280 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



thus will be one of the most valuable trees that can be raised 

 for railroad-sleepers. 



As fuel, the best hickory is worth twenty-seven per cent 

 more than ailanthus, but the days when hickory can be used 

 as fuel are nearly over ; white oak is only seven per cent its 

 superior in heat-giving qualities ; and canoe birch is fourteen 

 per cent inferior to it. I make this comparison because nearly 

 all the fire-wood now consumed in Boston and the other 

 New-England seaports is imported from Nova Scotia, and of 

 this fully seventy per cent is canoe birch. This imported fuel 

 is selling in Boston at retail at from eight to ten dollars per 

 cord, and it is safe to predict that ailanthus will always be 

 worth fully that sum for fuel in the eastern cities. Actual 

 experiments show that this wood burns without snapping, 

 steadily and slowly, even when unseasoned, giving out a clear 

 bright flame, and leaving a good bed of coals. The amount 

 of ash left is equal to sixty-seven hundredths of one per cent 

 of the weight of the dry wood consumed. 



It is not probable, that, in this climate, the ailanthus is a 

 long-lived tree : the fact that it is endowed with varied and 

 remarkable powers of reproduction seems to point to this con- 

 clusion, which is strengthened by its habit of growth, for, 

 unlike the oaks and other long-lived trees, the ailanthus in- 

 creases in size most rapidly during its earliest years. The 

 largest and probably the oldest specimen in the United 

 States, of which I have heard, is at Bartram's Botanic Gar- 

 den, near Philadelphia. According to Browne ^ this tree was 

 planted in 1809 : in 1853 it was seven feet in circumference ; ^ 

 and at the present time it girts nine feet four inches, as Mr. 

 Meehan, who has kindly measured it, informs me. A speci- 

 men growing in Bristol, R.L, and said to be about sixty 

 years old, girts seven feet at three feet from the ground ; and 

 another, growing in Tiverton, R.I., on the gravelly shores of 

 Narragansett Bay, and fully exposed to the wind, in about 

 as unfavorable a situation for tree-growing as could well be 

 found, girts, at four feet from the ground, six feet seven 

 inches: this specimen is only about forty years planted 

 Three trees planted in an equally exposed situation on the 

 shores of Narragansett Bay only twelve years ago, and grow- 



1 Trees of America. 



2 The American Haud-Book of Ornamental Trees. — Thomas Meehan. 



