FOREST TREE PLANTING. 145 



can tell, raise his hand. (Three hands were lifted.) There 

 are three pien in this company of intelligent, representative 

 men, who can tell what time to get maple seed. I have seen 

 a handsome maple that was raised from seed sown the same 

 year, showing how rapidly a plantation of healthy, vigorous 

 maple trees might be established. The seed could be gathered 

 in June and be immediately, sprouted. If left to nature they 

 will not get proper food and proper growth of themselves so 

 well as by being cultivated ; but if the seeds are gathered 

 and planted in a little nursery, by autumn you will have a 

 splendid lot of thrifty trees to transplant the next year in a 

 properly prepared place, and in a very few years you will 

 have an abundance of wood that will pay you for firewood. 

 The trees will have straight trunks to cut into cord-wood 

 sticks, instead of the little, straggling trees which you get 

 from your pastures ordinarily. 



It has not been considered by the authorities wise to attempt 

 to prune forest trees, because labor is too valuable and you 

 cannot afford the time. The true process is to plant the 

 trees thickly, when the feeble ones will be crushed out by the 

 law of selection ; and as the tree struggles up to get light and 

 air, it grows straight and tall. If a tree begins to lose ita 

 leaves, depend upon it, it is starving and there is not nutri- 

 ment enough in the soil to support it. Cut it down and j'ou 

 will give increased nutriment to the adjoining trees. You 

 are not going to lose anything. It is better to have a small 

 number of large trees than a larger number of puny trees. 

 Therefore, if you see a tree which is evidently checked in its 

 growth, instead of trying to save it cut it down, and you 

 will get all the growth that the land will sustain in the re 

 mainino; trees. 



The CiiAiRiMAN. I am very sorry to interrupt, but we have 

 other subjects on the programme that are of especial interest 

 to the people here. We will now hear from Mr. Gold, the 

 secretary of the Connecticut State Board of Agriculture. 



