48 



ARBORICULTURE. 



moisture and nourishment to force a 

 rapid growth. This old, suppressed 

 growth is a slow growth, very often re- 

 quiring ten years to increase as much as 

 the trees which, having ample room and 

 good soil, make in one year. Such slow- 

 growth woods are soft, and by no means 

 so strong as are the rapid-growth trees. 

 The latter are hard, firm, elastic, and full 

 of life, having a much greater value than 

 the slow-growing trees. 



It is this dififerenco which makes the 

 wood of Catalpa speciosa, when quickly 

 grown, so much more useful than that of 

 C. bignonioides, which is of slow growth. 



A post exhibited at the World's Fair 

 was broken in twain by powerful ma- 

 chinery. It came a]iart like two paint 

 brushes, the tough fibers on each stick so 

 resembling the bristles of brushes. 

 Very respectfully, 



John P. Brown. 



PRUNING THE FOREST. 



"The First County Park System." 

 By Frederick W. Kelsey. J. S. Ogilvie 

 Publishing Company, 57 Rose Street, 

 New York. 



No one is more capable of writing 

 about parks and their management than 

 is Mr. Kelsey, who was Vice President 

 of the first Board of Park Commissioners 

 selected to lay out the parks of Essex 

 County, New Jersey. 



The history of Essex County parks is 

 but a repetition of the cursed spoils sys- 

 tem in politics where men noted as ward 

 heelers manipulate the parks not in the 

 interest of the people, but for political 

 purposes. Cincinnati and almost every 

 large and small city has been through 

 this same ordeal. 



This work of 300 pages, fully illus- 

 trated, cloth bound, is sold for $1.25. 

 We commend the work to every lover of 

 trees. 



The financial value of timber trees and 

 the uses to which they may be adapted 

 depends entirely upon the length of the 

 trunk, its freedom from objectionable 

 knots, its straightness of body and 

 soundness of the wood, and, withal, the 

 number of available trees on the tract. 

 Small, short-bodied trees, and those 

 which are crooked and knotty have a 

 value for fuel purposes only, and that is 

 the lowest grade of wood values, and 

 which are measured by their bulk, or 

 cord prices, while good, merchantable 

 timber possesses the highest value for 

 lumbering purposes, and are measured 

 by board measure. Hence it is impor- 

 tant that the timber land owner should 

 give consideration to the character of his 

 young forest, and not depend upon Na- 

 ture to perform the work which man 

 only can do economically. 



In some things Nature is a most ex- 

 cellent guide, while in other directions 

 Nature can only be followed at the ex- 

 pense of time and a long period of in- 

 terest accumulating capital. 



There are many species of forest trees 

 which under natural conditions will not 

 make long, straight, branchless boles, 

 yet by judicious manipulation, without 

 great expense, may be trained into ideal 

 milling timber. Others require so long 

 a period to accomplish this object, under 

 the methods of Nature, that as a cash 

 investment they become very unprofit- 

 able. 



There are three methods of obtaining 

 straight trunks, free from knots, in forest 

 trees : 



( 1 ) By planting very closely ; some 

 advocate 4x4 feet, or 2,700 trees per 

 acre. 



(2) By giving them considerably 



