418 



ARBORICULTURE 



Renew Instead of Destroying the Forests. 



Til 1828 my grandfather, with four 

 brothers, camf to Hendricks canity, In- 

 diana, from Clark county, Kentucky. 

 At that time this part of Indiana was 

 nut and other hard woods. Destruction 

 of a portion of this timber seemed nec- 

 portion of this timber then seemed nec- 

 essary in order to get open ground for 

 crop purposes. Thirty years later, my 

 father, then twenty-four yeai's old, saw, 

 during a period of ten years, enough 

 pnme walnut, oak and poplai' rolled up 

 in great log heaps and burned to have 

 made himself immensely wealthy. 

 Neither he nor his parents and neigh- 

 bors little dreamed of the coming value 

 of this vast amount of native timber. 

 To-day Indiana sees the need of a crop 

 that took in many instances several hun- 

 dred years to produce. 



The early settlers of Indiana were not 

 to blame because they had no idea of the 

 wonderful development of the Middle 

 "West and the United States in so short a 

 space of time. What is true of Indiana 

 is true of many portions of the coun- 

 try'. There are thousands of men and 

 women not yet seventy years of age 

 who can testify to the above facts. 



Lumbering. 



^lo.st of the lumbermen of to-day, as 

 well as of the past, only see tiie present 

 timber value in the standing forests. 

 They do not consider the importance of 

 a new forest to take the place of the one 

 which the unseen power always at work 

 has provided for them. The careless- 

 ness in many in.stances is simply appal- 

 ling. This negligence causes fire to over- 

 run the cut over land, totally de.stroying 

 what seed and young seedlings may 



liave been left. Conservative lumbering 

 is a subject every owner of timber land 

 ought to familiarize himself with. 



The Middle West. 



I mean by the "Middle West" the 

 vast .stretch of rolling and level prairie 

 between the ^lissouri river and the east- 

 ern slope of the Rocky mountains. This 

 land has been treeless for centuries, yet 

 we have many evidences of new forests 

 being established. These not only beau- 

 tify the landscape, but are a source of 

 great profit to the owner in the Avay of 

 posts, poles and fuel. 



The State of Kansas has many suc- 

 cessful plantations of catalpa, locust, 

 walnut, Osage orange and other sorts 

 that have been growing from ten to for- 

 ty years. They constitute the most val- 

 uable part of the farms to which they 

 belong. 



Small Timber Lots. 



I will cite three small timber lots 

 growing in Shawnee county, Kans. The 



first one was planted by Mr. M in 



the spring of 1884. It consists of about 

 one and one-fourth acres of ?. nrairie 

 hillside slope too steep for general farm- 

 ing. The trees are catalpa speciosa, and 

 stand about 5x12 feet. This lot received 

 fairly good care for the first three or 

 four years, since that time it has been 

 left without care, except the occasional 

 removal of an unsightly limb. The 

 standing timber will net the present 

 owner at least $22r).0(). many of the 

 sticks sound and straight to a hight of 

 12 to 15 feet, witli a H-inch top. 



The second lot belongs to ^fr. Tj . 



It is situated on both sides of a large, 

 open draw rujining across his farm. 



