hundred trees per acre. To secure this number, 

 in rectangular rows, they must not exceed nine feet and four 

 inches apart, while his are ten feet ; and for this reason the 

 first premium is awarded to the Messrs. Ames, whose trees 

 are eight feet apart only, giving, if there were no vacancies, 

 six hundred and eighty trees per acre. As Mr. Pratt has so 

 successfully planted a forest, on so large an area, it is recom- 

 mended that the second premium be paid to him, notwith- 

 standing his preclusion by a strict construction of the terms 

 of the ofier. 



The wisdom of requiring five hundred trees per acre is at 

 least questionable. The value of white-pine timber consists 

 mainly in its softness and lightness, and its consequent superi- 

 ority for many of the uses to which sawed lumber is applied ; 

 and that arrangement of trees in the forest which will secure 

 the most sawing timber in the shortest time, is the most 

 desirable one. White-pine trees worth, standing, ten dollars 

 each, and even more, are occasionally met with, while such 

 as are worth five dollars are quite common ; but where, in 

 our county, can there be found, on one acre, five hundred 

 trees worth ten, or five, or even two dollars each? It is true 

 that in native forests, and under favorable conditions, ten 

 thousand trees may, and often do start on an acre, but long 



