268 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



trade. Its value for firewood, according to Bull,* is 77, the 

 standard hickory being 100, while only four other American 

 woods are its superior in heat-giving qualities. 



In view of its many uses for purposes for which no other 

 wood can supply its place, it is not astonishing that the value 

 of ash lumber has largely increased of late years. The present 

 price in the Boston market of the best New England ash is 

 eighty-five dollars the one thousand feet, or about fifteen dol- 

 lars higher than that grown in the West. 



To develop its best qualities, the white ash should be 

 planted in a cool, deep, moist, but well-drained soil, where it 

 will make a rapid growth. That the jDlantation may be as early 

 profitable as possible, the young trees should be inserted in 

 rows three feet apart, the plants being two feet apart in the 

 rows. This would give 7,260 plants to the acre, which 

 should be gradually thinned until 108 trees are left standing, 

 twenty feet apart each way. The first thinning, which 

 might be made at the end of ten years, would give four 

 thousand hoop-poles, which at present price would be worth 

 four hundred dollars. 



The remaining thinnings, made at difierent periods up to 

 twenty-five or thirty years, would produce some three thousand 

 trees more, worth at least three times as much as the first 

 thinnings. Such cuttings would pay all the expenses of 

 planting, the care of the plantation and the interest on the 

 capital invested, and would leave the land covered with trees 

 capable of being turned into money at a moment's notice, or 

 whose value would increase for a hundred years, making no 

 mean inheritance for the descendants of a Massachusetts 

 farmer. The planting of the white ash as a shade and road- 

 side tree is especially recommended, and for that purpose it 

 ranks, among our native trees, next to the sugar-maple. 



The best hickories are not produced in Massachusetts, 

 although in the western part of the State, especially in the 

 valley of the Connecticut, and in other favorable situations, the 

 natural growth of this tree is fine enough to warrant its exten- 

 sive cultivation. The hickories should be cultivated in the same 

 manner as recommended for the ash, the young plants being 



* Experiments to determine the Comparative Value of the principal Varieties of 

 Fuel. T. Bull. Philadelphia. 



